• Posted 02-Nov-2020

INDEPENDENT STUDY CONFIRMS IMPACT OF ERC-FUNDED RESEARCH

A new independent review found that some 80% of projects funded by the European Research Council (ERC) are scientific breakthroughs or major advances. The results are in line with previous evaluations, and show the top quality of the research backed by the ERC.

The ERC each year commissions a qualitative evaluation of finalised ERC-funded projects. This assessment complements other analysis and provides an overview of the quality and scientific impact of the research funded.

In this year’s exercise, a total of 225 ERC projects were evaluated in 25 independent peer-review panels. The study found that 18% of projects analysed had resulted in a scientific breakthrough and 61.9% had made major scientific advances. This demonstrates a high level of scientific output and the findings are similar to previous evaluations, in which 72% to 79% of the sample were considered scientific breakthroughs or major scientific advances. The panels further found that 17.6% of projects had made an incremental scientific contribution, whilst 2.5% of the assessed projects provided no appreciable scientific contribution.

Another finding is that, although not an ERC selection criterion, close to half of the projects already had an impact on the economy, society and policy-making, and around two thirds are expected to have such impact in the medium to long term. The study also confirmed the strong interdisciplinary nature of ERC projects.

• Read the full study
• Discover examples of ERC-funded research projects

The projects were funded under the European Union’s seventh Framework Programme (FP7). The sample was randomly chosen from a pool of 761 ERC-funded finalised projects and the assessed projects covered all three ERC scientific domains – Life Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities, and Physical Sciences and Engineering. The peer-review panels, which evaluated the projects, consisted of three to four independent, high-level scientists.

Source: European Research Council News (https://bit.ly/3mNchGG)