Support for ERC Advanced Grant Applicants.

European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grants are designed to support excellent Principal Investigators who have a track-record of significant research achievements in the last 10 years. ERC Advanced Grant Call 2021 will open 20.05.2021 with a deadline 31.08.2021. 

University of Oulu wants to encourage its Advanced Grant level researchers to apply and will provide a support scheme for selected applicants to prepare for the 2021 Call. All researchers planning to submit ERC AdG 2021 can express their interest to be included in the support process by answering to a short Webropol questionnaire by 21.5.2021. The applicants will be asked to provide a short description of the research idea (max. 2000 characters). All information provided will be kept confidential. The Research and Project Services will assess the technical eligibility of the applicants against the ERC Advanced Grant eligibility criteria. The applicants who are selected for the coaching will follow a pre-agreed timetable for the proposal preparation and submit their final proposal to the call in August 2021.

Indicative timetable of the support process for ERC AdG 2021 applicants:

• May/early June: Proposal preparation kick-off: Research and Project Services will schedule a short meeting with the PI to go through the main aspects of ERC, proposal templates and discuss the preparation process.
• June-August: Proposal preparation coaching sessions. The proposal drafts will be reviewed in stages by Research Funding Specialists and peer mentor(s). The coaching will provide the PI with feedback on e.g.:
• PI profile: CV and Track Record
• Key ideas and concept of the ERC project
• Ground-breaking nature of the research project
• Feasibility of the outlined scientific approach
• early August: Final draft proposal reviewed by an external expert specialised in the ERC funding
• limited number of reviews: will be allocated to the PIs based on the advancement of the proposal preparation

• In addition, the following technical support will be provided to the PIs:
  - Annotated proposal templates
  - Controller of the respective Faculty will support the PI with the budget preparation
  - Support from the Research Funding Specialists to fill in Participant Portal administrative forms, comment draft applications etc.

In addition to the in-house support, the researchers interested in the Advanced Grant are encouraged to participate to a national  "Horizon Europe ERC AdG  call info" event the ERC team of the Academy of Finland and Finnish National Contact Points are arranging 17 May 13:00-15:30. In addition to the general call information, the event will include also presentations of an ERC AdG grantee and evaluation panel member. More information and registration.

Best regards,

Emma and Janika

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Emma Pirilä, PhD

Research Funding Specialist

Faculty of Medicine

Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine

Biocenter Oulu

Aapistie 5A, 2nd floor

FIN- 90230 University of Oulu

Finland

Phone: +358503426428

e-mail: emma.pirila@oulu.fi

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