Glossary

A committee appointed by the European Commission tasked with identifying new ERC Scientific Council members.

Two legal entities shall be regarded as independent of each other where neither is under the direct or indirect control of the other or under the same direct or indirect control as the other.

This is a condition for all ERC funding that the Host Institution commits, ensuring that the Principal Investigator may apply for funding independently, manage the research and the funding for the project and make appropriate resource allocation decisions, publish independently as senior author and include as co-authors only those who have contributed substantially to the reported work, etc.

Independent observers are experts who examine the peer review evaluation process from the point of view of its working and execution. They do not perform assessments of the proposals under evaluation. They may attend any meeting within the peer review evaluation process.

Indirect eligible costs (also called overheads) are those which cannot be identified by the beneficiary as being directly attributed to the project, but which can be identified and justified by the beneficiary's accounting system incurred in direct relationship with the project's direct eligible costs, such as costs related to general administration and management, costs of office or laboratory space, etc.
The ERC Grant Agreement foresees a flat rate of 20% for the reimbursement of indirect costs. The flat rate applies to any beneficiary whatever the method of calculation of indirect costs used in other projects funded under the Seventh Framework Programmes (EU/Euratom). The basis of calculation are the total direct eligible costs of the beneficiary, excluding the costs for subcontracting and the costs of resources made available by third parties and not used on the premises of the beneficiary.

An indirect tax (such as sales tax, value added tax (VAT)) is a tax collected by an intermediary from the person who bears the ultimate economic burden of the tax. The intermediary later files a tax return and forwards the tax proceeds to the government with the return. In this sense, the term indirect tax is contrasted with a direct tax which is collected directly by the government from the persons (legal or natural) on which it is imposed.

Individual assessment refers to the stage in the evaluation process when experts assess the merits of a particular proposal before discussion with their peers.

Non-eligible costs can not be reimbursed through the ERC grant, in particular: Any identifiable indirect taxes, including VAT or duties; Interest owed, provisions for possible future losses or charges, etc.

will be organised periodically by the ERCEA to provide information and guidance on the Specific Programme 'Ideas' and the related Calls for Proposals.

Notification sent to Principal Investigator on the outcome of the proposal evaluation. Feedback letter are sent by the ERCEA to applicant Principal Investigators shortly after the evaluation by experts, giving a report from the experts on the proposal in question (the Evaluation Report) and the final decision of the ERC, subject to redress and/or ethical review.

Intellectual Property Rights cover all aspects of owning, protecting and giving access to knowledge and pre-existing know-how.
For further information please see the Guide to Intellectual Property Rights.

An international organisation, the majority of whose members are EU Member States or Associated Countries and whose principal objective is to promote scientific and technological cooperation in Europe. Examples are the CERN, EMBL and ILL. International European interest organisations are eligible as Host Institution for an ERC frontier research grant.

An intergovernmental organisation, other than the European Union, which has legal personality under international public law, as well as any specialised agency set up by such an international organisation.

Applicants whose proposal have passed Step 1 of the evaluation may be invited for an interview in Step 2

Any infringement of a provision of European Union and European Community law or any breach of obligation resulting from an act or omission by a beneficiary which has, or would have, the effect of prejudicing the general budget of the European Communities or budgets managed by them through unjustified expenditure.