Glossary

The evaluation of ERC grant applications is subject to a peer review panel which is composed of renowned scientists and scholars from all over the world. The scholars are selected by the ERC Scientific Council. Each funding scheme involves at least one set of 25 Panels covering all fields of research. Each Panel is headed by a highly distinguished Panel Chair and composed of 10-16 Panel Members.

The Panel Chairs preside over the panel meetings and work in close collaboration with the ERC Scientific Officer for the panel concerned. The names of the Panel Chairs are made public on the ERC website after the call deadline, and are specified by panel.

Panel Members perform the following tasks:
1. Familiarisation with ERC documentation and the evaluation process
2. Preparation of panel meetings
3. Individual review of a subset of those proposals – by electronic means – in preparation for the panel meetings
4. Participation in the panel meetings
The names of Panel Members are published by panel at the end of each call on the ERC website. They are also published annually on CORDIS.

Part A refers to administrative forms of a proposal.
Part A contains the administrative information about the proposal and its participants. The information requested includes a brief description of the work, contact details, characteristics of the participants and other administrative information.

Part B refers to the research part of a proposal and its supporting documentation.

The Participant guarantee fund was established under FP7 as a mutual benefit instrument providing for a scheme of financial solidarity among beneficiaries in indirect actions at the level of the Framework Programme. It aims primarily at covering the financial risks incurred by the Union and the beneficiaries during the implementation of the indirect actions of FP7. The PGF's capital and interests constitute a performance security.
But moreover, it allows the Union to exempt beneficiaries from ex-ante financial viability controls (except in a limited number of cases) and from the imposition of any sort of financial securities, including bank guarantees or retention of pre-financing.

All organisations participating in FP7 will be assigned a Participant Identification Code (or PIC). Organisations that have participated in an FP7 grant agreement have already been assigned a PIC. Organisations that have not yet participated in a FP7 grant agreement may obtain a PIC by registering in the Unique Registration Facility (URF) which is hosted by the Participant Portal. The PIC can then be used for any proposal submission.

The number allocated to the participant in a proposal. The Host Institution chosen by the Principal Investigator presenting the proposal is always number one.

The members of a consortium in a proposal or project: Legal entities contributing to an indirect action and having rights and obligations under the grant. Example: Host Institution.

To guarantee transparency, fairness and impartiality in the treatment of proposals, grant applications are selected following an international peer review evaluation process with excellence as the sole criterion. The ERC uses a typical panel based system, in which panels of high-level scientists and/or scholars make recommendations for funding either autonomously, or based on the findings of specialists external to the panel - the referees.

Peers reviewers are independent experts who review proposals, ensuring that only those of the highest quality are selected for funding.

Personnel costs are only the costs of the actual hours worked by a person directly carrying out work under the project and shall reflect the total remuneration of that person: salaries plus social security charges (holiday pay, pension contribution, health insurance, etc.) plus other statutory costs included in the remuneration.
For the costs to be eligible, the person must:
• be directly hired by the participant in accordance with its national legislation,
• be working under the sole technical supervision and responsibility of the latter, and
• be remunerated in accordance with the normal practices of the participant.
Participants may opt to declare average personnel costs if consistent with the management principles and usual accounting practices of the participant.

'Change of Host Institution' at the request of the Principal Investigator, who has the right to require the transfer of the research project to a new beneficiary (Host Institution), for as long as the research objectives of the project are preserved. The Host Institution has the right to object to the transfer, while the final decision about such transfer is with the European Research Executive Agency (ERCEA), after taking into account the interests of all actors concerned. The change of Host Institution has to be formalised through an amendment to the Grant Agreement.

Due to the bottom-up approach of the Ideas Specific Programme, the ERC expects a large number of proposals in all fields of research. To enable the ERC to provide the required resources and expertise for the ERC peer review evaluation process, a call may foresee a pre-registration.

The Host Institution/beneficiary hosting and engaging the principal investigator.

The Principal Investigator (PI) is the lead scientist or engineer for a particularly well-defined science (or other research) project, such as a laboratory study or clinical trial.
In the context of FP7, the Principal Investigator is an individual who assembles a team to carry out an ERC-funded project under his/her scientific guidance. The rights and obligations of Principal Investigators are detailed in Section I Article II.3 of ECGA Annex II – General Conditions.

The Commission, when implementing EU law, for some programmes consults special committees made up of representatives from all EU Member States. The 'Ideas' Programme Committee assists the Commission in implementing the Specific Programme 'Ideas'. . The committee is particularly consulted before the Commission adopts the annual 'Ideas' Work Programme. The role of the Programme Committee also intervenes during the adoption of the annual 'Ideas' Work Programme in case of a difference of substance between the Commission and the position of the Scientific Council. Moreover, the 'Ideas' Programme Committee has to be involved for the adoption of research proposals involving the use of human embryos and human embryonic stem cells.

Coordination and Support action aiming at supporting ERC grant-holders during the pre-demonstration phase to establish "proof of concept", i.e. a "package" to be presented to venture capitalists or companies that might invest in the new technology of an idea that was generated in the course of their ERC-funded project. Any activities to be funded draw substantially on the outputs of the ERC-supported research, but are aimed at taking them through the early commercialisation phase, not at extending the original research.

A description of the planned research activities, information on who will carry out the planned research, how much it will cost, and how much funding is required and requested.

Any legal entity established as such by national law, and international organisations. A public body can be:
1. either any legal entity established as such by national law or
2. an international organisation, which is an intergovernmental organisation (for instance, the UN), 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.