Inaugural event, "ERC – The Future Starts Today"

The European Research Council (ERC), launched in February 2007 in order to implement the FP7 Ideas Specific Programme and to fund investigator-driven frontier research, is already playing a central role in the European Research Area.  

The implementation of the ERC activities has so far been assured by a directorate within the European Commission's Directorate General for Research, with the aim of progressively transferring this role to a purpose-built Executive Agency. This agency has now been created and became autonomous on 15 July this year.

To mark that the ERC has reached this new level of maturity, an inaugural event, "ERC – The Future Starts Today", took place on the 24th of September 2009 at the Executive Agency's new headquarters in Brussels, with the participation of political personalities from the European and national level, as well as key stakeholders. The occasion also recognised the invaluable support to the ERC from the European Parliament, the Council of the EU and the Commission.

Programme