Regarding the ERC Consolidator Grant 2021 (ERC-2021-COG) call, there has been a change compared to the ERC-2020-COG call: the budget table and the justification of the resources will not count towards the page limit of Part B2 anymore.
The budget table and description of resources are part of the online submission form Part A (Section 3 – Budget). The section "C. resources" has a maximum length of 8000 characters (including spaces) which corresponds approximately to 2 pages. Please refer to section 2.3 of the Information for Applicants document for further instruction on how to draw up the budget.
For the ERC Consolidator Grant 2021 (ERC-2021-COG) call, the budget table and description of resources are part of the online submission form Part A (Section 3 - Budget). The description and justification of the resources should be provided in the text box (Section C. Resources) under the budget table.
The applicant should NOT include any description of resources or budget table in Part B2.
According to the ERC Work Programme 2021, in order to be eligible to apply to the ERC Consolidator Grant 2021 (ERC-2021-COG) call, a Principal Investigator must have been awarded a PhD or equivalent doctoral degree. It is recognised that there are some other doctoral titles that enjoy the same status and represent variants of the PhD in certain fields. All of them have similar content requirements. First professional degrees will not be considered in themselves as PhD-equivalent, even if recipients carry the title "Doctor". For more information please consult Annex 2 ‘ERC policy on PhD and equivalent doctoral degrees’ in the ERC Work Programme 2021 - and section 4.3 of the Information for Applicants document to the Starting and Consolidator Grant 2021 Calls.
No, according to the conditions of the ERC Consolidator Grant 2021 (ERC-2021-COG) call, the Principal Investigator must have been awarded a PhD or equivalent doctoral degree to be eligible. First-professional degrees will not be considered in themselves as PhD-equivalent, even if recipients carry the title "Doctor". For more information please consult the ERC policy on PhD and equivalent doctoral degrees in the ERC Work Programme 2021, Annex 2 and section 4.3 of the Information for Applicants document to the Starting and Consolidator Grant 2021 Calls.
For the ERC Consolidator Grant 2021 (ERC-2021-COG) call, Step 1 of the peer review evaluation process is based only on Part B1 (the extended synopsis, the Principal Investigator's CV and the track record) and peer reviewers do not have access to the full research proposal. At Step 2, the peer reviewers base their assessment on the complete versions of the retained proposals – Part B1, Part B2 and section 3 – Budget and time commitment from section 5 – Other questions (included in the online submission form). Please note that experts do not have access to any supporting documentation during the evaluation. For more information on the evaluation process, please refer to the Information for Applicants document and ERC Work Programme 2021 (section 'Evaluation procedure and criteria').
For the ERC Consolidator Grant 2021 (ERC-2021-COG) call, the applicant must choose and indicate the most relevant ERC Panel (‘primary evaluation panel’) for the evaluation of the proposed research and indicate one or more ERC key words representing the research fields involved. Applicants may indicate a second relevant panel. They should indicate when they believe that their proposal is of a cross-panel or cross-domain nature. Further explanations can be found in the Information for Applicants document to the Starting and Consolidator Grant 2021 Calls. The primary panel structure is also indicated in Annex 1 to the ERC Work Programme 2021.
For the ERC Consolidator Grant 2021 (ERC-2021-COG) call, the CVs of individual team members should not be included. Although it is not mandatory to provide the names of individual team members, the proposal should describe the composition of the team that will carry out the proposed activities. Further explanations can be found in the Information for Applicants document of the Starting and Consolidator 2021 Grants.
During each step of the ERC Consolidator Grant 2021 (ERC-2021-COG) call evaluation, the two main elements of the proposal (Principal Investigator and research project) will be evaluated and rated. At the end of each evaluation step, the proposals will be ranked by the panels on the basis of the panels' overall appreciation of their strengths and weaknesses taking into account the marks they have received.
At the end of Step 1 of the evaluation, on the basis of the assessment of Part B 1, the proposal will receive one of the following scores: A, is of sufficient quality to pass to Step 2 of the evaluation; B, is of high quality but not sufficient to pass to Step 2 of the evaluation; or C, is not of sufficient quality to pass to Step 2 of the evaluation.
At the end of Step 2 of the evaluation, on the basis of the assessment of the full research proposal, applicants will be informed of one of the following scores for their proposal either: A, fully meets the ERC's excellence criterion and is recommended for funding if sufficient funds are available; or B, meets some but not all elements of the ERC's excellence criterion and will not be funded.
More information on the results of the peer review evaluation can be found in the ERC Rules of submission and evaluation under Horizon Europe.
According to the conditions of the ERC Consolidator Grant 2021 (ERC-2021-COG) call, the only eligible career breaks that can be considered for the extension of the eligibility window are: maternity or paternity leave (before or after PhD award), long-term illness (over ninety days for the Principal Investigator or a close family member) (after PhD award), clinical training (after award of first eligible degree and by up to 4 years max.), national service (after PhD award). All these circumstances need to be properly documented. Please find below examples of such documents:
For maternity: birth certificate(s) or passport(s) of the child(ren), family book or any other official document that links the mother and the child(ren). For extension requests above 18 months per child, an official signed document from the employer certifying start and end date(s) of the individual leave(s) must be submitted. Any document should mention the reason for the leave. If the leave was conducted as a part-time leave this should be stated. It is acceptable if the time off work happened over several periods.
For paternity leave taken: an official signed document from the employer certifying start and end date(s) of the individual leave(s); an official document proving the PI's right to social paternity benefits can also be accepted. Any document should mention the reason for the leave. If the leave was conducted as a part-time leave, this should be stated. It is acceptable if the time off work happened over several periods.
For clinical training: an official document signed by the employer (usually a hospital) certifying start and end date(s) of the individual training period(s). Any document should mention the type of training. If the training was conducted part-time, this should be stated. It is acceptable if the training happened over several periods and for different clinical specialties.
For long-term illness (over ninety days for the Principal Investigator or a close family member such as a child, spouse, parent or sibling):
For national service: a document signed by official authority with start and end date of the service.
According to the ERC Work Programme 2021, the date of the first PhD considered for the calculation of the eligibility period shall be the date of the actual award according to the national rules in the country where the degree was awarded. This rule is explained further in Information for Applicants document to Starting (ERC-2021-STG) and Consolidator Grant (ERC-2021-COG) 2021 calls (section 1.2 Admissibility and eligibility/Principal Investigator):
The reference date towards the calculation of the eligibility period should be the date of the actual award according to the national rules in the country where the degree was awarded (generally, the date of successful defense/viva). The issue date of the PhD certificate is not to be confused with the award date of the PhD.
In case of applicants having been awarded several PhDs, the reference date is the award date of the first PhD. In case of degrees in medicine considered equivalent to a PhD, the certified date of the medical degree completion plus two years is the time reference for calculation of the eligibility time-window. For more information, see section 'Admissibility and eligibility criteria' of the ERC Work Programme 2021 and its Annex 2.
