ERC workshop – “Practical Pathways to Integration and Complementarity in Research Funding”
Topics like scientific follow up of on-going projects, grants for young researchers, ex-post evaluation of the impacts of research funding and the quality of peer review systems have been at the centre of past workshops. The ERCEA workshops are designed to provide a platform for NFAs and other stakeholders from around Europe and beyond to learn from each other’s practices, to compare specificities of different programmes and to establish new contacts.
In 2014, the ERCEA workshop focussed on the efforts of funding actors to integrate funding mechanisms in different ways and to offer complementary tools to support scientific progress and innovation. The workshop was divided in 4 focussed sessions, each one addressing different levels of integration. After the opening session which was designed to set the scene with overview presentations on funding integration in Europe in general and the example of ERC in particular, session 1 highlighted research funding integration through bi- and multilateral agreements between funding agencies.
Broadening the scope of integration, session 2 presented experiences and approaches of large-scale research funding integration which was preceded by a status update on the development of the European Research Area. Session 3 then put the focus on ERC with the presentation examples on funding integration and complementarity related to frontier research funding. Session 4 on the second day of the workshop was devoted entirely to the use of EU structural funds for science and examples on how these structural funds are used to build up research capacities. Introduced by an overview on European structural funds and its interactions and synergies with the Horizon 2020 funding programme, these practical experiences provided a stimulating basis for further discussion.
The ERCEA was yet again fortunate enough to secure the participation of 17 high-level, external speakers who are introduced on in the workshop brochure (see download link below) along with their presentation titles and a description of their host organisations. The audience was comprised of science funding stakeholders from a variety of organisations as well as members of the ERC Scientific Council and ERCEA staff members (see download link below).
