2024 ERC Mentoring event

On the 3rd of June 2024, the Young Academy of Europe (YAE) in collaboration with the Academia Europaea (AE) Budapest Knowledge Hub hosted an online event for researchers interested in applying to the next round of the European Research Council’s (ERC) Starting Grant (StG) programme. One of the main missions of these ERC mentoring events is to widen participation of researchers from EU13 and Associated Countries in the ERC grant programme. The two hour event was well attended, with around 100 participants, and was split into two parts. The first half included a one-hour plenary information session on the ERC programme, with a focus on recent changes, including talks by Maria Leptin (President of ERC) and Angela Liberatore (Head of the Scientific Management Department at ERC Executive Agency). In the second half, participants joined one of three break-out rooms according to domain, where current YAE members who have recently secured an ERC StG shared advice about grant proposal writing and oral interview preparation. These webinars continue to be a popular part of the annual programme of the YAE, and continue collaboration between YAE and ERC. We encourage YAE members to put themselves and their ideas forward for next year’s ERC StG mentoring event and share their experience. For more details see this page. The videos of the event are published on the YouTube Channel of the YAE (the video of the plenary part is available here, while those of the domain-specific breakout sessions are available on these links: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Engineering and Social Sciences and Humanities).

2023 ERC Mentoring event

On 31st May 2023, the Young Academy of Europe (YAE), in collaboration with Academia Europea (AE) Budapest Knowledge Hub, organized a webinar on narrative-style CVs. Almost 100 participants attended the event. YAE Chair Moniek Tromp gave an introduction on past and future YAE activities towards supporting young scientists to apply for ERC funding, with a special focus on EU15 countries. She also briefly introduced the changes which will be implemented by the ERC towards a narrative-style format. Robbert Hoogstraat from the Dutch Research Council and Sean Sapcariu from the Luxembourg National Research Foundation shared their experiences and insights into narrative-based CVs and assessment. This was followed by a testimonial from YAE activities chair Serim Ilday on how she composed a narrative CV in her successful ERC StG application. The event moderated by YAE vice-chair Katalin Solymosi ended with a Q&A session with the attendees, speakers and László Lovász, the academic director of the AE Budapest Knowledge Hub and member of the ERC Scientific Council. All details of the event are available on YAE website and the full video is available on the YAE YouTube channel.

The initiative also acted as a trigger to a mentoring program organized by YAE to support ERC StG candidates in their application and interview process, on which you received a separate email a few weeks ago. (YAE members and alumni may are still welcome to register for voluntary mentorship on this link.)

2021 ERC Mentoring event

On 11th November 2021, the YAE in collaboration with the Academia Europaea (AE) Budapest Knowledge Hub hosted an event for researchers who are interested in applying for the next round of ERC Starting Grants (StG), with the ambition of widening participation to researchers from EU13 and Associated Countries.

This second instalment of our mentoring events was focused on how the ERC’s evaluation panels work and how decisions within evaluation panels are made to recommend a grant application for funding. This was an important opportunity for applicants to gain key insights into what makes a successful ERC application and a better understanding of the evaluation process.

The online event included two parts. First, a plenary information session with a representative from the ERC Executive Agency (Janka Mátrai), and a talk by the ERC National Contact Point leader in Hungary (Gergely Bőhm) on typical comments of ERC evaluation reports. The recording of this plenary session is available on our Youtube channel – https://youtu.be/OXO0Wq3qsoI.

The second part of the event included three parallel sessions, each with a mock ERC StG evaluation panel by domain: Physical Sciences & Engineering (PE), Life Sciences (LS), and Social Sciences & Humanities (SH). The recordings of these parallel sessions are available on our Youtube channel:

  • The LS panel session recording is available here
  • The SH panel session recording is available here
  • The PE panel session recording is available here

In addition to the recordings, we also share here a document outlining common areas for improvement from ERC applications received from EU13 countries, with practical recommendations on how to circumvent them. We are grateful to the author of the document for their input.

The YAE is grateful to the AE Budapest Knowledge Hub, the speakers in the plenary session, the eminent scholars who volunteered as panel members in the parallel sessions, and the previous ERC applicants who generously donated their applications for this educational activity.

2020 ERC MENTORING EVENT

On 21st of September 2020 the Young Academy of Europe hosted an event for researchers from EU13 and Associated Countries, who were interested in applying for a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant. Through this event, we aimed to provide guidance and support to young applicants from under-represented nations by connecting them with mentors who have successfully navigated through the process.

The programme included a plenary information session, followed by three parallel sessions focusing on each ERC research domain: Physical Sciences & Engineering (PE), Life Sciences (LS), and Social Sciences & Humanities (SH). The domain-specific break-out rooms provided grant-writing advice by current YAE members who had successfully secured an ERC StG. The recordings from these sessions are available on our website here.