Sociopolitical

EU research head promotes hefty grants to Taiwan scientists

ERC Secretary General Donald Dingwell stresses that the ERC funding program is open to top researchers of any nationality. (Courtesy of the ERC)

• Publication Date：07/29/2012
• Source： Taiwan Today
• By  Rachel Chan

The European Research Council, the most prestigious institution of its kind in the EU, offers generous funding to leading scientists around the world in an effort to attract top talent to Europe and foster research “at and beyond the frontiers of understanding.”

Donald Dingwell, ERC secretary general, visiting Taiwan July 8-10 to promote the funding program, which offers grants of up to 3.5 million euros (US$4.3 million), encouraged the country’s best researchers to apply.

“Taiwan’s been known for at least 50 years as a research powerhouse in Asia,” Dingwell said. “So if I want to come to a place which already has very high standing in terms of academics that is the address we search for.”

The renowned Canadian physicist praised Taiwan researchers for their academic professionalism and international experience, perfect English and great openness in research.

He noted, however, that there have been very few applications from Taiwan since the ERC funding program was launched in 2007—only nine out of 25,000 applications were made by ROC nationals, with no one being awarded a grant.

Dingwell said he suspects that the main reason for such a low application rate is simply that very few people outside of Europe know about the program, which is why the first thing he did after taking office last September was to initiate the ERC Goes Global campaign to raise awareness of the ERC and its funding schemes.

Having been to Canada, South Africa, parts of South America and the U.S. East Coast, Dingwell said he was glad that the campaign finally brought him to Asia, where he visited Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. After the Asian trip, he is scheduled to visit Australia, mainland China, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, and the U.S. West Coast in the coming year.

According to Dingwell, the ERC was jointly established in February 2007 by the European Commission, Parliament and Council to stimulate scientific excellence in Europe by encouraging competition for funding among the very best, most creative scientists carrying out “research that promises a fundamental advance in knowledge.”

The ERC calls such work frontier research, doing away with the traditional distinction between basic and applied research since newer fields such as biotechnology, cognitive sciences, and information and communications technology may “embrace substantial elements of both.”

The ERC is an independent organization that funds investigator-driven frontier research. (Courtesy of ERC)

Based in Brussels, the ERC is governed by its Scientific Council, comprising 22 eminent scientists and scholars who set overall strategy, while the Executive Agency, the organization’s second pillar, is responsible for implementing strategy and handling financial operations.

Dingwell explained that the grants are open to individual researchers of any nationality, and that the ERC particularly encourages proposals that cross disciplinary boundaries, ideas that address new and emerging fields and applications that introduce unconventional, innovative approaches.

There are three core funding schemes, each covering periods of one to five years: Starting Grants of up to 2 million euros for researchers with two to seven years of experience after their doctorate; Consolidator Grants for as much as 2.75 million euros for those with seven to 12 years of experience after their doctorate; and Advanced Grants for up to 3.5 million euros for established researchers with a track record that identifies them as leaders in their respective field of research.

“Every grant is for an individual proposal with one name completely responsible for everything,” he said. “Excellence is the only thing which is measured in the evaluation—50 percent from the person’s scientific track record and 50 percent from the project quality.”

Interested applicants have to submit a 25-page proposal with a letter of consent from a European institution where they will spend half of their research time, according to Dingwell.

In a two-stage review procedure, each proposal is first assessed by a panel of four scientists. Those that survive are evaluated once more by four more experts from around the world.

The average application success rate is 12 percent, and more than 3,000 researchers have received ERC grants over the past five years, according to Dingwell.

“The ERC grant is a research grant; however, it is so prestigious that it is viewed in essence as a prize,” he said.

Unlike traditional research funding schemes, the ERC program operates according to an “investigator-driven,” or “bottom-up,” approach, allowing researchers to identify new opportunities in any field of research, he added.

  Outstanding researchers from around the world gather in Brussels Feb. 29 to celebrate the ERC’s fifth anniversary. (Courtesy of the ERC/Vivian Hertz)

Under the European Commission’s Seventh Research Framework Programme, the ERC funding budget for 2007-2013 was 7.5 billion euros, and the proposed budget for the 2014-2020 cycle is 15 billion euros.

“The timing is perfect for Taiwan researchers as this will be the largest call ever,” Dingwell said.

The decision to increase grant money came because the ERC has become a label of excellence recognized and supported by the scientific community, he explained, adding that it also indicates the EU commitment to fostering top talent.

It is the conviction of the European Commission that the region must grow out of its financial problems, and somehow, having the best researchers in Europe will allow that to happen faster, he said.

Dingwell wrapped up his three-day visit at two meetings with scholars from National Taiwan University and Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s premier research institution, during which he asked them to seize the opportunity and join world-renowned researchers in pursuing greater excellence in their respective fields.

Horng Der-chin, a research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, told Taiwan Today July 12 that the peer review evaluation system and the size and duration of the grants are key features making the ERC funding program attractive to Taiwan researchers.

“As an innovation in international research cooperation, the ERC funding program deserves more attention in Taiwan as it can help individual researchers boost their competitiveness in the global scientific community,” Horng said.

He pointed out, however, that the long application process, low success rate and requirement to spend half the research time in Europe are all factors that might cause interested Taiwan scholars to have second thoughts.

Since its introduction five years ago, the ERC has awarded grants to four eventual Nobel Prize winners and three Fields medalists, as well as winners of 30 more internationally recognized prizes.

One example is Russian scientist Konstantin Novoselov, who received an ERC Starting Grant in 2007. He received the Nobel Prize in physics in 2010 “for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material grapheme.”

“Researchers in Taiwan really don’t want to miss out on an opportunity like this,” Dingwell said. (THN)

Write to Rachel Chan at ccchan@mofa.gov.tw