ERC President explains changes in evaluation process of ERC grant proposals

In the past year, the Scientific Council of the ERC introduced changes in the evaluation processes and evaluation forms for the 2024 calls for research proposals. In a report, ERC President Maria Leptin gives an overview of the changes, the discussions that led to them, and the reasoning behind them.

The changes follow up on the debate on research assessment in recent years and the fact that reforms were introduced in some countries and institutions. The Scientific Council shares the concern that current research assessment systems often use inappropriate and narrow methods to assess the quality, performance and impact of research and researchers.

The changes include the following:

• The description of required ‘profiles’ of ERC PIs has been removed from the Work Programme.
• In the application form, the CV and track record, previously two separate documents, are now combined as a single template.

The report can be downloaded here:

Evaluation of research proposals: The why and what of the ERC's recent changes