The European Research Council (ERC) — an important funder that is investing €16 billion (US$18.7 billion) in research between 2021 and 2027 — announced changes to its eligibility rules for grant applicants on 16 April. In a letter to researchers, ERC president Maria Leptin explained that the restrictions were necessary to respond to the “sharp increase in applications”.
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On 29 April, the ERC partially reverted some of these changes. This is welcome, and the ERC deserves credit for listening to the concerns of the research community. But as a researcher from Portugal who held an ERC grant until last year, I am still deeply concerned by the approach Europe is taking.
The ERC has admitted that it cannot comfortably handle the number of grant applications that it receives. And, in response, it intends to limit how many grants researchers can apply for, and how long unsuccessful candidates have to wait before they can re-apply. These restrictions narrow access to the very scheme that is meant to reward scientific ambition. Instead of expanding its capacity, the ERC is raising barriers that will keep people out.
The ERC’s argument is that the peer-review process must be protected. Of course it must. No scientist wants exhausted panels of reviewers rubber-stamping complex proposals. In the 16 April letter, Leptin states that panels that used to handle between 50 and 150 proposals now handle some 250, and the ERC expects this number to increase.
But if Europe’s prestigious, investigator-driven programme is overwhelmed by demand, it shouldn’t choose to filter researchers out. This trend indicates that the system lacks the capacity to handle the scale of European scientific ambition. The situation calls for more structural investment, not for gatekeeping. The ERC has already taken some steps to improve capacity, streamlining procedures and increasing the number of people on peer-review panels — but there are limits to how large a panel can become and how many proposals can be discussed during review sessions, which are only one week long.
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There is also a deeper problem. The ERC was built to back frontier research across all fields, and this type of research is messy. Big ideas often go through at least one failed articulation before they can secure funding. Blocking applicants from submitting proposals for several years because their applications were not strong enough in the previous round might reduce panel workload, but it also discourages scientific iteration. Furthermore, it privileges those who know the ERC system well and punishes people who are still learning how to describe the originality of their work in the specific language preferred by the scheme. That is not how a research ecosystem remains dynamic.
Furthermore, restrictions such as those in the ERC’s first announcement will not hinder institutions and individuals evenly. Well-resourced institutions that provide grant-writing assistance, offer internal mock panels and have researchers with experience applying to ERC schemes will adapt more easily. And researchers at institutions with fewer resources or in nations that already have lower success rates when applying for ERC grants will be hit harder. Early-career investigators with tight timelines will be disadvantaged, as will scientists who are changing fields, have followed non-linear career trajectories or are working on unconventional ideas.
