Hooray, you are selected for an interview on your research proposal! This is a huge step, as it means that the evaluating committee likes your ideas and you’re still in the running to obtain funding. At the same time, you’re not quite there yet, and a lot will depend on how you perform during the interview. We understand this is very – very – stressful.
Know your audience! This is a key rule in any writing, and grant writing is no exception. Writing your grant proposal tailored to your audience becomes especially challenging when there are different types of readers that will evaluate your work. How to make sure all types of readers understand and, more importantly, value your plans?
Receiving evaluation reports for proposals that didn’t make the cut to get funded can be quite frustrating. Like with reviewer comments, evaluations from the grant committee can come across as unfair, uninformed, or just (too) harsh. Still, there often are important clues in these reports to be able to improve your next grant proposal.
In the 2024 work programme, the ERC format provides more flexibility in describing the applicant’s CV. Scientific excellence remains the sole evaluation criterion. However, you are now free to highlight those aspects in your CV and track record that you find most relevant to show how your profile matches the proposed research.
So, you’ve decided to write an ERC proposal to fund your groundbreaking research idea! Your idea is novel, timely, and substantially goes beyond the current state-of-the-art. How to write the two scientific parts of your proposal? What information should go in section B1 versus B2?
It would be wise to prepare the online administrative forms well in advance of the deadline. While the forms are really not that complex and filling them will only take up as much as an hour of your time maximum, they might have implications for the evaluation of your proposal. So, it is not really the task to do when you feel brain-dead from working on your proposal. Here are some things to consider when filling them out.
Many mid-career researchers question whether they should apply for a VIDI or an ERC Starting grant. There are some differences to consider. And, when you decide to go for both, you should be a planning rockstar.
