ERC-Portugal Program

The ERC-Portugal Programme includes incentives and services that cover the various cycles of national participation in Calls from the preparation and submission of applications, and intermediate evaluation stages (interview), to incentives and training for future applications and the attraction and retention of researchers with ERC-funded, ongoing or recently completed research projects.

ERC-Portugal is subdivided, in an integrated and complementary manner, into three axis programmes:

ERC-PT Pre-Assessment : support service for the national scientific community in preparing proposals to the ERC, through a pre-assessment model and suggestions for improvement, which reflects the ERC assessment criteria and evaluator profiles, available in two modalities;
ERC-PT A-Projects : incentive to enable the conditions for a future ERC application, through the financing of the initial development of research projects already evaluated with top rankings not selected for ERC funding;
ERC-PT Careers : attraction and retention of researchers with ERC projects already funded (ongoing or recently completed) to occupy permanent positions in institutions of the National Science and Technology System and Higher Education.

ERC-PT Pre-assessment

ERC-PT A-Projects

ERC-PT Careers

Objectives and scope

The European Research Council is a body that aims to fund the highest quality fundamental research in Europe, through Calls competitive programs aimed at researchers and their teams, supporting cutting-edge and disruptive research in all areas of knowledge, and having scientific excellence as the sole evaluation criterion.

In the framework of Calls of the ERC, research carried out in Portugal secured, in the previous H2020 Framework Programme, 1.1% of the funding allocated, corresponding to approximately 150 million euros. Although this is an excellent result, when compared to Widening countries with similarly sized scientific communities to Portugal, such as Greece or the Czech Republic, it is still a performance below that of countries with about half the researchers (measured in FTE) such as Finland, Norway or Ireland. Similarly, research in Portugal still performs below the European average in terms of success rates of proposals submitted to the ERC (2013-2023: 7.8% vs. 12.2%), with some differences by scientific domain (LS: 10.3% vs. 12.9%; PE: 6.1% vs. 12.3%; SH: 7.1% vs. 11.3%). It is also worth noting some indicators of recent growth, such as the number of projects approved in the Advanced Grant category (2013-2020: 8 vs. 2021-2023: 10) or the evolution of the same number in the HS field, in the most recent 3 years achieving more than half of the financing in projects than in the previous 14 years (2007-2020: 25 vs. 2021-2023: 13). This panorama, in its indicators and trends, represents, on the other hand, an important margin of progression and a set of opportunities for Brazilian participation and that of its scientific community.

It is within this framework, and collaborating with the national scientific community in the development of these margins of progression, that the FCT reconfigures the ERC-Portugal Programme, deepening its innovative design in the European panorama, providing it with a set of axes and instruments and an integrated architecture, designed to cover the various cycles of national participation in the Calls of the ERC.

ERC-Portugal responds to the following general objectives:

Increasing and empowering the levels of participation of the national scientific community in a reference body in the context of European research, also expanding the universe of institutional and geographic participation;
Raising the quality of national applications submitted and Portugal's competitiveness in Calls of the ERC, translating into an increase in success rates and funding capture levels for Portugal in its various instruments;
Creation of mechanisms that contribute to attracting researchers with highly competitive international profiles, also promoting the stabilization and retention in the SNCT of researchers carrying out their activities in Portugal;
Strengthen or complement existing processes to support the preparation of ERC applications at institutional level, in the various scientific domains, with the highly specialized support of an experienced College of Evaluators, all former ERC panel members in several editions, and covering all panels and scientific areas;
Add new types of services and outreach activities made available by the FCT to the national scientific community, particularly in the area of peer review;
Deepen and consolidate FCT's levels of collaboration with the national scientific community, through an innovative set of instruments and support services made available in an integrated manner;
Contribute to the internationalization process of the national scientific community and SNCT institutions;
Develop a strategic continuum between national and European financing instruments;
Promotion of collaborative ecosystems , with an inclusive strategy, including appreciation and transfer of knowledge at an intersectoral level.

Team

To serve the scientific community in the various areas of the Program, ERC-Portugal has a multidisciplinary team with the following areas of activity:

Mapping, characterization, analysis and monitoring of national participation in ERC funding instruments, by domain and scientific areas, and institutional and geographic distributions.;
Scientific support to the national scientific community , through the production of specialized support documents for the submission of applications to the various ERC instruments, both public and restricted, including on new evaluation methodologies that are being implemented;
National representation on the ERC Program Committee;
Specialized scientific support in the area of peer review in the context of funding agencies and developments in evaluation processes, also translated into support for the preparation of applications or organization of workshops and webinars, with the collaboration of the Annual College of Evaluators;
Actions to disseminate and promote ERC instruments and their rules , in the context of the work carried out by the National Contact Points;
Coordination and support for the activity of the Annual College of Evaluators , with a particular focus on the evolution of evaluation processes, including the updating of criteria and procedures implemented by the ERC;
Creation and implementation of a communication strategy , including the provision of updated mapping and characterization data on national participation in ERC instruments, dedicated news on ERC-Portugal programme calendars and initiatives, or communication material around the national scientific community and its paths (including narrative formats, storytelling , etc.);
Management and administrative support , including management and monitoring of application submission, eligibility verification processes and contracting and granting of financing.