In a report published on Wednesday 21 February by the European Research Council (ERC), its President, Maria Leptin, explained the rationale behind the recent changes decided by the ERC’s Scientific Council concerning its process for evaluating applications for calls for projects. The ERC had announced a series of changes to enable ERC panels to assess the innovative qualities and feasibility of research projects applying for funding (see EUROPE 13172/18).
In her report, Ms Leptin highlights that the Scientific Council has followed the debate on research evaluation and the reforms introduced by the institutions, in particular the European Commission. Ms Leptin points out that the Scientific Council also believes that the research evaluation systems currently in place often use inappropriate and narrow methods to assess the quality, performance and impact of research and researchers.
In attempting to develop the ERC’s own position, the Scientific Council has taken into account developments and the initiative launched by the European Commission in January 2022 to create a “coalition of the willing” to promote changes in evaluations and have an impact on research.
The President said that the Scientific Council had defined three tasks: - decide which characteristics and qualities of the candidates and proposed projects were most relevant to the assessment; - decide how to assess these characteristics and qualities; - work on how to weight these different characteristics and qualities.
In her report, the President sets out the points of consensus reached by the members of the ERC Scientific Council, as well as the points of divergence. The report also sets out the points on which decisions had already been taken previously by the ERC.
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/ay8 (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)