The European Research Council (ERC) led by its secretary general Prof. Donald Dingwell has opened a new opportunity for Indian researchers and scientists on how their innovative ideas across all disciplines could help them receive approximately `25 crore as a grant for a period of five years.
Since the ERC’s launch in 2007, it has already awarded 5.7 billion euro to over 3400 scientists, both early career and senior.
Thirteen Indian researchers of Indian origin from 173 applicants have been awarded ERC grants with two of the winning applicants working out of universities in India.
In order to broadbase their awardees and to raise awareness about the ERC funding, Prof. Dingwell and his team are presently visiting 15 top-notch Indian universities and research institutes including the Indian Institute of Mathematical Science, Chennai, the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Jawarharlal Nehru University, University of Pune and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai.
One of the awardees, Dr Ramesh Pillai, who is doing research in genome protection at the EMBL Grenoble said, “The ERC is a fantastic opportunity for Indian scientists as it provides financial backing for developing their creative ideas.”
Explaining the application procedure Dr Pillai said, “It has been designed by and for researchers. Anyone around the world can apply. The proposal is one of the simplest and there is no defined formula to make an application.”
The applicant must however be willing to spend half the research time working with a European institute of company since the grant is routed through them.
A panel of between 12-15 experts from diverse fields including the life sciences, physical sciences, social sciences, architecture and the performing arts shortlist these applications.
Prof. Dingwell ,who himself is an awardee who has specialised in attempting to predict the behaviour of volcanoes, pointed out that Nobel prize awardees have applied for this grant with some of them even getting their proposals turned down. No restrictions have been placed on applying a second time with a new proposal and Dr Pillai’s own proposal was cleared the second time round.