The ERC’s funding role obviously raises questions of how it will interact with existing nation-state based research funders.
EURECIA will therefore needed to register, attribute and understand the impact of the ERC on national research councils’ position within their research systems and any alignment of funding scheme procedures between the nations and the ERC.
The ERC may either facilitate national research councils’ meeting their existing objectives or be a competitor in their tasks of funding the best science. There may be subsequent pressure on the legitimacy of national research councils’ roles. EURECIA therefore explored current perceptions and expectations of the ERC’s activity as a funding council.
We analysed current national research council policies about the European Research Area (ERA) in general, and about the ERC in particular. We explored expectations about the ERC’s role within the ERA, its role as seen by national research systems, and its role as seen by specific national research councils. We also compared the funding schemes of the ERC and national research councils in terms of objectives, procedures and researchers funded.
There was also a need to explore the ERC’s impacts on the national research councils’ positions and funding within both the national contexts and within the ERA. EURECIA therefore addressed changes in national research council policies, procedures and funding schemes in response to the ERC. We also looked at the position and role of the national research councils respective to ERA level developments and explore impacts on the national research councils’ relations with the science base (e.g. Matthew effect, crowding effect, emergence of task division, etc.).
Dr Barend van der Meulen initially led this work, later Dr Terttu Luukkonen, involving document analysis and semi-structured interviews. Questions about the impact of ERC-funded researchers on relations between national research councils and the research base were also included in the survey of researchers.
Share: