The EURECIA project was funded by a research grant from the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme, under its ‘Ideas Programme‘.
Our sponsoring client was the European Research Council (ERC). Our project began with a kick-off meeting at the ERC’s offices in Brussels back in February 2009. It will continue until April 2012, with a final conference in Brussels during March 2012 to share and discuss our ideas and findings with the policy and academic community.
The European Research Council
The European Research Council (ERC) was the first European funding body set up to support investigator-driven, frontier research stimulating scientific excellence from creative, risk-taking scientists, scholars and engineers working in Europe.
It aims to identify new opportunities and directions in any field of research, as opposed to being led by priorities set by politicians and judged only on the criterion of scientific excellence. The ERC aims to have a long-term effect upon the European research system, including influencing the strategies of universities and other research institutions. A more detailed and complete description of the ERC’s mission is available on the ERC website.
The ERC was created in 2005 via the ‘Ideas Programme‘ of the Seventh Framework Programme (2007-2013). The idea for such a body had been mooted much earlier including a formal consideration of its viability, purpose and scope in 2002, followed by a report by an ERC Expert Group (ERCEG) in 2003. The ERC’s Scientific Council was appointed in July 2005 and first met in October 2005. In late 2006, the European Parliament approved a seven-year, 7.5 billion Euro budget for the ERC. The ERC was officially launched in 2007 and quickly issued its first calls for research proposals.
For more comprehensive information about the ERC, including background, press releases, facts and figures, follow the links below [current as at March 2012]:
- European Research Council (ERC) home page
- About the ERC
- ERC grant schemes
- Facts and figures about ERC funded projects
- ERC Press Releases
- ERC Mission Statement
The European Commission
The European Commission funds and supports significant amounts of research in Europe through the vehicle of its periodic, multi-billion Euro, Framework Programmes. Our EURECIA research project is funded under the ‘Ideas Programme‘ stream of the latest EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7, 2007-2013).
More information is available about European research funding via the links below:
- The EC’s Research Website
- The EC’s Research Policy Website
- Fourth Framework Programme (FP4, 1994-1998)
- Fifth Framework Programme (FP5, 1998-2002)
- Sixth Framework Programme (FP6, 2002-2006)
- Seventh Framework Programme (FP7, 2007-2013)
- FP7 ‘Ideas Programme’
