The ERC: independent, excellent and ruthlessly bottom-up

Have there been any surprises in your first six months as ERC president?

Surprises, not so much, but I’ve been very busy. There’s a lot to learn and a lot to get used to, but it has been very pleasant, because of the superb support from the staff and wonderful interactions with the ERC Scientific Council. The ERC is as great and as good an organisation as I had hoped, and as I knew it to be from my previous experience of it.

How does this role compare with being director of EMBO?

Both organisations are there to serve the research community. We don’t float on top of it, we are there for the researchers. I feel that very strongly, in both places. The main difference is that EMBO is an intergovernmental organisation and completely independent, whereas the ERC is bound by large sets of rules. Which is to say, the ERC Executive Agency by and large follows the Horizon Europe programme and European Commission rules, but the Scientific Council, which sets the ERC’s scientific strategy and sees to the needs of researchers, is independent as a governing body. And I think that is very, very important. I’m very grateful that the ERC’s founders fought for this independence, and that both the Scientific Council and past presidents have continued to stand up for it.

The ERC also has a much broader scope than EMBO...

That was one of the greatest attractions for me, to be part of an organisation that deals with the whole breadth of research. There are small personal benefits: we for example have an astrophysicist sitting on the Scientific Council, so I can ask her precisely why the Webb Telescope goes around the Lagrange point rather than sitting inside it. I talk to psychologists and social scientists – it’s totally wonderful. But more important, there are research areas that have been completely forgotten, because they don’t have a big impact or innovative applications, and I think these ’Ivory Tower’ subjects are valuable and worth supporting, so I’m very happy that we’re supporting such a broad range of research.

What contacts have you had with research-intensive universities in your new role?

First of all, I’m a university person myself. I’m a professor at the Institute of Genetics at the University of Cologne. I set up the first broad graduate school there, which was then taken up by the whole university. So, I’m very committed to universities as sites of intellectual activity and I’ve made that clear in my role here. I talk to university rectors, and I visit universities, and I’m thrilled to interact with LERU.

How do you see the relationship between LERU and the ERC?

LERU, and of course its dynamic Secretary General Kurt Deketelaere, has been a huge supporter and advocate for the ERC, and I appreciate that. We have the same interests at heart, and think we can help each other. One example is research assessment, where I thought the recent LERU paper was excellent and very helpful for everyone. So, that is an area where we see eye-to-eye and will continue to talk.

There has been some controversy about an ERC letter to recent grant winners at UK universities, instructing them to move country...,

First of all, we need to be very clear: the ERC did not issue any instructions to grantees in the UK. But the letter was misunderstood, and that was unfortunate. We all know that ERC grants cannot be paid out to host institutions based in non-EU countries that are not associated with Horizon Europe, such as the UK. If, by some miracle, UK association occurs, this problem will go away. If not, successful ERC grant applicants in the UK will discover in September or October that they cannot take up their grants. They are entitled to transfer elsewhere, but if they leave it too late, they could lose the money. If they decide to stay in the UK, we have to find someone from the reserve list to receive the grant, and if that doesn’t happen in time, the money is also gone. What the letter said, admittedly in rather legal language, was: those of you who want the funding, let us know in time; and those of you who don’t, also let us know in time, so that your colleagues elsewhere can have the funding.

Will it be awkward if you see the UK vice-chancellors in Leiden?

No, not at all. On the contrary, they should come and talk to me. Some already have, and I’m happy to talk to them. We should engage, and do as much as we can for each other.

The ERC is sometimes criticised for the uneven distribution of its funding across Europe. Do you see that as a problem?

It is unfortunate, but unavoidable. It’s due to several factors, including the level of research and innovation investment, research infrastructure, salary levels, research culture and so on. All this varies a lot across different countries and it influences how well a country is doing in ERC grant competitions. We should all try to reduce that differential, although it is obvious that the ERC cannot do that on its own. What needs to be done is for the countries concerned to make the ground more fertile and more supportive for frontier research. And I will do whatever I can to help politicians promote those ideas, and support them. On our side, we also have soft measures to encourage talent from across Europe to apply.

The theme of LERU’s conference is the role of research-intensive universities in a resilient and sustainable society. How do you see this role?

First of all, they train the next generation of researchers. That tends to be forgotten when we talk about research, that we need people to do it, and they need to be well-trained. All the basic training, and much of the advanced training, happens in universities, and especially research-intensive universities. Then there is the freedom of researchers at universities to do whatever they like, as long as they can get the funding. And that cannot be over-estimated or over-stated, including for the humanities and social sciences.

You describe the ERC’s approach as ‘ruthlessly bottom-up’. Did it rise to the challenge of the Covid pandemic?

Yes, some 200 ERC grantees were already working on topics or methods that could be used to help in the pandemic. Uğur Şahin [co-founder of vaccine producer BioNTech] had been funded by an ERC grant, not to develop a Covid vaccine, but to work on individualised cancer vaccines. He and many others switched at a snap of the fingers, and they were able to do that because they had independent and flexible funding, with no top-down directives. The pandemic really shone a light on why we need bottom-up frontier research to be better prepared for any future crisis.

So calls for a directed response from the ERC were misplaced?

Of course there was pressure on everyone to find solutions fast. Everyone realised there was a need to do something, and the Commission responded. There are plenty of funds for immediate and emergency funding for such cases. So, I think it was a clear case of the fruitful interplay between top-down and bottom-up approaches, but the lesson is that you don’t replace the bottom-up, you keep it.

What issues are currently on your mind as ERC president?

I came to the ERC with the impression that I would take over an absolutely excellent institution, and that is the case. So my aims are to protect that excellence, and protect its independence. Then, it’s clear that the number of superb grant applications we receive is huge. We could easily fund more, so I think in the next Framework Programme we should look for a big budget increase. Finally, an organisation that considers itself excellent cannot stand still. We constantly have to scan the horizon for threats, for opportunities, and to make sure that we are up-to-date.

This interview is part of a special interview series on the occasion of LERU's 20^th anniversary. The anniversary conference will take place in Leiden on 19 en 20 May 2022.

©LERU: Text by Ian Mundell. Picture by Michael Wodak, Medizin Foto Köln.