Already in 2021, the ERC signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). More recently, they also signed the Agreement to Reforming Research Assessment. This is in line with an international trend towards assessing research proposals in such a way that focus shifts from output quantity to quality, from journal impact to publication impact, and from the “standard” academic route towards acknowledging more diverse career paths.
Your ideas are still most important
The ERC evaluation puts major weight on the research proposal. If your idea is not groundbreaking, your outstanding track record will not help you. At the same time, evaluators will assess the expertise, intellectual capacity and creativity of the applicant, to ensure they can successfully execute the project. Your CV thus should match the project. If you propose to use your ERC to go into new directions, make sure you can name specific collaborators with the required expertise to help guide you.
Changes in CV format
The previous CV and Track Record formats, which contained some duplicates, are now merged into a single description. The majority of the format allows for your own selection of highlights under the broad headers ‘Research achievements’, ‘Peer recognition’, and ‘Other contributions to the research community’. The format encourages you to provide context for each achievement or recognition, to make sure evaluators can appropriately assess their significance and your own role in obtaining them.
Recently, the potential influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on research careers was added to the format. Besides this, you now have explicit room to describe your career path and potentially relevant major life events in a narrative format, which is especially relevant for those that don’t have a “standard” academic CV.
Can we help?
If we work with you on your ERC proposal, this includes discussion of the best items to highlight in your CV description. Also when we provide a single review of ERC proposal, we look at your CV as evaluators and give feedback regarding the match between your research proposal and track record. Want to know more? Feel free to contact us!
