On Monday, the InnoRenew CoE, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport of the Republic of Slovenia and the University of Primorska, organized a workshop on funding possibilities from the European Research Council (ERC).

Dr Andreja Umek Venturini is the national contact person for ERC at the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport of the Republic of Slovenia. We are glad that she took part in the workshop and shared with our researchers and other participants what the ERC grants are and what they offer.

The European Commission established the ERC in 2006 with the main goal of long-term funding for excellent researchers and their research teams to carry out research which will bring new and ground-breaking discoveries. The only criterion for achieving an ERC grant is scientific excellence.

Preparing the project proposal to obtain this funding is very demanding. That is why the workshop focused on the key challenges and problems that we meet while preparing these proposals. Moreover, they reviewed the main topics that the project proposal must contain. Dr Umek Venturini also focused on the system of evaluating ERC project proposals and she shared with the participants tips and hints on how to prepare the proposal in order to be selected for ERC grants. In addition to this, two ERC evaluators, Dr Sašo Džeroski and Dr Tomaž Pisanski, presented their experiences in evaluating project proposals for ERC funding.

Our researchers and other participants at the workshop received important information and insight about ERC grants, which will surely be useful when preparing successful project proposals.

ERC grants Workshop. Image: Manca Drobne