ERA in a microcosm

The European Research Council’s (ERC) statistical analysis of its latest round of grants, announced last week, provides an insight into what a true European Research Area (ERA) – In which scientists are free to move around from country to country – might look like.

The figures also highlight the role that awarding grants to individuals, and not institutions, is playing in fomenting further development of ERA as a whole, providing evidence that young scientists are flowing between countries.

Two over-riding principles guide plans to develop a single European Research Area. One, EU research should be excellent, and two, its practitioners should be free to ply their trade in any country, in a Europe that is also receptive and open to scientists from anywhere on the globe.

The ERC’s 2010 starting grants give a snapshot of these two principles in action. In terms of excellence the ERC can already proudly reference its grant-holder, the Nobel prize-winning physicist Konstantin Novoselov, as proof that it is attracting the best researchers and funding the best science.

Given that the ERC hands out its grants on the basis of excellence, rather than giving equal shares to each Member State, the breakdown of the 427 grants – worth €427 million – awarded last week, provides a fascinating view of how allowing researchers to move from country to country can help to distribute that excellence more widely. Among countries in Europe with less well-developed scientific infrastructures, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Portugal all attracted foreign nationals that were awarded ERC grants to work in their institutions.

At the other end of the scale, scientists who will carry out their research at institutions in France, Germany and the UK won well over 200 of the 427 grants. What’s interesting in the detail is that only 22 of 79 grantees in the UK are UK nationals. The majority of the UK grants – 39 – went to nationals of other European countries. A further ten grants went to researchers who will be moving to the UK from elsewhere in Europe, and eight to non-European nationals, as the graph below shows.

In comparison to France and Germany, where almost half the ERC 2010 Starting Grants went to nationals of the two countries, the UK can be seen as a microcosm of the ERA in action. The best young scientists from around Europe can get funding to go any carry out their research at the institutions that have the best reputations.

Novoselov and Andre Geim, as joint winners of the Nobel Physics prize, are a case in point: the two Russians carried out their research at Manchester University in the UK.

This also highlights what may be at risk in the four year freeze of the UK R&D budget, announced last week, and in UK government plans to put a cap in the number of people immigrating to the UK from outside the European Union.

Overall, the analysis of the 2010 Starting Grant call highlights the contribution the ERC – an institution that is only just finding its feet – is making to promoting researcher mobility, building the single European Research Area, and allowing excellence to flower.

ERC Starting Grant 2010. Mobility: Incoming & Staying Grantees

Graph courtesy ERC.