Cutting term of ERC president ‘not essential,’ Commission official says

The European Commission has softened its line on halving the mandate of the president of the European Research Council (ERC). While the cut, from four years to two, is written into its proposal for the next iteration of Horizon Europe, a senior adviser in the office of research Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva now says that it is more of a talking point.

“Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter to the Commission, and we are completely open to adjusting this mandate,” said Manuel Aleixo at an event on March 3, organised in Brussels by German research organisations. “This was, in our proposal, simply a signal to say, ‘let’s reflect upon the duration of the mandate’ [. . .] but it is not an essential part of it.”

Currently, the ERC president can serve for four years, renewable once. Maria Leptin, who was appointed ERC president in 2021, had her mandate renewed for a further two years last October, bringing her total term to six years. The Commission proposal, however, would set the mandate at two years, renewable once, making a maximum term of four years.

This suggestion alarmed some in the research community, who fear that shortening the ERC president’s term could lead to more top-down control and undermine one of the EU’s most successful scientific institutions. The European Parliament is also against the proposed change. 

For Leptin, the reduction has more practical implications. “After two years, I sort of began to know the people on my floor and understand many, if not all, of the acronyms that have been used around here,” she said at the same event.

According to Aleixo, however, a shorter mandate would give more people a chance to assume the role. “There are plenty of highly qualified researchers and scientists who could also accede to this position,” he said. “Having a very long mandate doesn’t allow that.”

Budget increase

How much money the ERC has to spend is also a critical issue. According to Leptin, while the agency is “functioning extremely well,” the size of its grants has not changed in nearly 20 years, despite inflation raising the costs of scientific work. 

The next iteration of Horizon Europe will increase funding for fundamental research, including the ERC, from €25 billion to €44 billion. While the ERC allocation has not yet been published, Aleixo said that its budget would almost double.

But Aleixo also said that EU governments needed to make more effort at the national level, “because we have a very low R&D intensity across Europe with great disparities.”

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Representatives of German research organisations at the event were quick to defend the ERC and its bottom-up approach, where the research community decides which priorities to support, based on excellence alone. 

“Some of the changes [to the ERC] compared with the current Framework Programme could be interpreted as a desire for [it to have] less autonomy,” said Katja Becker, president of the German Research Foundation. “History has shown us that some of the greatest economic advances have come from research that was not initially intended for immediate application.” 

Wolfgang Wick, chair of the German Sciences and Humanities Council, said that ERC grants were the most valuable in terms of prestige. This helps researchers build their careers, and signals development in institutional capacity. “A system which is able to host ERC grant awardees is an attractive system,” he added.