15 Health researchers receive midwife help towards an ERC grantThis month, fifteen Health researchers begin work on transforming their good, but not yet fully fledged, ideas into ERC applications. A task that can be a bit of a mouthful – so each one is therefore receiving a newly developed help package together with DKK 100,000 from the Dean's Office.
2018.09.20 |
Six researchers from Biomedicine, five clinicians, three odontologists and a public health researcher are about to begin work on a task which Health is supporting both qualitatively and financially with DKK 1.5 million.
The money – DKK 100,000 per researcher – can be administered by the researchers as they see fit. The only requirement from the Dean’s Office is that in no more than two years, and preferably sooner, the researchers apply for one of the prestigious ERC grants – and that they along the way, they make use of the accompanying 'help package' in the form of an ERC development programme which has been developed by the Research Support Unit in collaboration with the Dean's Office.
"The fifteen researchers have been selected from a strong field of 25 applicants, and it has been very important for the Dean's Office to not only honour extensive CVs and long lists of publications," says Vice-dean for Research, Ole Steen Nielsen. He points out that an ERC Starting Grant can be applied for with just two years of experience in continuation of the PhD degree programme if the idea has – or can be developed to have – the required calibre.
"It is, among other things. in relation to developing ideas for projects that the ERC development programme and the DKK 100,000 must now show their worth," says Ole Steen Nielsen.
The fifteen researchers and their preliminary grant topics can be seen in the list below, where the topics are reproduced as the titles received by Inside Health from the Dean's Office. The recipients are listed randomly and divided into the three types of grant:
Starting Grants:
Consolidator Grants:
Advanced Grants:
The new help package called the ERC development programme, is structured so that the programme supports the researchers both individually and in the groups that are working towards the same type of ERC applications. For as Ole Steen Nielsen points out, there is a big difference between applying for a starting grant and an advanced grant:
"The ERC development programme takes differences like this into account, which also explains why the DKK 100,000 can be used for everything from own salary, workload reduction for research colleagues, conferences or a stay at a monastery, that is to say a writing retreat, to work on one’s application," says Ole Steen Nielsen.
The hope is to free up the selected researchers and, seen from our viewpoint, to gain some experience that can benefit all the faculty's researchers. Our long-term goal is to change the way young research talents understand this area, so that 'the large grants’ become something that are both attractive and within reach, if you play your cards right," says Ole Steen Nielsen.
He finds only one thing disappointing about the award of the seed money, which is that relatively few women have applied for – and thus received – the DKK 100,000 of public funds for personal career support.
"The fifteen we have chosen reflect the group of applicants as a whole in terms of gender, so it’s definitely not the case that we have not selected female research talents. The modest number of female recipients is part of what is unfortunately a larger and well-known issue that’s going to need the long haul to change. See for example the desire for more female professors at Health," says Ole Steen Nielsen.
ERC (The European Research Council) awards a range of grants of various types to researchers who are employed at a European University. Health's help package of DKK 100,000 relates to the following grants:
The European Research Council has a budget of EUR 13 billion (2014-2020). It was founded in 2007 and is owned by the European Union.
Vice-dean for Research Ole Steen Nielsen
Email: osn@au.dk
Mobile: (+45) 2476 5093