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The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific Council, its governing body consisting of distinguished researchers, and an Executive Agency, in charge of the implementation. It forms part of the framework programme of the union dedicated to research and innovation, Horizon 2020, preceded by the Seventh Research Framework Programme (FP7). The ERC budget is over €13 billion from 2014 – 2020 and comes from the Horizon 2020 programme, a part of the European Union's budget. Under Horizon 2020 it is estimated that around 7,000 ERC grantees will be funded and 42,000 team members supported, including 11,000 doctoral students and almost 16,000 post-doctoral researchers. Researchers from any field can compete for the grants that support pioneering projects. The ERC competitions are open to top researchers also from outside the union. The average success rate is about 12%. Five ERC grantees have won Nobel Prizes.〔http://era.gv.at/object/news/1469〕〔http://www.sciencebusiness.net/news/67734/ERC-starting-grant-holder-wins-Nobel-physics-prize〕〔http://www.idconsortium.es/en/news/erc-grant-holder-awarded-nobel-prize-physics〕 Grant applications are assessed by qualified experts. Excellence is the sole criterion for selection; there are neither thematic priorities, nor geographical quotas for funding. The aim is to recognise the best ideas, and confer status and visibility to the best research in Europe, while also attracting talent from abroad. == History == The idea of having a funding mechanism for basic research at the EU level has been discussed and supported among European scientists for a long time. However, its realisation was held back at the political level because the European Treaty, which is the document that forms the legal basis of the EU, was interpreted as allowing EU funding only to strengthen the scientific and technological base of European industry – that is, only funding for applied research rather than basic research. In conjunction with the Lisbon declaration in 2000, leaders of the EU, in particular the European Commissioner for Research at the time, Philippe Busquin, realised that the European Treaty had to be reinterpreted; a transformation of European economy from traditional manufacturing to a knowledge-based economy has to involve the enhanced support at the European level for science of all kinds, including both fundamental and applied research. In 2003, a report from the ERC Expert Group (ERCEG), chaired by Professor Federico Mayor, described how the ERC could take shape. In 2004, a high-level expert group was commissioned to further explore the possibilities of creating a European Research Council. This group concluded that the EU should establish an institution to support frontier research. A number of other expert groups, such as one commissioned by the European Science Foundation, another charged with the task of analysing the economic implications of the Lisbon declaration and a high level group commissioned by the European Commission, also arrived at a similar conclusion and boosted the idea. With the ice broken, scientists and politicians have since strongly supported the establishment of an ERC. In 2006, the European Parliament and EU Council of Ministers accepted the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) for the European Union's support for research, of which the ERC was a flagship component. In the ERC kick-off conference in Berlin, various speakers talked of 'an idea whose time has come', 'a European factory of ideas', 'a champions' league’, 'a great day for Europe and a great day for science', and the beginning of a 'snowball effect'.〔E.-L. Winnacker, "On Excellence through Competition", ''European Educational Research Journal'' 7, 124 (2008)〕〔C.-H. Heldin, "The European Research Council – a new opportunity for European science", ''Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol.'' 9, 417 (2008)〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「European Research Council」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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