On Monday, 7 July 2025, Julie Oppenheimer from ERC Executive Agency (ERCEA) in Brussels delivered a presentation on the procedure of submission and evaluation of ERC proposals. The statistical data, such as submission/success rate, were presented across all research categories. The data indicated a below-average submission rate from Czechia. As regards the overall success rate, it was higher than that observed for the Czech Science Foundation, for example. An interesting observation is that repeated submissions show higher success rate. It was emphasized that the applicant’s track record is of lesser significance than the subject of the proposal and the originality and quality of the research idea. The presentation by Julie Oppenheimer was followed by the sharing of experience with an ERC project by our colleague Christian Sippl. He emphasized the relative simplicity of the administrative process in comparison to projects funded by Czech providers. Both presenters provided useful information and practical guidelines related to the ERC projects, encouraging potential applicants to consider submitting a proposal.

Both presentations are available upon request from Eduard Petrovsky (edp@ig.cas.cz).