Maria Leptin, president of the European Research Council (ERC), has suggested that Europe could become a “haven” for US researchers whose funding and academic freedom have been put in jeopardy by the Trump administration. But what can the ERC offer to help bring this about?
US citizens are eligible to apply for grants from the ERC’s €16 billion fundamental research fund, as long as they are based in a research institution in a Horizon Europe country or agree to relocate if their bids are successful.
Since 2007, when the ERC started operating, 450 US researchers have secured ERC Starting, Consolidator or Advanced grants for individual researchers. That’s around 30 researchers per year. Just how many relocated and how many were already working in the EU when they applied is impossible to say from the data available.
Almost a third of these US researchers took up their ERC grants at host institutions…