ERC funding settings are creating a bubble of unsustainable careers

Designed to convince US-based scientists to “Choose Europe”, the European Research Council’s €7 million (£6 million), seven-year “super-grants” have finally opened for applications.

Although European Union scientists can also apply for the ERC Plus grants, their public communication – including their presentation a year ago by French president Emmanuel Macron – suggests that the EU sees them as an opportunity to capitalise on the funding uncertainty on the other side of the Atlantic by luring some of North America’s best scientific brains.

Yet, as a Spanish life scientist currently on sabbatical in New York, I can attest that Europe will have to do a lot more if it really wants to draw America’s best. Facilities are overwhelmingly superior here, administrative workload is lower, funding sources are more varied and the capacity to attract postdocs remains better.

Importantly, the opportunity to advance based on merit is also stronger than in Europe, where mobility is suppressed by multiple administrative and cultural constraints, as well as low salaries.

Yes, a €7 million grant could be tempting to people in the US with sentimental ties to Europe – as well as many others. But if these scientists do their homework and talk to people at their proposed European host institutes, they would learn that after that initial ERC grant, most of the time there is little else.

Assuming that most of those winning ERC plus grants would be senior scientists, the subsequent funding options for them within Europe are very limited – including from the ERC itself.

Take the 2024 funding round as a representative example. In that year, the ERC spent €601 million on starting grants – which offer up to €1.5 million and are available up to five years after doctoral graduation. An estimated 387 of these were granted: 77.4 for each of the five years of eligibility.

Meanwhile, €584 million was spent on consolidator grants, whose payouts of up to €2 million are for scientists between five and 12 years post-PhD. An estimated 291 of these were issued: 41.6 for each of the seven years of availability.

The biggest amount, €703 million, was spent on advanced grants. These are available to those more than 12 years into their independent careers; that means there are about 22 career years of eligibility, assuming retirement at the age of 63. Yet only an estimated 285 advanced grants were issued in 2024: just 13 per eligible year. And note that the maximum payout is still only €2.5 million over five years. There is the possibility of an additional lump sum of up to €1 million but this is still far less generous than the plus grant.

Scientists who are more than 12 years post-PhD are by far the majority, yet realistic funding options, in effect, run out beyond the consolidator stage at about the age of 40. And while some European national governments and foundations offer alternative substantial funding streams for senior scientists, many don’t.

In practice, this means we are creating bubbles of young researchers in some countries who find themselves with an ERC grant early in their careers but whose labs shrink dramatically when the grant is over and may never recover. Those people typically have to move again in search of better national funding options – or simply resign themselves to the “normal” condition of a scientist in Europe: broke and anxious.

Most senior scientists across the continent are grossly underpaid and have to focus on getting grants to sustain their teams, rather than producing science. And even when they win one, average funding for regular grant schemes in some EU countries is ridiculously low. Moreover, there is little in the way of core funding outside a few flagship research institutes. In most countries there is little or no administrative help or lab managers. And there are overwhelming teaching duties for some.

Nation states, of course, need to address this problem. But it is not acceptable for those of us over 40 to become invisible to the ERC – to the point that some people joke that one should have a child to extend the eligibility window for consolidator grants before your chances with the ERC drop off the cliff.

If the EU really wants to compete with the US, grant levels and availability should be comparable – across all career stages and disciplines. In regard to the latter, the ERC should acknowledge that those in experimental sciences have it particularly hard. This type of science is expensive, so these areas need higher levels of funding than, say, theoretical, computer or social sciences, where the only necessary expenditure is sometimes on people.

The European Commission has proposed to nearly double the budget for the next Horizon Europe programme, which begins in 2028. However, with all the focus on European competitiveness, it is unclear whether there would be a proportional increase in funding for the “frontier science” that the ERC funds.

Moreover, it is also unclear whether EU member states will agree to fund such a big budget increase at a time of great economic strain. But if they don’t, the commission would do better to move money from other Horizon projects into frontier science, rather than the other way around. Currently, the ERC only accounts for 17 per cent of the Horizon Europe budget despite its stellar reputation for quality.

Industry-linked funding schemes and other consortia-based programmes are unable to show anything like the same impact as the ERC. And whatever happens in the US, they certainly won’t help Europe rival North America as the global capital of science.

Cristina Muñoz Pinedo leads the Cell Death Regulation group at Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute in Barcelona. She is currently on sabbatical at New York University.