ERA Chairs
HORIZON Coordination and Support Actions
Basic Information
- Identifier
- HORIZON-WIDERA-2022-TALENTS-01-01
- Programme
- ERA Chairs
- Programme Period
- 2021 - 2027
- Status
- Closed (31094503)
- Opening Date
- June 28, 2021
- Deadline
- March 14, 2022
- Deadline Model
- single-stage
- Budget
- €80,000,000
Description
Progress towards more and better links between research and innovation actors across European Research Area and beyond is a requirement if Europe as a whole is to capitalise on excellence from across the continent. To foster brain circulation for researchers and innovators the intervention point of the ERA Chairs actions is attracting in a sustainable manner outstanding scientists and innovators to universities or research organisations in catching up countries and regions. This measure of “brain gain” and creation of pockets of excellence will impact on the culture and performance of host institutions.
The leadership of the ERA Chair holder and the creation of a permanent and excellent research group in the chosen scientific field will ensure excellence, visibility and better integration in the European Research Area, as well as fostering competitiveness in research funding and promoting institutional reforms aligned with ERA priorities.
Projects are expected to contribute to some of the following outcomes:
At system level:
- Increase in number of R&I talents moving to host organisations in Widening countries
- Increase in international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral mobility of researchers and innovators
- Encouraging institutional reforms in research institutions and in the national R&I system in widening countries
- Strengthening of Widening countries’ human capital base in R&I with more entrepreneurial and better trained researchers and innovators
- Better communication of R&I results to society
- Better quality and capacity of research and innovation contributing to Europe's competitiveness and growth
- Improved excellence capacity and resources in Widening countries and close the still apparent research and innovation gap within Europe
At organisation level:
- Research excellence of the institution in the specific fields covered by the ERA Chair holder.
- Increased attractiveness of the institution for internationally excellent and mobile researchers.
- Creation of a permanent and excellent research group in the chosen scientific field with a spill-over effect on the institution;
- Improved capability to succeed in competitive research funding in the EU and globally, at least, in the fields of choice;
- Greater contribution to the knowledge-based economy and society
Research organisations located in widening countries interested in establishing an ERA Chair shall submit a proposal with the prospective ERA Chair holder who should be an outstanding researcher and/or innovator in the chosen scientific domain. The scientific field can be any domain of research and innovation addressed under the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union[1].
The institution in the Widening country shall be the coordinator and can opt between a joint application with the legal entity currently employing the future ERA Chair or submitting a proposal as a single applicant. For the former, partner institutions can be located in any country (including countries outside the EU) except the country of the coordinator and ERA Chair holders can be citizens of any country in the world.
Proposals should include a CV in Europass form[2] of the future ERA Chair holder and detail the scientific and technical support he/she will provide to the coordinator and how the proposed activities will upgrade from the current situation. If there is a partner institution proposals should outline any additional support to be provided by it to the coordinator. Proposals should also describe any relevant investments of the coordinator in research projects, facilities and infrastructures and how those will be achieved and/or a better use of the installed research capacity (in particular of EU co-funded research infrastructures & facilities). Existing or foreseen arrangements for compliance with ERA priorities [3] including the European Charter for Researchers & Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers[4] are to be outlined in the proposal.
ERA Chair holders should be excellent researchers and/or innovators in the chosen field of research[5]. They should establish a research team fully integrated in the coordinator's institution to significantly improve its research performance in the scientific domain of choice and to be more successful in obtaining competitive funding. The selection of personnel to the research team is to be conducted by an international recruitment panel leaded by the ERA Chair and outlined in proposals. The ERA Chair holder should also have a position within the organisation/university, allowing her/him to make appropriate resource allocation decisions, supervise team members and freely apply for research funding. When this is compatible with the nature of the coordinator, he/she is expected to take on some teaching duties.
To allow for the determination of the commitment of the future ERA Chair holder and of the coordinator institution, proposals shall include: 1) a letter signed by the prospective ERA Chair holder expressing his/her commitment to the proposal and willingness to take on the underlying tasks and obligations; 2) a letter from the head of the coordinator institution committing to the proposal and stating that the ERA Chair holder is to receive adequate support to take on her/his tasks and duties including, for example, access to research facilities, supervision of researchers, teaching duties (if any) and capacity to apply freely to national and international funding.
The ERA Chair holders might move on a temporary or permanent basis to the coordinator’s premises. To this end, secondments or any other legal arrangements (e.g., leave without pay, sabbatical licences) are possible including part-time work and multiple stays. All contractual arrangements and the timeline of ERA Chairs stays at the coordinator should be indicated in the proposal as well as the salary, travel and daily allowances and/or other perks to be offered. If, at any stage, the preferred option is an employment contract, the future contractual arrangements with the coordinator should be detailed.
To ensure the sustainability of the action, the ERA Chair research team should have conditions to thrive after the end of the Horizon Europe funding. This should be clearly demonstrated in the proposal and include the appointment of the leader of the newly created research group on a permanent basis within the coordinator organisation (to which the ERA Chair holder might apply) during the initial 3 years of the duration of the grant. This is to be conducted through an open recruitment procedure to be monitored by the European Commission.
Grants have an expected duration of up to 5 years and cover expenses related to the ERA Chair holder and a number of team members (e.g. their salaries, recruitment costs[6], administrative costs, travel and subsistence costs) and research costs up to 10% of the EU contribution. Costs to be claimed by a partner institution should be mainly linked to personnel seconded to the coordinator. The grant should also provide a contribution towards measures aimed at facilitating structural changes in the institution (e.g. costs for trainings, meetings, publications and managing Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).
Specific attention should be paid to gender equality objectives, in line with the organisations’ commitments through their adopted gender equality plans, and in line with ERA objectives, as far as appropriate.
[1] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:12012E/TXT&from=en
[2] https://europa.eu/europass/en/create-europass-cv
[3] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM:2012:0392:FIN
[4] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reco/2005/251/oj
[5] Corresponding to profiles R3 or R4 of researchers careers as set out in the “European Framework for Research Careers” provided at https://cdn5.euraxess.org/sites/default/files/policy_library/towards_a_european_framework_for_research_careers_final.pdf
[6] That can be considered under the category of "other direct costs"
Destination & Scope
Introduction
In line with the strategic priority of “Deepening the ERA” this part will support further progress on the free circulation of knowledge in an upgraded, efficient and effective R&I system. The destination will be pursued both at the level of individual researchers e.g. helping to develop the skills that researchers need for excellent science and, connecting all actors across Europe and at the level of institutions and smaller research teams around future ERA Chair holders.
ERA Chairs will support universities or research organisations from eligible countries to attract and maintain high-quality human resources under the direction of an outstanding researcher and research manager (the 'ERA Chair holder'), and to implement structural changes to achieve excellence on a sustainable basis.
The institutional dimension will be complemented by opportunities for brain circulation for research and innovation talents across the ERA and across sectors, aiming at reverting the brain drain from widening countries. It will focus support to early career and experienced talents to explore unknown personal territories for professional development and training, by being mobile in the European Research Area in other sectors and in less obvious knowledge hubs across Europe, notably in widening countries. It will put emphasis on intersectoral mobility for early career researchers and innovators and foster a better exploitation of existing (and possibly jointly managed) research infrastructures in the targeted countries through mobility of researchers and innovators. Reinforcing and strengthening the interaction between education and research, such as through the research and innovation dimension of European Universities, training and mobility. Furthermore, specific attention will be paid to promoting gender balance among the supported talents.
Expected impact:
Proposals for topics under this Destination should set out a credible pathway to contributing to the following expected impact:
- Effective institutional reforms in research institutions in widening countries
- Better use of existing research infrastructures
- Excellent talents attracted in institutions and research infrastructures
- Reverted brain drain
- Improved linkages and increased mobility between academic and business, notably by overcoming sectoral barriers
- Free circulation of knowledge and expertise in line with ERA priorities
- Improved gender balance and equal opportunities
Eligibility & Conditions
General conditions
2. Eligible countries: described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes
A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide.
In order to achieve the expected outcomes, participation as coordinators to the call is limited to legal entities established in Widening countries, as defined in the Horizon Europe regulation.
4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion: described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes
The following rules for dealing with ex-aequo applications apply: in the first place, ex aequo proposals will be prioritised according to geographical diversity criteria, as indicated in Point 4) of General Annexes Part F (Procedure/Evaluation procedure and ranking). The method described in 1), 2), 3) and 5) will then be applied to the remaining equally ranking proposals in the group. This rule establishing the priority order serves to better spread the impact of the action and to strengthen the efficiency of the ‘Widening participation and spreading excellence’ programme.
- Award criteria, scoring and thresholds are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes
- Submission and evaluation processes are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes and the Online Manual
- Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement: described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes
The composition, levels of remuneration and timeline of implementation of the ERA Chair holder research team should be indicated and the appointment of team members must follow an open, transparent and merit-based recruitment process with no more than 50% of the team appointees having previous contractual links with the coordinator.
6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants: described in Annex G of the Work Programme General Annexes
Specific conditions
7. Specific conditions: described in the [specific topic of the Work Programme]
Documents
Call documents:
Standard application form — call-specific application form is available in the Submission System
Standard application form (HE CSA)
Standard evaluation form — will be used with the necessary adaptations
Standard evaluation form (HE CSA)
MGA
Call-specific instructions
Essential Information for Clinical Studies
The rebuttal mechanism (The Right to React Report) will be pilot in the 2022 ERA Chairs call.
https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/funding-tenders-opportunities/display/IT/Right+to+React+Report
Additional documents:
HE Main Work Programme 2021–2022 – 1. General Introduction
HE Main Work Programme 2021–2022 – 12. Missions
HE Main Work Programme 2021–2022 – 13. General Annexes
HE Programme and Rules for Participation Regulation 2021/695
HE Specific Programme Decision 2021/764
Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment
EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement
Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual
Support & Resources
Online Manual is your guide on the procedures from proposal submission to managing your grant.
Horizon Europe Programme Guide contains the detailed guidance to the structure, budget and political priorities of Horizon Europe.
Funding & Tenders Portal FAQ – find the answers to most frequently asked questions on submission of proposals, evaluation and grant management.
Research Enquiry Service – ask questions about any aspect of European research in general and the EU Research Framework Programmes in particular.
Enterprise Europe Network – contact your EEN national contact for advice to businesses with special focus on SMEs. The support includes guidance on the EU research funding.
IT Helpdesk – contact the Funding & Tenders Portal IT helpdesk for questions such as forgotten passwords, access rights and roles, technical aspects of submission of proposals, etc.
European IPR Helpdesk assists you on intellectual property issues.
CEN-CENELEC Research Helpdesk and ETSI Research Helpdesk – the European Standards Organisations advise you how to tackle standardisation in your project proposal.
The European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for their recruitment– consult the general principles and requirements specifying the roles, responsibilities and entitlements of researchers, employers and funders of researchers.
Partner Search Services help you find a partner organisation for your proposal.
Latest Updates
EVALUATION results
Published: 29/06/2021
Deadline: 15/03/2022
Available budget: EUR 80.00 million
The results of the evaluation are as follows:
Number of proposals submitted (including proposals transferred from or to other calls): 90
Number of inadmissible proposals: 0
Number of ineligible proposals: 2
Number of above-threshold proposals: 54
Total budget requested for above-threshold proposals: 130,907,489.00 million
We recently informed the applicants about the evaluation results for their proposals.
For questions, please contact the Research Enquiry Service.
PROPOSAL NUMBERS
Call HORIZON-WIDERA-2022-TALENTS-01 has closed on the 15th March 2022.
90 proposals have been submitted the ERA Chair call
Evaluation results are expected to be communicated in July 2022.
Rebuttal Mechanism
As part of the right-to-react (‘rebuttal’) process for the evaluation of this call:
Your proposal will be first evaluated and scored remotely by expert evaluators with respect to the evaluation criteria.
A rebuttal procedure, which will be launched after the individual evaluation phase, will give you the opportunity to reply to the individual evaluators’ comments. Your reply must be submitted within seven (7) calendar days after receiving these individual comments (rebuttal report) and by midnight (00:00) of the seventh day. There is a strict page limit for your reply, which must fit on maximum one page format A4. Be aware that PDF documents exceeding the page limit will be blocked.
Your replies will be made available to the expert evaluators who will consider them as an integral part of the evaluation in the consensus phase.
Your replies must strictly focus on responding to potential misunderstandings or errors by the evaluators. You cannot alter or add anything new to the content of your proposal.
You will receive the rebuttal report tentatively between 22/04/2022 and 26/04/2022.
In order to facilitate the rebuttal process, we invite you to structure your reply as indicated below:
Criterion 1 - Excellence
Criterion 2 - Impact
Criterion 3 - Quality and efficiency of the implementation
The following formatting conditions apply:
- The reference font is Times New Roman (Windows platforms), Times/Times New Roman (Apple platforms) or Nimbus Roman No. 9 L (Linux distributions).
- The minimum font size allowed is 11 points.
- Standard character spacing and a minimum of single line spacing must be used.
- All margins (top, bottom, left, right) should be at least 15 mm.
PROPOSAL NUMBERS
Call HORIZON-WIDERA-2022-TALENTS-01 has closed on the 15th March 2022.
90 proposals have been submitted the ERA Chair call
Evaluation results are expected to be communicated in July 2022.
Rebuttal Mechanism
As part of the right-to-react (‘rebuttal’) process for the evaluation of this call:
Your proposal will be first evaluated and scored remotely by expert evaluators with respect to the evaluation criteria.
A rebuttal procedure, which will be launched after the individual evaluation phase, will give you the opportunity to reply to the individual evaluators’ comments. Your reply must be submitted within seven (7) calendar days after receiving these individual comments (rebuttal report) and by midnight (00:00) of the seventh day. There is a strict page limit for your reply, which must fit on maximum one page format A4. Be aware that PDF documents exceeding the page limit will be blocked.
Your replies will be made available to the expert evaluators who will consider them as an integral part of the evaluation in the consensus phase.
Your replies must strictly focus on responding to potential misunderstandings or errors by the evaluators. You cannot alter or add anything new to the content of your proposal.
You will receive the rebuttal report tentatively between 22/04/2022 and 26/04/2022.
In order to facilitate the rebuttal process, we invite you to structure your reply as indicated below:
Criterion 1 - Excellence
Criterion 2 - Impact
Criterion 3 - Quality and efficiency of the implementation
The following formatting conditions apply:
- The reference font is Times New Roman (Windows platforms), Times/Times New Roman (Apple platforms) or Nimbus Roman No. 9 L (Linux distributions).
- The minimum font size allowed is 11 points.
- Standard character spacing and a minimum of single line spacing must be used.
- All margins (top, bottom, left, right) should be at least 15 mm.
Rebuttal Mechanism
As part of the right-to-react (‘rebuttal’) process for the evaluation of this call:
Your proposal will be first evaluated and scored remotely by expert evaluators with respect to the evaluation criteria.
A rebuttal procedure, which will be launched after the individual evaluation phase, will give you the opportunity to reply to the individual evaluators’ comments. Your reply must be submitted within seven (7) calendar days after receiving these individual comments (rebuttal report) and by midnight (00:00) of the seventh day. There is a strict page limit for your reply, which must fit on maximum one page format A4. Be aware that PDF documents exceeding the page limit will be blocked.
Your replies will be made available to the expert evaluators who will consider them as an integral part of the evaluation in the consensus phase.
Your replies must strictly focus on responding to potential misunderstandings or errors by the evaluators. You cannot alter or add anything new to the content of your proposal.
You will receive the rebuttal report tentatively between 22/04/2022 and 26/04/2022.
In order to facilitate the rebuttal process, we invite you to structure your reply as indicated below:
Criterion 1 - Excellence
Criterion 2 - Impact
Criterion 3 - Quality and efficiency of the implementation
The following formatting conditions apply:
- The reference font is Times New Roman (Windows platforms), Times/Times New Roman (Apple platforms) or Nimbus Roman No. 9 L (Linux distributions).
- The minimum font size allowed is 11 points.
- Standard character spacing and a minimum of single line spacing must be used.
- All margins (top, bottom, left, right) should be at least 15 mm.
Please note that the CV in Europass form of the future ERA chair holder, should be uploaded as an additional document to the proposal. However, the 2 letters of commitment (i.e. from the institute management and the proposed ERA chair holder) should be included in Part B of the proposal under Section 3.2 Capacity of participants and consortium as a whole.
Please disregard the previous message (08/10/2021 11:46) on the 2 letters of commitment.
Please note that the CV in Europass form of the future ERA chair holder, detailing the scientific and technical support he/she will provide to the coordinator and how the proposed activities will upgrade from the current situation, should be uploaded as an additional document to the proposal. The 2 letters of commitment (i.e. from the institute management and the proposed ERA chair holder) should be included in Part B of the proposal under Section 3.2 Capacity of participants and consortium as a whole
Rebuttal Mechanism
This topic will be part of the ‘Right-to-react (or Rebuttal)’ pilot. Your proposal will be first evaluated and scored remotely by expert evaluators with respect to the evaluation criteria. A rebuttal procedure after the individual evaluation phase will provide you with the opportunity to reply within five calendar days with a strict page limit (maximum two A4 pages) to the individual evaluators’ comments. Your replies cannot be used to alter or add to the content of the proposals, but must strictly focus on responding to potential misunderstandings or errors by the evaluators. Your replies will be made available to the expert evaluators who will consider them before finalising their final assessment in the consensus phase.
You will receive tentatively the rebuttal report between 20/04/2022 and 21/04/2022.