The Young Academy of Europe (YAE) in collaboration with the Academia Europaea (AE) Budapest Knowledge Hub, will host an online event on Zoom for researchers worldwide who are interested in applying for the next round of the European Research Council’s (ERC) Starting Grant (StG). One of the main goals of this event series is to promote wider participation among researchers from EU13, Associated Countries as well as outside of Europe.

Programme#

The online event will consist of two parts. First, a plenary information session with welcoming remarks from Katalin Solymosi (Outgoing Chair, YAE and Vice Academic Director, AE Budapest Hub) will be followed by a presentation from Alban Kellerbauer MAE FYAE (Head of Unit 'Support to the Scientific Council', ERC Executive Agency) about the latest changes in ERC’s 2026 and 2027 Work Programmes. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session moderated by Anna Kuppuswamy (YAE Vice-Chair). Finally, in a prerecorded pitch, Eörs Szathmáry MAE (ERC Advanced and Synergy Grant Holder, former ERC Advanced Panel member and Synergy Panel Vice-President, Parmenides Foundation, Eötvös Loránd University) will provide useful tips and insights for ERC oral interviews.

The second part of the event will focus on providing insights into how oral interview panels work and how interviewees should present their project and answer questions from the evaluation panel. Although these are only mock interviews and panels, we hope that they offer an important opportunity for applicants to gain key insights into what makes a successful ERC application and a better understanding of the evaluation process. We will have three parallel sessions by domain, featuring as interviewees YAE members who have received an ERC StG, and expert panel members with relevant expertise in oral interview evaluation.

Programme#

Plenary session (14:00-15:00 CET)

14:00-14:05 Opening (Katalin Solymosi, YAE and AE Budapest Hub)

14:05-14:30 Information session, The European Research Council (ERC): Latest changes in ERC’s 2026 and 2027 Work Programmes (Alban Kellerbauer MAE, ERCEA, FYAE)

14:30-14:45 Q & A

14:45-15:00 Tips and tricks of successful oral interviews (Eörs Szathmáry MAE)

Moderator: Anna Kuppuswamy (YAE)

15:00-16:00 Parallel break-out sessions

1. Social Sciences and Humanities (SH) domain interviewee: Scott Bremer (ERC StG obtained in 2018, panel SH2, Project title: CALENDARS - Co-production of seasonal representations for adaptive institutions). Panel members: Katie Anders (University of Bergen), Özen Nergis Dolcerocca FYAE (University of Bologna), Phoebe Koundouri MAE (Athens University of Economics and Business), Ronen Palan (City University London), Mona Simion MAE FYAE (University of Glasgow), Katalin Solymosi FYAE (Eötvös Loránd University).

2. Life Sciences (LS) domain interviewee: Nitzan Gonen (ERC StG obtained in 2021, panel LS2, Project title: ENHANCE-SEX - Deciphering Gene Regulatory Networks governing Mammalian Sex Determination). Panel members: Gautam Dey FYAE (EMBL), Zohreh Hosseinzadeh FYAE (Radboud University Medical Center), Gáspár Jékely MAE (COS Heidelberg University), Sebastian Leidel MAE FYAE (University of Bern), Mangala Srinivas FYAE (Wageningen University and Research), Shahrokh F. Shariat MAE (Medical University of Vienna), Marc Yeste FYAE (University of Girona).

3. Physical Sciences and Engineering (PE) domain interviewees: Toma Susi (ERC StG obtained in 2017, panel PE5, Project title: ATMEN - Atomic precision materials engineering) and Monica Morales-Masis (ERC StG obtained in 2019, panel PE8, Project title: CREATE - Crafting Complex Hybrid Materials for Sustainable Energy Conversion). Panel members: Steve Evans MAE (University of Cambridge), Nicoletta Liguori FYAE (IFCO), Linn Leppert FYAE (University of Twente), Jovana Milic FYAE (University of Turku), Sara Nocentini FYAE (LENS), Mihály Pósfai MAE (University of Pannonia), Wolfgang Tress FYAE (Zurich University of Applied Sciences), Péter Vancsó (Centre for Energy Research, HUN-REN), Gianvito Vilé FYAE (Polytechnic University of Milan), Ina Vollmer (Utrecht University).

Registration

By registering for this event, you agree to the session being recorded on Zoom. Please note that we do not send separate registration confirmations, but the Zoom link will be emailed to registered participants a few days before the event. The registration form collects your data solely to manage attendance for the webinar. By registering, you consent to YAE’s Privacy Policy and Data Protection Policy as described here.