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!!Online ERC Starting Grant Mentoring Event - Focus on the Oral Interview Process
__Date: September 25, 2025, from 14:00 to 16:00 CET__
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__The [Young Academy of Europe|https://yacadeuro.org] (YAE) in collaboration with the Academia Europaea (AE) [Budapest Knowledge Hub|https://mta.hu/aebudapest], 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|https://erc.europa.eu/apply-grant/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.__
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!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|Member/Kellerbauer_Alban] 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|Member/Szathmary_Eörs] 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.
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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)__
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14:00-14:05 Opening (Katalin Solymosi, YAE and AE Budapest Hub)
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14:05-14:30 Information session, The European Research Council (ERC): __Latest changes in ERC’s 2026 and 2027 Work Programmes__ ([Alban Kellerbauer|Member/Kellerbauer_Alban] MAE, ERCEA, FYAE)
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14:30-14:45 Q & A
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14:45-15:00 __Tips and tricks of successful oral interviews__ ([Eörs Szathmáry|Member/Szathmary_Eörs] MAE)
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Moderator: __Anna Kuppuswamy__ (YAE)
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15:00-16:00 __Parallel break-out sessions__ 
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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|Member/Koundouri_Phoebe] MAE (Athens University of Economics and Business), __Ronen Palan__ (City University London), [Mona Simion|Member/Simion_Mona] MAE FYAE (University of Glasgow), __Katalin Solymosi__ FYAE (Eötvös Loránd University).
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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|Member/Jékely_Gáspár] MAE (COS Heidelberg University), [Sebastian Leidel|Member/Leidel_Sebastian] MAE FYAE (University of Bern), __Mangala Srinivas__ FYAE (Wageningen University and Research), [Shahrokh F. Shariat|Member/Shariat_Shahrokh] MAE (Medical University of Vienna), __Marc Yeste__ FYAE (University of Girona).
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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|Member/Evans_Stephen] 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|Member/Pósfai_Mihály] 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).
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[Registration|https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfy0sq40FDlTz3FkpEeDFmlBHdOC2-ZXpWguYxnPWRp1UtYDA/viewform] 
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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.