Nature:
Launched in 2007 with a six-year budget of €7.51 billion
($10.2 billion), the
European Research Council
disperses funds to researchers in the European Union's 27
member states based on merit, not national quotas or other
political criteria. Because ERC channels funds from the EU's
executive arm, the European Commission, it must follow the same
bureaucratic procedures as the rest of the commission does.
Those procedures are proving onerous to grant applicants and
administrators. In a Q&A with
Nature's Alison Abbott, ERC president Helga Nowotny
explains how the ERC and the commission are working to
streamline ERC operations.
