The European Commission has set up a six-person Identification Committee to propose new members for the European Research Council’s governing body, the ERC Scientific Council.
The committee will oversee the renewal process for the ERC Scientific Council as part of preparations for Horizon Europe 2028-2034, the EU’s upcoming research and innovation funding programme, the Commission informed on Thursday.
The Identification Committee will be chaired by Martin Vetterli, an Honorary Professor and President Emeritus at EPFL in Switzerland, according to the organisation.
The other members are Paula Eerola of the Research Council of Finland, Heino Falcke of Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, Katerina Harvati of Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen and the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironments in Germany, Andres Metspalu of the University of Tartu’s Institute of Genomics in Estonia, and Maria Rescigno of the Research Center for Molecular Medicine (CeMM) in Austria.
How the ERC council is selected
The ERC was set up by the European Commission in 2007 and awards grants through open competitions to research projects led by early-career and established researchers working in — or moving to work in — Europe, with scientific excellence as the only selection criterion, the Commision said.
The ERC Scientific Council sets the ERC’s scientific funding strategy and methods and is made up of 22 members.
New Scientific Council members are appointed by the European Commission after recommendations from an independent Identification Committee, within a process described as independent and transparent and including consultation with the scientific community.
The council has been chaired since 2021 by the ERC President, Prof Maria Leptin.
