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EURAXESS Smart Talks
Decoding ERC Grants Part 1: Effective Communication
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The European Research Council (ERC) is the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. It gives creative researchers across Europe the support to run cutting-edge projects. The overall ERC budget is more than €16 billion (2021-2027).
ERC Grants can change the trajectory of a researcher’s career– which explains why over 100,000 research proposals have been made to the organisation. This also means that competition is fierce. The multi-stage application process is daunting for any researcher at any stage.
EURAXESS Smart Talks are excited to present “Decoding ERC Grants: Strategies for Success,” a two-part mini-series on the ERC Grant proposal process. We will tackle difficult questions that researchers face when applying for an ERC grant, and provide clear advice on how to take your research proposal to the next level.
Join us on this episode as we have the pleasure of hosting Dafna Gold Melchior, scientific & entrepreneurial communication clarifier. Dafna assists experts in making their complex work clear and accessible, helping them communicate their research and innovations effectively in high-stakes situations. With a degree in communication from Haifa University and a masters in conflict research from Hebrew University, Dafna has developed her interdisciplinary clarification skill set over her 20 years of helping researchers and entrepreneurs win grants, investments, tenders and competitions.
We’ll cover how to present novel ideas confidently, how to communicate with experts from different backgrounds, and how to approach the Synergy grant.
On the next episode, we will hear from Prof. Dr. Maximilian Schich, an ERC grant proposal reviewer. Dr. Schich will provide us with a deeper look into the ERC panel peer review process.
All that and more– on the EURAXESS Smart Talks Podcast!
If you would like to get in contact with Dafna:
Website- http://www.letsclarify.it/
Email- dafna@letsclarify.it
LinkedIn- Dafna Gold Melchior
For more information on ERC grants, visit the ERC website:
https://erc.europa.eu/homepage
To find out more about EURAXESS and the services we provide, head to:
https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/
Hello and welcome to Euroxas Smart Talks. The Smart Talks Podcast Series is an EU-funded EuroAxxis project which provides information and assistance to researchers at any career stage. We support researchers in mobility, careers within and beyond academia, innovation and entrepreneurship.
SPEAKER_00We strive to enhance scientific collaboration between Europe and the world. Today we will be discussing ERC grants, and our main focus will be on the interview where researchers need to pitch their ideas. European Research Council offers prestigious grants for different levels of researchers, but all of them are meant to be excellent. There are a lot of different opportunities for more or less experienced researchers ERC starting grants, ERC Consolidator Grants, ERC Advanced Grants, ERC proof of concept, ERC Synergy Grants. In order to have a whole picture of how to prepare better for the interview, we will have two episodes of our podcast focusing on ERC grants. And we are excited to announce both of our speakers, Professor Maximilian Schick from Tallinn University that was evaluating ERC grantees, and Daphne Gold Melhior, who supports researchers in their path to the grant. Today we are happy to introduce our interviewee, Daphne Gold-Melhor. Daphne is a science communication coach who has prepared many researchers for their ERC interviews, including winners as well as numerous entrepreneurs pitching similarly for investment. She is here with us today to share best practices you can apply as an ERC applicant during your ERC interview. Daphne, welcome and thank you very much for joining us.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for hosting me. Our first question to you is how can researchers convey what seems to be a conflicting message that their proposal is also cutting edge and also promising, meaning also risky and simultaneously a safe bet.
SPEAKER_03Totally. Thanks, Leah. I'm very much in awe of researchers who make these proposals and make these presentations because it does seem conflicting and it does seem challenging to answer such a seemingly complicated question. The way I understand the structure of the committees, since they're also multidisciplinary, a researcher is under a lot of pressure to make a very brief, very clear message that shows that they are on the verge of their scientific field because that's what ERC funds. They want breakthroughs. And breakthroughs, just like tech innovation, can't be something already tried and true. It has to be something new and innovative. And new and innovative is always risky. So from what I've seen with many researchers that I've worked with and coached them for their presentations, the sweet spot between sounding like something is so risky and unthinkable that this is just going to be throwing money away to invest in their research versus this is something so safe that it's not going to lead to any innovation, is to define what the innovative piece is going to be, very clearly define where the leap in our field is going to take place throughout my proposed research, and ground it and kind of mitigate the risk and show why it's actually some parts of it are believable and safe and imaginable with preliminary results. Very often, at the stage that researchers present to the ERC, they already have some preliminary results, at least with regard to some of their work packages, where they can say, and the way that we know that this is a promising direction is because we've already done this experiment and we can already show these promising results that show that we're in the right direction. That should give the committee a sense that this person is on track and is not totally detached from what is scientifically doable.
SPEAKER_02And what if there's no preliminary results yet?
SPEAKER_03Then in those cases, especially when it's very early research, sometimes it's about falling back on previous work either from their PhD or from a postdoc or from work of one of their colleagues, or if they work in the lab of a PI, or even work of someone else in their field. Research is a chain, and this is about adding the next link based on links that already exist. So all of the researchers are already very used to citing previous work. And all scientific breakthroughs and next steps are pretty much based on, given that we already have seen the connection between this and this, and given that we have this big open question remaining in our field, here's how I propose that, given my background or my interdisciplinary background in field A and field B, here's how I propose advancing our knowledge in this field, basing it on what we already know. So it's never totally detached, it's never something that's complete fantasy. It's usually a matter of, given that we already know this and this, here's how I propose that we take it a step further. And then there's more weight if they don't already have preliminary results, there's more weight on explaining the logic of why what they're doing is the next logical step to what already exists in their field.
SPEAKER_02So because you're mentioning explaining the logic of the research they're doing, we know that the experts who are on the panels are not necessarily from the same discipline that the researcher is researching in. So we'd like to understand from you how you think that applicants can strike a balance in the level of the disciplinary specific information that they provide in their presentations so that the experts in their field are impressed by the depth and innovation of the research, while the experts in other fields can understand sufficiently to be able to confidently vote on the quality of the work and to understand the presentation at all.
SPEAKER_03I've seen very different examples among different researchers of how they address this issue. Some researchers in some fields, with the kind of intelligence information that they've collected about some panels, feel like it's absolutely crucial that every person in the room understand every bit of information that they're conveying, and then they keep it very scientific. However, they don't go deeply into their sub-sub sub-discipline in a way that is all inclusive of all of the panel members. Some of them take a different strategy and they say, wait a minute, there are only two or three of the panel members who are actually of such a level of specific expertise in my field, they are the ones that are going to have the real say about whether my research is in fact of the right quality and depth in order to win this grant. So I'm going to focus my attention mainly on them, and I'm going to give them a few of the slides with plenty of detail in specificity of what it is that I'm doing that is unique, even if they're the only ones that understand that uniqueness. Everyone else in the room is going to understand the general logic of here is a big unanswered question in our field. Here is why until now we haven't managed to uncover these aspects of it. And here is how I propose to address it. And even if the here is how I propose to address it is not unclear, is not clear to everyone else in the room in terms of what specific techniques or how they're doing the calculations or what methodologies they're using, everyone in the room understands the logic of why this researcher is saying that this method is the right way to go about or a promising way to go about it. And I think that the way that some of these researchers made the decision about how inclusive or exclusive to make the uniqueness of their research for all of the members of the panel is something that they deduced speaking to experienced colleagues. This goes to another tip. I would recommend to all, especially beginner researchers applying for ERCs for the first time, speak to as many colleagues in your field, especially if they've applied for ERCs in the past as you can, because they have very valuable insights for you. And that's why the whole idea of mock interviews with your country's representative organization, with a panel of experts from your faculty at your university, or if you have colleagues in other universities that would be willing to give you the time and kind of reflect difficult questions for you, they could potentially also help you decide with the specific panel, especially those of the researchers who have already presented ERC presentations to this panel. Some of them would have some helpful insights for you about how specific and how in-depth you need to go for this panel. Maybe there are certain things that are acceptable in certain panels versus others. Some of them are more multidisciplinary, some of them are more singularly specific, and people, no one like those who actually have the practical experience can give the best insights on here's here's how it actually works.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Daphna. Um, our next few questions are going to get a little bit more specific into the way that you present. So we'd like to have some of your insight on the length of different presentations. So, what are some structural recommendations that you can share that are applicable no matter how long a researcher is allotted to present, whether that's three, five, or ten minutes?
SPEAKER_03Right. So there's a reason why we keep referring to logic. What you want to help the panel understand is the logic. You want there to be a clear through line, regardless of the length. It's very important, of course, that you adhere very, very specifically to the length, and that's why so much effort and practice is put into making sure that you stay within the limits, because as I understand it, the committee does stop you at the moment that the time is up in order to be fair to all of the candidates. So if the definition, and you always receive a clear definition, this committee includes a three-minute presentation and then 10 minutes of QA, seven-minute presentation and 15 minutes of QA. You're allowed slides, you're not allowed slides, you're allowed one slide, you're allowed five slides, yes animations, no animations. All of these specifications are very, very important to adhere to very carefully in these committees, in the ERC. So, first of all, you get your specifications and you know that these are your constraints. And then within these constraints, you want to maximize the most essential information, the question of what makes the cut of all of the important information that you have. And when you've got such an ambitious project on your hands and you could talk about this research for two hours, it's overwhelming. How can you possibly condense two hours of the last five or ten years of your work into three or seven or ten minutes? It's unbelievable. So, first of all, give yourself a pat on the back that you're being brave and courageous to even go about this task. That's incredible. That's an amazing, that's an amazing exercise in elegance and in concise communication. So, chapeau and good for you already for taking on such an ambitious goal. So the logic. Once you know how long it's going to be, you want to prioritize what is the most important information about your proposal, about your research, that will persuade the people on this committee that indeed your project checks all the boxes. So if the criteria is that it needs to be cutting-edge and yet plausible, then you're probably going to need to include the information that emphasizes those two details. Is it going to need to show that you are the right researcher to head this effort? Then there needs to be some information about what is it about you that makes you and your interdisciplinary perhaps background in research the one who can deliver these results. So you want the presentation to flow regardless of its length with a clear beginning, middle, and end, like a story. I'm a big believer in the grabbing opening rather than a kind of standard good morning, hello, thank you committee. You don't really have time to waste on all kinds of pleasantries. Of course, you want to be professional and pleasant, but I would actually begin with a grabbing opening question or statement or fact that kind of helps this panel audience understand right off the bat what it is that you're going to be talking about. What is the unanswered question in our field? What is the problem that until now we haven't been able to address effectively due to lack of tools, lack of data, lack of understanding of a connection between. When you begin that way, it really helps the audience immediately understand what is the topic at hand and what is the subtopic that you're going to be addressing. So that's how I would begin. And then you want there to be a logical flow of the main elements that you feel that given the number of minutes that you have must be included in order to persuade this panel here's my idea, here's why it's important, here's how we're going to do it, here's why now is the time to do it, here's why I am the right person to be able to do it. And very often I see that the ending, pretty consistently, is what is the future impact, right? If ERC is looking to fund projects that are going to have significant impact on Europe, on the world, for the better, then ending with impact, just like the beginning, is a great way of making a great impression that is relevant and that says to this panel, here's what I propose to do and here's why it's significant, you can come full circle and end with the impact that this research is going to have by saying, hopefully, when this research goes the way that I am planning it, where we will be three years from now, five years from now, we'll be, we will have this new information, we will have these new tools, we will be able to, if you can imagine and you can help them imagine what the world will look like, what your discipline will look like after you have done these years of research, that seems to me a very persuasive way of telling this panel, me plus five years of this research funded by you equals this result, and here's how it will benefit humanity, society, the world. That's the structural component, a logical structure.
SPEAKER_02And after the impact comes the QA. So how can researchers prepare for the QA that they don't have control over?
SPEAKER_03Indeed, they don't, and the QA can be very valuable additional minutes. I've prepared researchers for an allocation of time in which they have a five-minute presentation and 25 minutes of QA. So much more of their ability to persuade the panel actually lies in the QA that exactly as you said, Leia, they have no control over what questions. They can't send the panel questions in advance. Um, could you please ask me these questions? Because these are precisely the questions that will highlight the points that I'm most proud of in my research. However, they can prepare and they should prepare. And from what I see with the researchers that I work with, oh my goodness, do they prepare? They prepare on multiple levels. I recommend researchers think about three different types of questions. And this is applicable for job interviews once they interview at departments, and this is relevant for anyone who interviews for media. When we prepare for scenarios in which we know that we're going to be asked questions, I recommend that we prepare for the questions that we are most likely to be asked, because chances are we're going to be asked them. So if we have great answers for those, good for us because we got across the messages that were most important to us. Secondly, I recommend that they prepare for the questions that they are most hoping that they will be asked. As if they could have submitted those questions in advance. Could you please ask me these questions? Because that will give them the opportunity to talk about the strengths of their proposal and the things that they're proud about about their work. And finally, and the in contrast, I recommend that everyone prepares for the questions that they are hoping and praying that they will not be asked. Because if we think in advance about any shortcomings, about any kind of sore points, if we think about them in advance, we can come up with our most honest and professional answers rather than trying spontaneously in the moment when we're feeling kind of defensive and threatened and vulnerable. If we think them through in advance, we come up with better answers even to the questions that we would prefer not being asked. Now, of course, all of these questions, it really, really makes sense to practice having QA sessions with, this is what I referenced before about the question of those who have the experience, convening committees of friends and colleagues in your field. This is a case of it's probably most relevant to rely on researchers from your discipline who know your field well, especially your sub-discipline, so they can actually ask you the most difficult questions that are very, very relevant and from a place of understanding your field, just like those on the panel who are domain experts in your field, who have reviewed your proposal most in depth, and probably have a significant say about whether what you're presenting makes sense to them as someone in the know. So you want to have these mock interviews with colleagues, with other researchers from your field, with committees and panels of advisors from your country's point person who could potentially help you in this way. All of those practices can really help you understand where do you feel like you already have a well-formulated answer for these types of questions, and where do you still need to look more into your data so that you have all of these answers at your fingertips. In general, for any question, you don't want to give very long answers because, as I understand it, the panel has kind of a checklist and they need to get in quite a few questions in order to be able to get quite a few answers, and therefore, a structure for answers that I would recommend would be one statement plus one illustration per question. So if you're asked about a specific topic, I would answer that specific topic directly with a statement. How are you going to deal with this if this happens, right? Answer, I'm going to deal with it by doing this, that's your statement, and then back up with evidence how you are capable of doing what you just said that you would do in response to that situation with preliminary data, with previous work of yours, with something logical that shows that in fact you have the ability to deliver on what it was that you just suggested. If you're asked a question like, wait, it seems like your proposal requires some additional interdisciplinary expertise that is not within your CV and your skill set. How are you going to deal with something like that? A very logical answer could be, in fact, that is an additional core skill set that is necessary for this proposal. And to that end, I have already secured an agreement with colleague X, who is an expert in this field, who will lend their expertise in this sense. Now, that'll also depend on whether your proposal is a singular proposal in which it's very important that it's clear that you are the researcher leading this effort and doing the work yourself, versus a synergy grant in which there are multiple partners in the same grant, and then the fact that there's different people with different areas of complementary expertise is excellent. That makes perfect sense that you're showing that each one of them is a different piece of the puzzle, and all of them together create the synergy of the work that will only be made possible through the combination of all these people's work together. So in the case of QA, definitely prepare, definitely collect as much intelligence as possible from other people who have been in this committee, of other people who have presented to it, what type of questions you are likely to be asked, you would love to be asked, and you really hope you won't be asked, so that you have really good, clear, well-argued answers for each of them.
SPEAKER_02So how do the panelists know who the researcher is at all? Is it appropriate to discuss parts of your CV, your experience within the interview?
SPEAKER_03I certainly think that it's a very, very important aspect because they're investing not only in an idea, they're investing in a particular researcher's ability to execute on an idea. So depending on how many minutes you have within your presentation, in the longer presentations, I always see an actual C V slide that some of them prefer putting it right at the beginning and introducing themselves. In some cases, I actually recommend that it come at a bit of a later stage that they first present what is the big question or the big challenge in their field, and then we understand that such a challenge is only possible to approach through a combination of interdisciplinary knowledge in areas A, B, and C, and then it's very logical at that point to bring one's C V and show that in fact those three areas A, B, and C, are precisely what I as a researcher have done in my PhD, in a postdoc, and in recent work that I've done in my lab. And then it's very, very logical to emphasize on such a C V slide what are your main areas of expertise and focus. If you have some very significant papers in the leading journals in your discipline, that's also something that shows. This panel, how accomplished you already are relative to the stage, right? We have early researchers, we have later researchers. So, according to your stage, showing what are your most impressive achievements to date that can help them understand why you're the right researcher in order to lead this effort. And it really, again, it depends and it's specific. There are different panels that place different focus on this. In the most brief situations, when you only have three minutes to present your entire proposal and you're not going to have time for a CV slide, even then, I would include in your spoken narrative, I would include a sentence or two, such as, as someone who has spent the past five years working on X, right? Even that can help them understand why you're the right person to be working in this field. And perhaps later on in the Q ⁇ A you could find a bridge to your expertise in the cases in which there wasn't enough time to emphasize your expertise, because we really can't count on every single one of the members of the committee reading all of the submitted paperwork in advance. Some of them have, some of them haven't necessarily. They received many proposals, they're very pressed for time. We can't make the presentation, it's kind of a fine line between assuming, wait, but everything was written in the written proposal. It was written, but we can't know for sure whether everyone in the room has read it, remembers it, is enough in the sub-field that they understood all of the aspects of it and the implications. So that's why the presentation needs to be a standalone, clear public relations tool for us in order to communicate to this panel why, indeed, I am the right researcher to carry out this project. So I would include some element that says, why me? And I understand and I appreciate and love the fact that so many researchers are so humble and so modest, and I understand that it's out of character for many to start tooting their own horn and start talking about all their achievements, but it needs to be grounded. It's for a very good purpose here. It's not in order to gloat and to say, I'm wonderful, I'm fabulous. It's in order to show the direct causal evidence-based reason why, in fact, they are the right person to lead this research. Well, that's thanks to their unique background and expertise. So if you don't tell it to the panel, they won't know. So you want to show the direct link between what you're an expert in and why that expertise is pertinent to carrying out this research.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Daphna. One last question. Um, just to move gears a bit to the Synergy applicants, um, what's your experience with them? And do you have tips that apply uniquely to this type of proposal, which is combining multiple disciplines of researchers from multiple countries and multiple institutions?
SPEAKER_03Entirely. So Synergy is a beautiful case and aptly named Synergy, in which each one of the researchers, and the first analogy that comes to my mind, even if it's already overused somewhat, is the puzzle. These are pieces of the puzzle, and you cannot build the complete puzzle without them. So in the case of the Synergy grants, my experience is that it's very important that the researchers accumulatively communicate the message that this is work that indeed could not be carried out without each one of the pieces of the puzzle. So each one of these researchers brings a complementary area of expertise. So all at once they're showing the big picture and the component parts. So maybe they would start with the big unanswered question in their field, and then they would explain why this big unanswered question in the field can only be answered when you bring together three or four pieces of different disciplines, and now that we have this combined knowledge, this person brings this piece of information and expertise, and this person brings this ability, and this person brings that ability, and maybe a fourth one. And so, in many cases, it would be very logical for each one of them to talk about their unique expertise. It requires practicing together. I've been in cases in which researchers from multiple countries flew all over the place in order to meet in person in order to practice how each one of them talks about their piece of the puzzle and how they color code the pieces, or the presentation itself reflects both the component pieces and the aggregate whole, because that's what we're trying to show the panel, that these are pieces that each one of them needs to function independently, parentheses. Each one of them also needs to show how, even in the case that one piece of the puzzle, once they actually conduct the experimentation, doesn't result in what they were hoping, that, and this is something that's relevant not just to synergy grants, anytime we have multiple pieces, we usually need to mitigate risk and explain to the committee if your work packages are dependent on one another, what if the first thing that you try doesn't work the way you hoped and you don't get the results that you hope? Will you still be able to carry out the rest? So it's very important in the case of a Synergy Grant and in the case of any of the work packages of a non-Synergy grant being dependent on one another, that you can show the value of each of the pieces onto itself, even if something has to go differently than the way you first, and that's that's science, and that's that's being on the frontier, and that's trying something new. You can't know for 100% certain that everything is going to go the way you were hoping. If it is, then that's not new science, right? That's just replicating something that's already been done. And the committee must understand that also. So, in the case of the synergy, it's about the big picture and the component parts and how they can be combined together in order to create this new knowledge, and certainly that's something to be celebrated at the end on the impact slide, because in these cases the impact could certainly be far reaching thanks to this new combination of pieces that were never combined before.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Daphne. Oh, thank you very much, Daphne. This was really inspiring. I hope very much that our listeners could use, to a certain extent, of course, this information that we provided in today's episode. Thank you for listening to this episode of Euraxis Smart Talks. We hope you enjoyed this episode and can't wait to share more with you next time.
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SPEAKER_00This episode was prepared by audio engineer Pavle Drashkovich, outreach manager Daria Aksonova, Production Manager Lea Nerenberg, editors Iser Pierre and Miroslav Trojanovich.
SPEAKER_01This episode is published under the Creative Commons CC BY license. Thanks for listening.
