- 1European Research Council (ERC), Scientific Department, Brussels, Belgium (claudia.jesus-rydin@ec.europa.eu)
- 2Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research/Dep. of Earth Science/SapienCE-Centre for early human behaviour, University of Bergen, Norway
The European Research Council (ERC), Europe’s premier funding agency for frontier research, views equality of opportunities as an essential priority and a vital mission to ensure fairness in the review process. The ERC monitors various demographic data yearly on every call and has taken actions to tackle imbalances and potential implicit and explicit biases.
Demographic gender and geographical distribution data on external reviewers is presented. External reviewers are experts who support ERC evaluation panels by externally reviewing proposals in their fields of specialization. The analysis focuses on the rates of nomination and invitation of these experts, as well as rates of acceptance and completion of the reviews. The data is presented by call and by scientific domain. In the current framework programme (Horizon Europe, 2021-2027), 24% of nominated external reviewers were women, 75% were men and 1% are non-binary. Acceptance and completion rates for men and women are similar.
Furthermore, data on requests of the eligibility window extensions are included. During the grants’ application process, the ERC allows potential grantees to extend the eligibility window, both for Consolidator and Starting Grants. These extensions are conditional on certain circumstances (e.g. parental leave, long-term illness, or clinical training). These circumstances and conditions constantly evolve. In this way, to better comprehend and monitor these requests, the ERC recently started an in-depth analysis of such data, gathered between 2021 and 2024. The data are disaggregated by year, gender, and by grant type. The analysis shows that there is a clear disparity between women researchers and men researchers when requesting extensions; both in terms of numbers and circumstances.
The ERC knows that work to ensure inclusive excellence and equality of opportunities is never-ending. This presentation analyses the institutional efforts, procedures and critically discusses the results.
How to cite: Jesus-Rydin, C., Fariña-Busto, L., Ruiz, M., Le Noir de Carlan, B., and Jansen, E.: Inclusive excellence at the ERC: demographic data on external reviewers and eligibility extensions, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-10372, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-10372, 2025.
