CERC3
Activities
Young Chemists' Workshops
Transnational Research
Initiative
top
Young Chemists' Workshops
CERC3 sponsors two to four workshops per annum for and organised
by young researchers at the start of their academic (or industrial)
career, with limited and invited participation from the CERC3
member councils, each council inviting its own delegates. These
workshops have turned out to be high level, very lively and stimulating
and very useful for building up a European network of direct colleagues.
top
Transnational Research Initiative
The promotion of transnational research in chemistry is one of
the key CERC3 objectives. At various meetings, CERC3 compared
the activities and procedures of its member councils, noting that
they differ considerably in nature, objectives and procedures.
However, all member councils agree that quality is the prime criterion
and peer review is generally used. Furthermore they widely agree
on the definition of current research fields of particular importance.
Based on three workshops on research council assessment/evaluation
procedures and on three brainstorming conferences in highly topical
research fields, 9 CERC3 member councils took the unprecedented
step of soliciting joint, transnational applications for chemical
research grants in the research fields stereo-controlled synthesis
and catalysis at interfaces. The nine also agreed upon joint evaluation
of the proposals, while maintaining national financing of the
research. In 2000, 13 transnational application packages submitted
by 50 working groups from 8 European countries were evaluated.
7 application packages consisting of 20 sub-proposals received
funding summing up to a total amount of 2.5 Million € provided
by 7 partner organisations.
It did prove possible to identify outstanding research projects,
in which the transnational interchange of professional knowledge
among the partners led to genuine gains in terms of quality. CERC3
decided to continue the Transnational Research Initiative and
to host another series of brainstorming workshops in autumn/winter
2000/2001 in preparation for the second call for transnational
proposals in 2002. In order to enhance the experience and the
general flexibility in processing and reviewing transnational
proposals, all CERC3 member councils were encouraged to establish
supplementary bilateral transnational initiatives under the CERC3
rules.
CNRS and DFG decided to be proactive and to set up a call for
joint French/German proposals in chemistry in 2001 without fixing
the themes, but to stipulate that the proposals should be relevant
to modern problems in chemistry with a recognisable synergy effect.
The two councils agreed for the first time to use common, specially
drafted application and evaluation forms to be handled electronically.
279 French and German chemists took part in this call for 102
joint proposals, 29 of them received funding summing up to 7.5
Million € for 75 French and German researchers provided by
the two partner councils.
In 2002, 10 CERC3 member councils agreed to release a second
call for joint proposals in the research fields "Chemistry
in Support of Sustainability" and "Nucleic Acids Chemistry"
by taking into consideration the CNRS/DFG experiences and by using
improved joint electronic application and evaluation forms. Within
the call "Chemistry in Support of Sustainability" 29
joint proposals by 73 scientists were received, of which 8 joint
proposals were funded. Within the call "Nucleic Acids Chemistry"
5 out of 13 submitted joint proposals were funded. In this call
34 scientists were involved as applicants.
In the beginning of 2004 ERA-Chemistry was established. Since
it the the aim of ERA-Chemistry
to further develop the procedures for the processing of European
joint proposals, future calls for proposals
will be launched under responsibility of ERA-Chemistry, while
CERC3 will not be active in this field for the time ERA-Chemistry
exists.
