The ERC CV and Track Record should help the panel answer a simple question:
Is this researcher ready to lead this scientific programme?
The ERC evaluates the PI in the context of career stage, field and personal circumstances. It does not reduce the assessment to publication count or journal metrics. Applicants can present up to ten research outputs that best reflect their contribution to knowledge, including publications, preprints, datasets, software, patents, licences, books, conference outputs, start-ups, standards and other relevant contributions.
Official source: ERC guidance on PI and CV assessment
The CV should support the proposal's scientific story
Do not treat the CV as a separate administrative document.
The proposal argues:
This is an important frontier-research question.
The CV should make it plausible that:
This PI has the judgement, expertise and trajectory to lead the programme that answers it.
The strongest outputs are therefore not always the most cited or prestigious. They are the ones that best establish the capabilities and intellectual development relevant to the new programme.
Scientific independence is more than a job title
A permanent position, group-leader title or formal supervision role can be useful context, but scientific independence is ultimately intellectual.
I would ask:
- Has the applicant developed questions that are recognisably their own?
- Is there a direction that moves beyond the former supervisor's programme?
- Can the applicant show decisions, methods, concepts or results they intellectually led?
- Is the ERC project a new programme rather than a larger version of the previous lab's work?
- If the applicant stayed in the same group or institution, is the intellectual distinction still visible?
Remaining in one institution for a long time is not automatically a weakness. It makes the explanation of independence more important.
Break continuity without inventing discontinuity
An ERC proposal does not need to abandon the PI's expertise.
A complete break can make the project less credible if none of the applicant's experience supports the new direction.
A stronger transition often looks like:
Previous work: established expertise in phenomenon A.
Emerging insight: identified limitation B that the previous programme could not resolve.
ERC direction: build an independent programme around question C using capability D.
The proposal remains connected to the PI's scientific history while establishing a new intellectual centre of gravity.
Select outputs strategically
The ERC allows a broad definition of research output.
For each selected item, ask what it proves.
An output might demonstrate:
- conceptual originality;
- development of a method central to the ERC programme;
- leadership of a collaboration;
- creation of a dataset or software platform;
- translation of research into a patent or start-up;
- ability to combine fields;
- technical capability needed for a decisive experiment;
- a shift toward the new research direction.
Ten similar publications may communicate less than a smaller set of outputs that show a coherent trajectory.
Explain contribution where it matters
In large collaborations, author position may not reveal intellectual ownership.
A concise explanation can clarify:
- what idea you introduced;
- which method you developed;
- which part of the analysis you led;
- whether you supervised the work;
- what scientific decision was yours;
- why the output matters for the proposed ERC programme.
This is particularly useful for multidisciplinary and team-based fields.
Track record should show judgement, not only productivity
A good PI has repeatedly made useful scientific decisions.
The track record can reveal this through:
- choosing an important problem;
- opening a new direction;
- building a method others now use;
- leading a difficult experiment;
- integrating evidence across fields;
- translating an unexpected result into a new question;
- building or coordinating a team.
These signals support the claim that the PI can steer a five-year frontier-research programme when the results are not predictable.
Non-academic outputs can be relevant
For some applicants, patents, software, start-ups, standards, data infrastructure or technical systems are meaningful evidence of research contribution.
Use them when they strengthen the scientific case.
Do not include them merely to appear broader.
For example, a patent may show that the PI developed a new measurement architecture relevant to the ERC question. A start-up may demonstrate leadership or technology translation, but the proposal still needs to establish frontier-research excellence.
The relevance should be explicit.
Career context matters
The ERC asks reviewers to consider career stage and personal circumstances.
Applicants with:
- career breaks;
- parental leave;
- clinical responsibilities;
- time in industry;
- non-linear careers;
- major service responsibilities;
- interdisciplinary moves;
should not try to imitate a conventional academic trajectory if that is not their history.
Explain the trajectory clearly and show what it enabled scientifically.
Do not turn the CV into a defence
The strongest tone is factual and selective.
Avoid long explanations of why a metric is lower than someone else's or why an opportunity was unavailable.
Instead, make the evidence visible:
I developed X, which enabled Y and now provides the basis for Objective 2.
or:
This work established my independent direction in Z and led to the central question of the proposed programme.
The panel can then evaluate the contribution directly.
A practical independence test
Before finalising the CV, ask:
- Which three outputs best show my intellectual ownership?
- Where is the transition from supervised work to my own scientific direction?
- What capability in my record makes the ERC programme credible?
- Which output shows I can make difficult scientific decisions?
- Does the proposed project look like my programme rather than my former supervisor's next grant?
- If I stayed in the same environment, have I made the intellectual boundary visible?
The CV and Track Record do not need to prove that the applicant has already completed the ERC programme. They need to show that the applicant is ready to lead it.