EXCELLENT SCIENCE SUPPORT

The University of A Coruña’s Strategic Plan for the 2013-2020 period establishes that among its objectives is the generation of an international university environment and the achievement of quality scientific production. Within the strategic objective of internationalising research, the UDC proposes to extend its relationships with other universities to promote and support access to international financing for research.

 

Through specific calls in Pillar I of Excellent Science within the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme, the European Research Council (ERC) looks to provide long-term financing for projects by leading researchers from around the world to strengthen excellence, dynamism and creativity in research. The ERC project grants are open to researchers of any age and from any country that wish to work in Europe.

 

The international prestige associated with the ERC Grants is increasing, both for the beneficiary researchers and for the scientific institutions that host them. The development of the projects financed by the ERC is currently one of the main research priorities for the UDC.

Strategic objective: to make research international

Berce programme/

The UDC decided to implement a support programme for excellent science that promotes the presentation of successful research proposals to the ERC in one of the following modalities: Starting Grants (StG), Consolidator Grants (CoG) and Advanced Grants (AdG).

This support programme, called berce (for its acronym in Spanish meaning ‘the welcome, stabilisation and return of excellent science’) contains a series of specific actions aimed at both UDC researchers and scientists from anywhere in the world who decide to develop their ERC project at the UDC.

In addition to the ERC Grants, there are other calls that allow for international researchers to carry out their projects at the UDC. Berce also looks to provide technical support to those applying for financing for individual projects that show a commitment to quality research and constitute a significant step forward in a scientific career.

OBJECTIVES

Berce’s specific objectives are established with the purpose of providing support to excellence and strategy and are detailed below:

  • To attract talent from all over the world to the UDC
  • To continue the research careers at the UDC
  • To incentivise the participation of the UDC in the Excellent Science Pillar within the H2020 Programme
  • To support the participation of researchers in the ERC grants

The purpose of this programme is to create the foundations for researchers to find a suitable environment within the UDC to carry out their research excellence with certain guarantees.