The President of the ERC Scientific Council, invited Maria da Graça Carvalho to give a keynote presentation at the annual Joint Meeting of ERC 2013 Panel Chairs which took place at the ERC Headquarters in Brussels.
The meeting's morning session focused on the ERC mid and long term perspectives with regard to the EU programme "Horizon 2020" as well as the specificities of frontier research projects' evaluation. The end of the morning session was devoted to an exchange of views with the panel chairs in view of their experience of this year's practise. This session was moderated by the President of the Scientific Council, Prof. Helga Nowotny. The afternoon was dedicated to the presentation of the 2013 calls' outcome and the analysis of the early signs of impact since the establishment of the ERC in 2007. Graça Carvalho gave her views on the objectives and challenges of European research funding in the coming years.