Personalised ERC Synergy Grant interview preparation/ training

Preparing for an ERC Synergy grant interview is a challenging and time consuming process fro each PI - and on top of the everyday challenges of academic life. Our focus is on making this process as enjoyable and as stress free as possible - for all team members.

We are highly experienced working with all panels and domains and all areas of research.

Every Synergy team of PIs will have stronger and weaker areas (e.g. some team members may be comfortable at interview, others maybe not so much). Also, every proposal will have the same issues (e.g a strong workplan, but then lacking in strength on its Synergistic aspects).

A hallmark of the way in which we work with Synergy teams is that we focus on how you work together as a synergistic team, how you support each other, how you can present your proposal as a coherent whole, and how well you as a team can answer succinctly and effectively all of the questions posed to you during the interview to defend your proposal and successfully demonstrate its Synergistic nature.

The support is directed towards candidates who:

• Want to prepare for interview in a way that is as stress free as possible, and yet comprehensive to fully prepare for interview.

• Want to be able to deliver a clear and powerful team presentation.

• Want to be prepared for any type of question (including unexpected and potentially irritating questions) and how to do this seamlessly as a coherent team.

When to start working with with us

• We generally start working with teams as soon as possible once they are invited to interview, so that they can optimise their preparation trajectory, and allow the preparation process to be as enjoyable as possible, without undue pressure. 

• However, we can also begin work with teams closer the interview date, depending on our availability (at times our earlier teams are finished with their interview support and we are able to open up a few new support places).

Format of the support:

• Our support is provided in 4-5 online personalised team sessions. 

• We provide the PIs with specific ‘homework’ research/tasks to help them with their interview preparation (e.g. including, but not limited to: missing elements/details within the proposal, critically assess the weaker areas of the proposal and how to prepare for questions on these at interview).
  

All sessions with us are generally held between 7.00am and 11.45am CET or CEST (EU time), where we schedule sessions at times to best suit the team (best suited for PIs that are based within the EU).

Researchers will be working with either Fire Sanders or Willem Bouma, both highly qualified and highly experienced senior trainers. with experience working across all panels and areas of research.

As part of our support, applicants that we support will also receive:

• Strategic advice and assistance in the development of presentation content, and in-depth preparation for the question and answer component of the interview.

• Critical review and feedback on the presentation delivery (identification of potential weaknesses/advice on how to remedy them). We critically read all proposals and give thorough feedback on weaknesses and issues that we find.

• Feedback on potential areas of concerns (criticism) from reviewers in order to better prepare for the Q&A session.

• 'Homework' tasks to better prepare for all potential Questions that may be faced at the ERC interview, minimising the chance that the team receives an unexpected question at interview that they are not prepared for.

• Q&A Practice sessions, including a list of critical and in-depth questions based on our assessment of the proposal and it's weaknesses.