One-on-one personalised ERC Grant Resubmission Writing Support: ERC Starting, ERC Consolidator, ERC Advanced

We care about the individuals that we support - each one of them different - and for each, we offer a personal, individually tailored and educationally focussed journey of ERC grant re-submission writing.

We offer services through all stages of the ERC Starting proposal development and writing process (each is a stand alone service to cater to the needs of each applicant).

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

Preparing for an ERC grant is a challenging and time consuming process - 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 individuals that we work with.

All of our work is also educationally focussed. I.e. the applicant learns much more than just how to write an ERC grant. We teach researchers how to better review their own work and further enhance their grant writing skills – all of which can be taken and used into the future with other granting bodies and schemes.

A hallmark of the way in which we work with applicants is the numerous interactions throughout the support process - allowing for a fully personalised trajectory for each applicant that we support.

Whilst not necessary to rewrite a new proposal,  enough work needs to be done by the applicant to:

• Fully cover the issues raised by the panel members and/or reviewers in the previous submission

• Fully cover any new criticism and/or concerns raised by panel members and/or reviewers in the current round (which in our experience happens quite often)

• Adjust the proposal in such a way that it is consistent in clarity, consistency, and tone of voice and presents to be a coherent whole.

Our resubmission support is offered via two pathways: Full support and trunceated support (see below).

RESUBMISSION FULL SUPPORT SUPPORT:

• We work with applicants to first help re-define te concept in a more consistent and convincing way before they begin the re-writing phase, effectively setting out the content framework for the proposal itself, leading to a much stronger submission. This includes defining in clear and consistent terms:  what is the challenge, why is it a problem, why do we need to overcome it, what are the bottlenecks, why have then not yet been addressed, why can they now be addressed, what recent underpinning by the applicant supports this new avenue of research (also supports the validity of any hypothesis), proposal aim, objectives, workplan overview, team, collaboration, novelty of the research, impact and risk mitigation etc.

• We coach on how to make a strategic analysis of the previous reviewers reports, where these changes need to be made in the resubmission, updates in the state-of-the-art methods and developments by yourself in the last 12 months; development by others over the same period; any extra proof of concept work etc. to support the feasibility of the workplan; and how to best anticipate what new criticism could come in the resubmission that was not raised in the previous one.

• Critical support, feedback and in-depth review of proposal re-drafts, including optimisation of the presentation of the CV/TR.

• Substantive editing of the proposal (clarity, consistency, tone of voice and flow).
  

RESUBMISSION TRUNCATED SUPPORT: 
Our draft review work is in-depth, and we provide quite substantial and in-depth feedback. Due this this, applicants can be quite overwhelmed by this form of feedback within a single round of review. As such, we do not offer ERC proposal review support in a single round of review. Instead, we work with applicants in quick successive rounds of review in stages, breaking up the proposal into manageable sections over a very short time period (e.g. 10-28 days).

Here, we work with applicants closer to the deadline and fully review:  

• An advanced resubmission draft (i.e. ¾ finished draft and then coach applicants on how to complete the rest of the content); or 

• A fully re-written draft of the proposal.

• We also fully review the the 4-page CV/TR.

This form of support is fully tailored to each individual situation, according to the stage that the draft is in when applicants come to us for review, the timeline needing to be worked to etc.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF OUR SUPPORT

• Our feedback on drafts is highly personalised, in-depth, direct and to the point, and should we identify weaknesses in a proposal, we will always work at providing the applicant with suggestions and/or options as to how the weakness can be remedied.

• When any of our clients interact with us, they will find us to be down to earth and approachable professionals, who have a real passion for what we do, and we understand and appreciate how busy the life of an academic can be.

• All of our work is based on a strong process-driven foundation.

• We believe in honesty and transparency, and in building strong and healthy relationships with our clients.

METHOD OF DELIVERY
Our method of delivery is via (1) personal ‘one-on-one’ online coaching and feedback sessions; and (2) online via email. The breakdown of this is individually tailored to each individual (some applicants may find online meetings more helpful, whilst others may have more of a preference for working more though email.

WHO WILL APPLICANTS BE WORKING WITH
You will work directly with with either Fire Sanders or Willem Bouma, both qualified and experienced senior trainers. Both Willem and Fire have experience working with all panels and areas of research, and have worked with numerous applicants and institutions throughout around Europe and beyond. 

We have over 15 years (specifically) working on European, Dutch and other national research grant proposals - and over 25 years experience with scientific promotion cases, research grant applications, interview training, review and editing of high impact research journal articles and writing nominations for prestigious prizes and awards. We specialise in what we do and offer – and ERC grant writing is no exception.