News

Filip Matějka is Part of a New Expert Group for ERC Grants

2 February, 2021

Compared to their foreign fellow scientists, Czech researchers lag behind in receiving grant funding from the European Research Council (ERC). The Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Charles University (CUNI) have thus established a new expert group in order to increase the chances of Czech researchers obtaining prestigious ERC grants, one of whose members is Prof. Filip Matějka.

The new four-member expert group, consisting of three experts from scientific areas covered by the ERC panel and a coordinator, will assist in preparing ERC grant applications and give their professional advice to help increase the chances of the applicants’ success. Czech scientists could therefore be able to submit more quality proposals and achieve many more ERC grants per year.

Even though Czech researchers have received financial support of more than 61 million euros so far, they could achieve far more. Last year, only two applications from the Czech Republic succeeded in the ERC Starting Grants category, but 21 projects from Belgium and 42 from the Netherlands were successful. A similarly more advanced Consolidator Grant was awarded by the European Research Council to only four applicants from the Czech Republic, whereas 50 of the German and British applicants succeeded in each country.

The European Research Council (ERC) annually awards both early-stage and established researchers in any research field. Filip Matějka was granted the prestigious ERC Consolidator grant last year to further develop the theory of rational inattention. This was the second time the Council selected Filip: in 2015, he was the first to receive an ERC Starting Grant for social science research in the Czech Republic.