Rise to the challenge

摘要

Outside Europe it may be hard to imagine the scale of the triumph involved in the creation of a Europe-wide agency for competitive basic research, along the lines of the US National Science Foundation. After what seems like another hundred-years' war, a solution to member countries' concerns — that they must pay into a pot that then funds researchers elsewhere — has finally been found in the form of the European Research Council (ERC). It launches to great fanfare in Berlin next week. Importantly, it is committed to funding the best science, free of regional and political agendas.