European Research Council (ERC) demographics and initiatives to promote diversity

The European Research Council (ERC), Europes premiere funding agency for frontier research, views equality of opportunities as an essential priority. The ERC closely monitors various demographic data yearly on every call and has taken actions to tackle imbalances and potential implicit and explicit biases.In this presentation, we will focus on demographic data of the three main funding schemes: Starting Grant, Consolidator Grant and Advanced Grant. The data of the ERC population, collected over the two past European Framework Programmes (FP7 2007-2013 and H2020 2014-2020) and the first years of the current one (Horizon Europe 2021-2027), will focus on gender and geographic location within the area of Universe Sciences and more particularly Planetary Sciences.The ERC is aware that promoting diversity is a continuous effort. We will present the various initiatives put in place since the beginning of the ERC, with a focus on the most recent actions taken to ensure inclusiveness and equality of opportunities.