The European Commission has presented to the Council and the European Parliament its Report on the European Research Council's operations and realisation of the objectives set out in the Specific Programme "Ideas" in 2009 (COM(2010) 458 final). This Annual Report from the Commission presents the assessment of the ERC's operations and the achievement of its objectives in 2009.

The Annual Report on  the European Research Council's operations and realisation of the objectives, points at the two major developments in the ERC's timeline of 2009, which were the granting of autonomy to the ERCEA and the Review of Structure and Mechanisms. The follow-up to the ERC review will entail the appointment of a Director of the ERCEA; amendments to the legislation to incorporate improvements in the ERC's construction and operations, including the management of independent experts in the peer review process, are also foreseen. A standing Identification Committee will also be set up in view of the renewal of some members anticipated for the end of their first term of office in February 2011.

The Annual Report highlights that commitments of more than 794,861,770 Euro and payments of more than 221,422,331,50 Euro were fully executed, representing 100% of the operational appropriations of the "Ideas" Specific Programme for 2009. The ERC grant funding is expected to maintain its current growth path, with the rising annual budget during 7th Framework Programme.

In the strategical scope the Report points out that the Scientific Council has aimed to define a clear and stable vision for the research activities of the ERC via two grant schemes across all fields of research:

• The ERC Starting Independent Researcher Grants (“ERC Starting Grants” (StG))
• The ERC Advanced Investigator Grants (“ERC Advanced Grants” (AdG))

In its Report the Commission supports the fact that the ERC continues to be extremely popular with researchers and that its reputation is enhanced by the track record that has been built, achievements that have enabled ERC to fund more than 1.000 innovative ideas so far. With a strong likelihood that the volume of high-quality proposals will increase, the ERC should therefore be in a stronger position to contribute to Europe's ambitions for world excellence in research, and thereby to the objective of the Europe 2020 strategy of developing an economy based on knowledge and innovation.

The objectives, as well as the main strands of the future architecture and mechanisms of EU research funding, will be further developed in the "Innovation Union" flagship initiative, that has been announced in the "Europe 2020" communication and will be presented in the Autumn 2010.