The Official Journal of the European Union published in 11 December 2010, Decision C(2006) 1580 on the adoption of ERC Rules for the submission of proposals and the related evaluation, selection and award procedures for indirect actions under the Ideas Specific Programme of the Seventh Framework Programme. These amendments are based on the experience of the first ERC calls, EU legislative changes as well as observations requested by the ERC Scientific Council.

The Commission Decision of 9 December published in the Official Journal of the European Union two days later, lays down the European Research Centre (ERC) Rules for the submission of proposals and the related evaluation, selection and award procedures of indirect actions under the Ideas Specific Programme of the Seventh Framework Programme (2007 to 2013). These rules will apply to all ERC calls for proposals published after 1 January 2011, date of the entry into force of this Decision.

These new amended rules for the submission of proposals to the ERC and the related evaluation, selection and award procedures for indirect actions under the Ideas Specific FP7 Programme are based on the experiences gained during the first ERC calls of 2007, 2008 and 2009, which has already funded over 1,000 innovative ideas in a large variety of scientific disciplines, public policy areas and commercial sectors. The new rules also take into account the changes introduced in the legislation of the European Union as well as changes expressly requested by the ERC Scientific Council.

The purpose of the document annexed to the Decision is to set out the rules applying to the  submission and peer review evaluation of proposals, and to the award of grants to successful proposals. These rules set fundamental parameters which are designed to ensure that the procedures leading up to the award of grants are rigorous, fair, effective and appropriate.

They have been defined in association with the ERC Scientific Council, the latter being responsible, inter alia, for establishing the Ideas work programme, the peer review evaluation methods and procedures applying for proposal peer review evaluation under the Ideas Specific Programme and for identifying the independent experts assisting to such peer review evaluation.

As established by Commission's Decision, the process from proposal submission to the award of grants will keep on resting on a set of well-established principles, such as excellence; transparency; fairness and impartiality; confidentiality; efficiency and speed; and respecting all ethical and security considerations required by the process.