{"id":22481,"date":"2020-04-09T16:01:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T14:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/?p=22481"},"modified":"2024-03-22T11:52:37","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T10:52:37","slug":"response-to-the-resignation-of-erc-president-mauro-ferrari","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/lab-matters\/response-to-the-resignation-of-erc-president-mauro-ferrari\/","title":{"rendered":"Response to the resignation of ERC President Mauro Ferrari"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>It\nis with regret that we learned about ERC President Mauro Ferrari\u2019s resignation,\nhis statement to the press and the ensuing discussion about the role of the ERC\nin research funding across Europe. I strongly believe that the ERC should be\nconsidered as a jewel in the crown of Europe\u2019s successful scientific strategy,\nwith countless contributions to discoveries that have applications in all areas\nof public health. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nERC\u2019s remit of funding bottom-up, frontier research judged solely on the basis\nof excellence is crucial in providing scientists the necessary support and\nfreedom to make discoveries that will help to address a variety of societal\nchallenges. In this way, basic research and scientific services will always\nplay an important role in delivering new treatments or vaccines against\nSars-CoV-2, and a number of <a href=\"mailto:https:\/\/erc.europa.eu\/list-erc-funded-research-projects-related-coronavirus\">ERC-funded projects<\/a> relate to\ncoronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As\nEurope\u2019s leading inter-governmental organisation in the life sciences whose\nformer Director General Fotis Kafatos was the founding ERC President from 2007\nuntil 2010, EMBL strongly supports the ERC\u2019s decision to stay true to its core principle\nof not opening funding calls for specific topics. While we, the scientific\ncommunity, must all do what we can to quickly and effectively deliver means to\ndeal with the coronavirus outbreak, we must also ensure that we do not\ncompromise the support for excellence in basic research which will bring the\nsolutions to prevent and combat the challenges that public and planetary health\nface today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EMBL Director General Edith Heard responds to the resignation of the President of the European Research Council (ERC)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":22499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17597,3],"tags":[1025,1331,1327,1325,512,1333,1329],"embl_taxonomy":[],"class_list":["post-22481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-embl-announcements","category-lab-matters","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-erc","tag-european-research-council","tag-heard","tag-kafatos","tag-sars-cov-2"],"acf":{"vf_locked":false,"featured":true,"article_intro":"<p>EMBL Director General Edith Heard responds to the resignation of the President of the European Research Council (ERC)<\/p>\n","article_sources":false,"related_links":[{"link_description":"Resignation of Mauro Ferrari \u2013 Statement by the Scientific Council","link_url":"https:\/\/erc.europa.eu\/news\/resignation-mauro-ferrari-%E2%80%93-statement-scientific-council"},{"link_description":"Return to the frontlines, return to the front \u2013 Statement by Mauro Ferrari","link_url":"http:\/\/prod-upp-image-read.ft.com\/65f5a27e-78dd-11ea-af44-daa3def9ae03"}],"color":"#007B53","link_color":"#fff","show_featured_image":false,"in_this_article":false,"youtube_url":"","mp4_url":"","video_caption":"","translations":false,"press_contact":"None","embl_taxonomy_term_who":false,"embl_taxonomy_term_what":false,"embl_taxonomy_term_where":false},"embl_taxonomy_terms":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Response to the resignation of ERC President Mauro Ferrari | EMBL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"EMBL Director General Edith Heard responds to the resignation of the President of the European Research Council (ERC)\" \/>\n<meta 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