OUR MAIN ACTIVITIES

Research Quality Assessment & Grant Evaluation

We support our Partners in identifying the best research projects for funding. Since 2019, ESF has implemented over 132 grant evaluation campaigns, assessing over 15,000 research proposals for public and private research funders, Universities, MSCA cofunds, and EU-funded projects & programmes.

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European Project Coordination & Management

As Consortia Partner and/or Coordinator, we provide our expertise in proposal preparation, consortium building and the management of research projects funded by the European Commission. Since 2021, ESF has been involved in more than 15 Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe projects.

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Hosting of scientific structures & networks

We provide tailored secretariat services to scientific committees, networks, and associations, allowing them to focus exclusively on their activities and impact. Each structure hosted by ESF operate independently under its own terms of reference and governance.

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Our main strengths

NON-PROFIT ORGANISATION

We deliver high quality, independent science services to the European Research Area.

EXPERTISE

We possess strong science administration and project management skills that are non-domain specific.

Over 4 DECADES OF EXPERIENCE

We have direct access to a 45-year knowledge base: ESF has managed over 2,000 world-class science programmes and networks in 30 countries.

HIGHLY-QUALIFIED STAFF

We are proud to have an international, multilingual and highly-qualified team.

SCIENTIFIC NETWORK

We are connected to a global network of over 300,000 scientific stakeholders (academics, researchers, expert reviewers, policy experts and key decision-makers) coming from 186 countries.

FLEXIBLE APPROACH

We deliver tailored solutions to fit your specific needs, processes, and environment - no matter what stage your project is at.

Testimonials

  • “We have been completely satisfied by the high standard of the peer review service provided by ESF over the last five years and we are fully confident to recommend ESF-Science Connect.”

    Dr Alberto Francesco Anfossi, Secretary General, Compagnia di San Paolo

  • The quality of the process implemented by ESF and the evaluation reports produced (work upstream of the final selection by the Permanent Commission of the Regional Council) contributed to a large extent to the success of the implementation of this new harmonised mechanism at the Grand Est Region level. ESF perfectly adapted to the specificities of the mission during which it demonstrated professionalism, responsiveness, and fairness in the processing of projects. It is important to remember that the deadlines were particularly tight. The schedule was respected and thanks to the reactivity and the involvement of the team, the evaluations were given to the Region ahead of schedule. Finally, I would also like to emphasise the quality of the team assigned to the management of the project, highly professional and qualified. The Region is fully satisfied with the service provided by ESF and warmly thanks them for the work performed.

    Christophe Sagnier, Research & Innovation Regional Direction, Grand Est Region, France

  • “ESF’s multi-disciplinary expertise and robust processes have proven instrumental in designing and managing competitive calls and evaluations for our research programmes, in particular our AXA Post-Doctoral Fellowships. ESF has also supported an impact assessment of AXA’s philanthropic research programmes including a Career Tracking Pilot. We are looking forward to expanding our strategic partnership with ESF in order to increase the effectiveness of our funding towards academic institutions and researchers in Europe as well as in other Regions such as Asia, Africa and Latin America”.

    Raphaël Gusdorf, Head of Selection at the AXA Research Fund

  • ESF staff worked with professionalism for the evaluation of projects in the frame of University of Torino’s ‘2020 Researchers: Train2Move’ programme, providing an efficient service. Our staff was pleased to have had the opportunity to collaborate with a highly performing team that satisfied our expectations.

    Claudia Barale, CSTF – Common Strategic Task Force KBBE, Environment, Energy / People, Università degli Studi di Torino

  • ESF administered the competitive call of the Graphene Flagship, which is one of the largest collaborative research programmes launched by the European Commission. As a response to the call, over 700 organisations submitted 220 proposals on 13 separate topics. ESF ran the whole process from setting up the application system, identifying and recruiting global experts, organising and supervising the review meetings, to compiling and communicating the review results and responding to questions the applicant had during and after the process. The Graphene Flagship is very satisfied with how the ESF handled our competitive call, and we are impressed by the organisation’s professionalism in managing large international research calls.

    Jari Kinaret, Director of the Graphene Flagship

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