"The best applications ... have a plan of research ... that is ... realistic [and] at the same time has this visionary quality," says Anders Björklund, chair of the Neurosciences ERC panel.

Franck Diafouka found at the EMEA the opportunity to study the impact of drugs in real life and work in a multinational and multicultural environment.

Julia Kempe couldn't bring herself to choose between physics and maths, nor between two graduate institutions. So she did two Ph.D.s at once in quantum computation.

"The novice writer makes a big mistake in blaming language knowledge for everything," says Mary Ellen Kerans, chair of the Mediterranean Editors and Translators association in Barcelona, Spain.