erc-ai-feedback

This is a small package for ERC Starting and Consolidator Grant
applicants. It provides a rubric-based pre-review of a draft
proposal that the applicant runs in one chat session with a current
frontier model. The intent is to clear routine structural problems
— vague hypotheses, hidden incrementalism, missing risk logic,
weak panel fit, CV–project disconnect — before workshop time is
spent on them. It does not replace human review. It is for
applicants and applicant-authorised workshop preparation only: do
not use it on a proposal you are evaluating as an ERC panel member
or remote reviewer, since the ERC prohibits reviewers from
uploading proposals under evaluation to external AI
systems.

Two files do the work: the locked evaluation rubric in
shared/rubric_locked.md and the prompt
in basic/prompt.md. The rubric contains the
verbatim Annex 1 Criterion 1 and Criterion 2 sub-questions from the
ERC Guide for Peer Reviewers for Starting and Consolidator Grant
calls, plus source-checked notes on scoring scales, proposal
structure, eligibility windows, panel structure, and the ERC's
AI-use rules. The prompt loads the rubric, applies structural caps
that fire when an expected element is missing, and produces an
evidence-grounded critique.

This package is the ERC-specific application of two general
research-audit projects by the same author group:
tjhavranek/research-audit-duel-protocol
(manual multi-model adversarial-debate protocols) and
tjhavranek/mad-research
(Claude Code skills that automate the same audit discipline for
Claude + Codex). The Advanced pre-review here is a direct
extension of the latter; the multi-model convergence walkthrough
in docs/multi_model_walkthrough.md
is a direct application of the former.

A sibling project,
tjhavranek/paper-workshop,
is a heavier Claude Code skill that runs an adversarial expert
workshop on a full manuscript and then rebuilds it; it is built for
papers but can be adapted to proposals. It is noted here for
completeness rather than recommended for ERC use, because it does
something this pre-review deliberately avoids: it proposes and writes
edits, whereas this package only identifies problems and leaves the
drafting to the applicant. It is not calibrated to the ERC rubric and
is not part of this package.

Use

1. Open a paid chat session with a current frontier model. Confirm
   training opt-out is on. (Provider settings change; see Privacy
   below.)
2. Copy the text between the === PROMPT BEGIN === and === PROMPT END === markers in basic/prompt.md. Paste
   it into the chat.
3. Paste your current draft after the prompt. State which stage you
   are at:
   • Pitch — idea sketch, or abstract plus draft CV.
   • Part I + CV — Extended Synopsis (Part I of the Scientific
     Proposal) in progress, with a draft CV.
   • Full proposal — complete B1 (cover-page abstract, Part I,
     CV and track record), plus any available B2 draft (Part II;
     required for final ERC submission).
4. Read the output. The model returns the top findings ranked by
   severity, each grounded in a verbatim quote from your draft;
   which structural caps fired; a short list of what the next draft
   stage needs to add; and a paragraph you can attach when sending
   the draft to a workshop reader.

Privacy

Use a paid tier with training opt-out enabled, or remove names and
institutions before pasting a proposal draft into any chat product.
Provider UI labels change every few months, so check the provider's
current data-controls page rather than relying on setting names
copied here:
ChatGPT data controls,
Anthropic Claude privacy,
and Gemini activity and privacy.
Pasting an unpublished draft into any chat product carries residual
risk even when training is off. If the proposal contains embargoed,
patent-sensitive, or otherwise non-public material, sanitise it or
do not use the tool. If someone other than the applicant runs the
pre-review, follow the consent rule in
docs/for_workshop_leaders.md.

Limitations

The tool is calibrated for ERC Starting and Consolidator Grants
only — not Advanced, Synergy, Proof of Concept, or ERC Plus. It
is in English; the ERC working language of evaluation is English.
It catches routine structural problems and does not judge novelty
in a specific field, panel strategy, or interview credibility —
these remain workshop, mentor, and research-office work. Frontier
models confidently miss field-specific failure modes; the
applicant should push back on findings they disagree with on
merit.

The ERC rubric changes annually. The version in
shared/rubric_locked.md was last
verified on 2026-05-30 against ERC Work Programme 2026 and the
Guide for Peer Reviewers v6.0 (30 September 2025). If you read
this twelve months later, re-verify before use.

For workshop leaders

If you are running an ERC workshop and want to recommend the tool
to applicants, the operational note at
docs/for_workshop_leaders.md
covers the hand-off template and the consent rule that applies
when a reader runs the tool on someone else's draft.

Other ways to use the package

The single-prompt pre-review above is what most applicants will
use. The repository also contains:

• A three-prompt sequence in standard/ for
  applicants who want a more thorough single-model pass
  (Panel Reviewer, then Devil's Advocate, then Writing Coach).
• A Claude Code + Codex CLI integration in
  advanced/ that runs the
  mad-research
  protocol against the same ERC rubric (experimental; not yet
  end-to-end pilot-verified — see
  advanced/README.md).
• A question-bank and answer stress-test prompt pair in
  mock_interview/ for Step-2 applicants
  preparing for the panel interview.
• A resubmission audit prompt in resubmission/
  that checks whether a new draft engages with a previous
  Evaluation Report.

Synthetic test fixtures used to exercise the prompts are in
tests/fixtures/. Roadmap and development
notes are in docs/roadmap.md.

Citation, licence, maintainer

Developed by Tomáš Havránek and Zuzana Iršová, Charles University,
Prague. MIT licence; see
LICENSE. The ERC materials cited in the rubric remain
the property of the European Research Council Executive Agency
and are referenced under fair use with source URLs in
shared/rubric_locked.md. Archived on
Zenodo with a DOI that resolves to the latest release:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20829165.
For citation metadata see CITATION.cff.

Bug reports and factual corrections to the rubric: GitHub Issues.
Please do not paste real proposal content in public issues.
ERC-panel-veteran feedback on the prompt is particularly welcome.

Roadmap and development notes are in
docs/roadmap.md. The audit history of each
version is in CHANGELOG.md.