The European Research Council as Case Study for Agency Design in the EU

Agencies have become a ubiquitous part of the administrative structure of the EU. They fulfil
diverse and important roles in implementing EU policies.As diverse as the tasks of EU agencies
are their forms of organization. Few have been established by theTreaties themselves; most have
been created on the basis of secondary legal acts. Agency design has, thus, become an important
part of EU legislative activity.The future of agencies is, however, very much subject to debate.1
This article does not analyse agencies in the EU context from an abstract point of view. Instead,
it studies possible structural and procedural arrangements for agencies on the basis of a real-life
case study, the European Research Council (ERC),2 chosen from the area of the EU’s research
policy.The ERC displays not only a rather unusual structure with creative institutional design.
It also stands as an example for many controversies about independence and accountability of
agencies in the EU. This short article, after introducing the ERC and before looking at the
various options for agency design in the EU in general terms, looks at the options for changing
the ERC’s legal status and architecture. This is used as a canvas to outline some thoughts on
the role and independence of agencies in the EU.