New study suggest that prestigious European grants might be biased

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01362-8

Please find the recent article on Nature by following the link above. The study, which examined a year's worth of ERC grants with 3,207 applicants, can be accessed through the link below: 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344461606_Do_interests_affect_grant_application_success_The_role_of_organizational_proximity

 
Nevertheless, biased assessments are not the sole issue associated with millionaire ERC grants. The paper titled "Talent vs Luck: the role of randomness in success and failure" presents insights that challenge the underlying rationale of ERC millionaire grants:

“if the goal is to reward the most talented persons (thus increasing their level of success), it is much more convenient to distribute periodically (even small) equal amounts of capital to all individuals rather than to give a greater capital only to a small percentage of them, selected through their level of success - already reached - at the moment of the distribution” https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07068