Opening the review of my failed ERC grant after 3 months (that's what it took for the disappointment to fade). Let's see.

7 reviewers. Yep, that's how serious the ERC is in evaluating the proposals. Kudos to them for this.

Reviewer 5 was very upset with my supervision track record. you cannot apply to an ERC Adv with so few students supervised apparently. Also very upset ("astonishing") I don't teach (we don't have to at CNRS)

my take from the CV comments: if you want to be considered as competitive, you have to publish tons of papers, supervise tons of students, teach a lot, apply to 5 grants every year. In other words, 80hrs week, no personal life.
I know what I'll choose, thanks.

Reviewer 1: the PI did not supervised enough students so far

According to reviewer 2, I gathered a reasonable amount of grants only. So one ERC (plus other national grants) was not enough apparently. You're good only if you raise a lot of money.