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The article reports that the long-awaited European Research Council (ERC) now has three veteran science chiefs to guide the agency through its birth. The ERC, designed to fund basic science across Europe, is supposed to award its first grants in 2007. However, high-level disagreements over the European Union budget have kept scientists guessing about how hard a hit the fledgling body's proposed €1.5 billion yearly budget might have to absorb. Uncertainty notwithstanding, ERC's scientific council last week elected Fotis Kafatos as chair. Kafatos, a molecular entomologist at Imperial College London led the European Molecular Biology Laboratory from 1993 to 2005 and is credited with revitalizing one of Europe's top research institutions. Rounding out the triumvirate are vice-chairs Helga Nowotny, an expert on science and society at the Wissenschaftszentrum in Vienna, Austria, and physicist Daniel Esteve of the French Commission for Atomic Energy CEA Saclay. The three, along with the rest of the science council, are well equipped to fend off political attempts to divert ERC funds to particular fields or countries, says Frank Gannon, president of the European Molecular Biology Organization.