Venus – Image by PicElysium from Pixabay
(BRUSSELS) – Young scientists and scholars across Europe won EU funding worth EUR 628 million in the form of 400 ‘Starting Grants’, the European Research Council announced on Tuesday.
The funding, part of the EU’s Horizon Europe programme, helps researchers at the start of their careers to launch their own projects, form their teams and pursue their best scientific ideas, the ERC said.
The grants support cutting-edge research in a wide range of fields, from medicine and physics to social sciences and humanities. For example, a geochemist in the Netherlands will study Venus’ atmosphere to better understand habitability beyond Earth; a computer scientist in Germany seeks to make virtual reality more inclusive to physically disabled people; a geneticist in the UK aims to analyse parasites that cause malaria; and a researcher in Israel is set to investigate how algorithms are used at work to supervise employees.
Successful applicants of this call will carry out their projects at universities and research centres in 24 countries in Europe, with the highest number of projects hosted in Germany (87 grants), France (50), Netherlands (44) and the UK (32). They come from Europe and beyond, with 44 nationalities being represented, notably Germans (66 researchers), Italians (57), French (32), Dutch (27). Fourteen Europeans who are currently based in the US will carry out their ERC-funded projects in Europe.
This competition attracted 2,696 proposals, which were reviewed by panels of renowned researchers from around the world. The overall success rate was 14.8%. The grants are expected to create more than 2,600 jobs for postdoctoral fellows, PhD students and other staff at the host institutions.
The ERC stresses that the statistics and final list of successful candidates are provisional. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom allows for associating the UK to the current EU research and innovation funding programme, Horizon Europe, subject to the adoption of a Protocol. As this Protocol has not been adopted so far, the UK is still considered “non-associated” to Horizon Europe. Therefore, the successful proposals of applicants based in a country in the process of associating to Horizon Europe will be eligible for funding only if the relevant Horizon Europe association agreement applies by the time of the signature of the grant agreement. However, successful applicants from UK host institutions can still be funded, provided that they move to a host institution in an eligible country.
Examples of projects to be funded
List of all selected researchers
Lists of selected researchers by domain:
