The funding for the more than 300 globally dispersed researchers is valued at €838m.

The European Research Council (ERC) has today (23 June) announced the winners of the latest Advanced Grant competition which is part of the EU’s Horizon Europe programme. The ERC gives senior researchers the opportunity to pursue ambitious, curiosity-driven projects with the potential to result in major scientific breakthroughs. 

319 leading researchers based all across Europe and globally will receive a share of the funding which is valued at €838m. Grantees are located at universities and research centres in 24 EU Member States, including five researchers from Ireland, working out of Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin (UCD).

Thirteen of the researchers are currently based outside of Europe amounting to 4pc of all winners and were selected from the US, Australia and Canada. 

Awardees from Trinity include Rhodri Cusack’s InfantNeuroAI project which explores the development of visual cognition in infants and machines and Richard Layte’s Flourish, which covers the foundations of life course outcomes in relationships and social connection.

From UCD, Porsche Fermanis’ PanAsia project will look at anti-colonialism, pan-Asianism and periodical culture in Southeast Asia. Rory Johnson’s Revolver project will explore directed evolution to understand and engineer bioactive long noncoding RNAs. Lastly, Anthony O’Mullane’s Almers project takes a look at adaptive liquid metal electrocatalytic reaction systems.

Commenting on the results, Ekaterina Zaharieva, the European Commissioner for Start-ups, Research, and Innovation, said, “My congratulations to all the 319 new ERC Advanced Grant winners and a warm welcome to the researchers from Australia, Canada and the United States who have chosen Europe to carry out their research. 

“These projects embody the spirit of scientific exploration that drives progress. The increase in applications from researchers based outside Europe shows that initiatives such as ‘Choose Europe’, aimed at attracting and keeping talent, are helping to reinforce Europe’s appeal to top scientific talent worldwide.”

The President of the European Research Council, prof Maria Leptin, added, “The new Advanced Grant projects demonstrate the creativity, ambition and intellectual boldness that frontier research requires. The ERC’s role is to support researchers who are asking difficult scientific questions and want to venture into unexplored territory in pursuit of new knowledge. 

“Congratulations to all our new grantees. They are of 33 different nationalities, testament to Europe’s strength as a destination for outstanding scientific talent, regardless of origin. We need to step up investment for Europe to lead in science and innovation.”

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