ERC highlights 4,000th grant and high-level events in 2014
One of the ERC's 2014 highlights included participating in the World Economic Forum © Flyout

ERC highlights 4,000th grant and high level events in 2014

The European Research Council has published its annual report, highlighting its greatest achievements and activities during 2014.

Major accomplishments highlighted by the blue sky funding body include awarding chemical engineering Professor Dr Manuel Arruebo of Zaragoza University, Spain, a consolidator grant to fund his research into tackling chronic pain through nanodrugs. He was the 4,000th scientist to benefit from an ERC grant.

Also highlighted by the ERC was the awarding of Fields Medals to Council grantees at the International Congress of Mathematicians in August in Seoul, South Korea, and Nobel Prizes in various fields to ERC grantees.

Other successes include attending Davos 2014, the Innovation Convention in Brussels, Euroscience Open Forum, Copenhagen and the annual meeting of the AAAS in Chicago, Illinois, in the USA.

In 2014, the ERC and the European Round Table of Industrialists also sent a second joint letter to European leaders stating their worry over ‘the significant cuts of payment appropriations proposed by the Council of Ministers to the European Commission’s draft budget 2015’, particularly in the area of research and innovation.

The full report can be read here.