Early career researchers awarded €400m
The European Research Council (ERC) has selected 287 top scientists in its sixth Starting Grant competition, the last one under FP7.
The researchers are being awarded a total of nearly €400m, with a maximum individual grant of up to €2m. The ERC says the money will enable early career talent to develop their best, innovative ideas across the European Research Area (ERA).
Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, commented: “The ERC has changed the research landscape for young talent and raised the level of science across Europe. It is funding blue-sky research that is advancing human knowledge, but also producing breakthroughs that could make their way into our daily lives in future. The ERC is now an established label of excellence and it will go from strength to strength under Horizon 2020.”
Competition for grants rose by 50% this year, further emphasising a continuing trend. The selected projects cover a wide range of topics, such as designing a unique coastal defence against tsunamis, developing high-tech radiotherapy that can potentially help patients with head-and-neck cancer, investigating real-time monitoring of air pollution by means of GPS technology, or producing new low-cost and more effective photovoltaics.
Also commenting on the announcement, ERC President Professor Helga Nowotny said: “With this ERC Starting Grant call, we are adding a new group of very bright young researchers to the over 2,300 ERC-funded starting and consolidator grantees. This means that almost two-thirds of the overall 3,860 top scientists funded by the ERC since 2007 belong to the age group that will shape the scientific future of Europe. Their ground-breaking ideas and the growing stream of research results we see so far will make a difference – for science, for innovation and for society at large.”
The next Starting Grant calls will fall under Horizon 2020, which begins in January 2014.
