New ERC vice-presidents announced

Two leading European researchers have been appointed as vice-presidents of the European Research Council.

Professor Sierd Cloetingh, who also serves as a president of Academia Europaea, is a Dutch professor of Earth Sciences and Tectonics at Utrecht University. He will be in charge of supervision of the ERC activities in the domain of Physical Science and Engineering.

Meanwhile, Professor Mart Saarma, an Estonian national, is a professor and a director of the Centre of Excellence in Molecular and Integrated Neuroscience Research at the University of Helsinki in Finalnd. He will take over the Life Sciences domain. Both were already serving as ERC Scientific Council members.

ERC President Professor Jean-Pierre Bourguignon commented: “I very much look forward to working closely with the two new vice-presidents, elected by the ERC Scientific Council. One of the key tasks of the vice-presidents is supervising the selection of the peer review panels, which lies at the heart of the ERC.”

These appointments come after the term of office of the former vice-presidents, Professors Pavel Exner (Doppler Institute for Mathematical Physics and Applied Mathematics, Czech Republic) and Carl-Henrik Heldin (Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Sweden) came to an end in December 2014.

Professor Núria Sebastián Gallés (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain) will remain ERC vice-president overseeing the domain of Social Sciences and Humanities. The vice-presidents are elected by the members of the ERC Scientific Council, in accordance with its autonomy.