• H2020
• Policy & Research

Professor Nataša Pržulj of University College London (UCL) has won a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant to fund her Integrated Connectedness for a New Representation of Biology (ICON-BIO) project.

As one of just seven recipients at UCL, she will receive €2m over five years for her research.

Grants of this kind are prestigious, and in this awarding round just 13% of the 2,538 research proposals will be funded.

Pržulj has previously received an ERC Starting Grant for her project Biological Network Topology Complements Genome as a Source of Biological Information for 2012-2017.

Pržulj said: “It is a great honour to receive a prestigious ERC award again. I am delighted to have been given this opportunity that will enable me to undertake very exciting, new research directions.

“Within the project, I will work towards designing holistic, integrative approaches to modelling and analysing the complexity of biological and medical phenomena.

“The focus will be redefining currently accepted paradigms in data science, biology and medicine necessary for deeper insights and advancements in these disciplines.

“The ultimate goal is to find new treatments for complex and currently incurable diseases.”

329 top researchers across Europe will receive the grants, which the ERC announced last week.

Part of the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme, the funding is worth a total €630m and will facilitate a far-reaching impact on science.