42 researchers from 16 UNICA universities awarded with ERC Starting Grants
23 November 2022 | From UNICA
The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded 42 researchers in 16 UNICA member universities with Starting Grants from the 2022 call. The funding, which is part of the EU’s Horizon Europe programme, will support emerging scientists who have 2 to 7 years of experience after their PhDs, to launch their own projects, form their teams, and pursue their most promising ideas.
In total, the Starting Grant scheme awarded 408 researchers from 26 states across Europe, accounting for a total of €636 million.
Out of the UNICA universities that were awarded, the University of Copenhagen (Denmark) is the one with the greatest number of projects, with a total of 8. It is closely followed by the University of Edinburgh (UK), with 7 projects.
In terms of research domains, the area of Social Sciences and Humanities leads with 17 projects. It is then followed by Life Sciences with 13 projects. Finally, there are 12 funded projects in the area of Physical Sciences and Engineering.
If we look at the numbers by country, from the UNICA’s network perspective, the United Kingdom is leading with 11 projects – in the overall competition, it occupies the second position of countries with the greatest number of laureates, behind Germany. However, it is important to note that the statistics and final list of successful candidates are provisional, as the UK is yet to adopt the Protocol that will allow its participation in Horizon Europe as an Associated Country. As the ERC underlines, proposals from British institutions “will be eligible for funding only if the relevant Horizon Europe association agreement applies by the time of the signature of the grant agreement”. Should this not happen, it will still be possible for the projects to be funded if they move to a host institution in an eligible country.
Check the complete list of projects awarded in UNICA member universities:
| Country | University | Researcher | Project | Area |
| Austria | University of Vienna | KLIMBURG-WITJES Nina | FutureSpace – Making the Ariane Rocket: Negotiating relations between European integration and the future of Europe in space | Social Sciences and Humanities |
| Austria | University of Vienna | PIRTEA Adrian | RevIdEM -Reviving the Ascetic Ideal in the Eastern Mediterranean: Entangled Memories of Early Egyptian Monasticism in Medieval Syriac, Arabic, and Armenian Christianity | Social Sciences and Humanities |
| Austria | University of Vienna | WRATIL Christopher | MULTIREP – Multidimensional Representation: Enabling An Alternative Research Agenda on the Citizen-Politician Relationship | Social Sciences and Humanities |
| Belgium | Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) | CALCUS Axelle | SensationaHL – Sensitive periods for audition: Teenagers with Normal Hearing & Hearing Loss | Social Sciences and Humanities |
| Belgium | Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) | DUERINCKX Mitia | PASTIS – Scaling limits of particle systems and microstructural disorder | Physical Sciences and Engineering |
| Belgium | Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) | KOPPER Moises | InfoCitizen – Informational Citizenship: Toward a Global Ethnography of Practices and Infrastructures of Datafication in the Global South | Social Sciences and Humanities |
| Belgium | Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) | VAN RINSVELD Amandine | MATHWAVES – Early mathematical learning dynamics in the developing brain | Social Sciences and Humanities |
| Belgium | Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) | HENRIET Benoit | FORAGENCY – Foraging, Fishing and Hunting as Agency in Colonial Central Africa | Social Sciences and Humanities |
| Czech Republic | Charles University of Prague | CARSON Erin Claire | inEXASCALE – Analyzing and Exploiting Inexactness in Exascale Matrix Computations | Physical Sciences and Engineering |
| Germany | Freie Universität Berlin | HVEN Steffen | CATNEMI – Cinematic Atmospheres: Towards a New Ecology of the Moving Image | Social Sciences and Humanities |
| Germany | Freie Universität Berlin | KLEIN Verena | BadSex – Investigating Bad Sex in its socio-legal contexts | Social Sciences and Humanities |
| Denmark | University of Copenhagen | AUGENSTEIN Isabelle | ExplainYourself – Explainable and Robust Automatic Fact Checking | Physical Sciences and Engineering |
| Denmark | University of Copenhagen | GREGERSEN Lea Haarup | TranscriptStress – The transcriptional response to oxidative stress | Life Sciences |
| Denmark | University of Copenhagen | JAVADI Alisa | PQART – Photonic Quantum Technologies with Strain-Free Artificial Atoms | Physical Sciences and Engineering |
| Denmark | University of Copenhagen | KJAERGAARD Morten | NovaDePro – Novel Approaches to Error Detection and Protection with Superconducting Qubits | Physical Sciences and Engineering |
| Denmark | University of Copenhagen | KNUDSEN Jakob Grunnet | ParaALPHA – Paracrine signalling in alpha cells and the integration of mechanisms that control glucagon secretion | Life Sciences |
| Denmark | University of Copenhagen | MANCINSKA Laura | QInteract – Quantum Information Processing with Interacting Parties | Physical Sciences and Engineering |
| Denmark | University of Copenhagen | MORALES VILLEGAS Hernan Eduardo | ERODE – Evolutionary dynamics of genomic erosion and its application in biodiversity conservation | Life Sciences |
| Denmark | University of Copenhagen | MORENO MAYAR Jose Victor | QUIDS – Tracing Indigenous American genomic history, subsistence strategies, health and their interplay through time using DNA from ancient masticated plant fibres | Life Sciences |
| Estonia | Tallinn University | RIPPA Alessandro | AMBER – Amber Worlds: A Geological Anthropology for the Anthropocene | Social Sciences and Humanities |
| Greece | National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Medical School | PALIKARAS Konstantinos | SynaptoMitophagy – Decoding mitochondrial selective autophagy in synaptic homeostasis during ageing | Life Sciences |
| Finland | University of Helsinki | FÄRKKILÄ Anniina | SPACE – Precision oncology of spatial immune escape mechanisms in ovarian cancer | Life Sciences |
| Finland | University of Helsinki | HELLE Emmi | FINNPEDHEART – Unraveling the etiology of congenital heart defects – The role of maternal genetics and cardiovascular disease as a risk factor | Life Sciences |
| Finland | University of Helsinki | MÄKELÄ Jarno Helsingin | TEMPADAPT – Single-molecule visualization of temperature adaptation in sub-cellular dynamics and organization across bacteria | Life Sciences |
| Ireland | University College Dublin | LACEY Joseph | ELECT – Moral Agency in Election Campaigns | Social Sciences and Humanities |
| Ireland | University College Dublin | QIU Fangzhe | FLEXI – Fluid texts and scholars’ digests: (re)production of law in medieval Ireland | Social Sciences and Humanities |
| Italy | Sapienza University of Rome | GIUNTA Simona | CentroFun – Sequence-structure-function: uncovering how genetic variation at human centromere drives cellular phenotypes | Life Sciences |
| Lithuania | Vilnius University | JONES Stephen | PROTEGE – Profile nucleases and Repurpose Off-Targets to Expand Gene Editing | Life Sciences |
| The Netherlands | University of Amsterdam | VAN VOORST Roanne | Health-AI – Human collaboration with AI agents in national health governance: organizational circumstances under which data analysts and medical experts follow or deviate from AI | Social Sciences and Humanities |
| Sweden | Stockholm University | GRÄTZ Michael | EQUALOPP – Liberal and Radical Equality of Opportunity | Social Sciences and Humanities |
| Sweden | Stockholm University | SIPPONEN Mika | CIRCULIG – Circular lignin materials from well-defined functional building blocks | Physical Sciences and Engineering |
| United Kingdom | University of Edinburgh | ALMEIDA Rafael | AxonicTransmission – Axonic neurotransmission in neural circuit formation and function | Life Sciences |
| United Kingdom | University of Edinburgh | BAUWENS Thomas | SCENSUS – Scaling the Societal Impact of Community Enterprises for Sustainability | Social Sciences and Humanities |
| United Kingdom | University of Edinburgh | MATTHEE Jorryt | AGENTS – Young galaxies as tracers and agents of cosmic reionization | Physical Sciences and Engineering |
| United Kingdom | University of Edinburgh | PAGE Jacob | MLTURB – A new understanding of turbulence via a machinelearnt dynamical systems theory | Physical Sciences and Engineering |
| United Kingdom | University of Edinburgh | RICHARDSON Annis | DynaLines – Drawing lines in a dynamic environment: delineating domains from base to tip in plants | Life Sciences |
| United Kingdom | University of Edinburgh | ROBLEDO Diego | FishTRIM – The evolution and function of fish TRIM E3 ubiquitin ligases | Life Sciences |
| United Kingdom | University of Edinburgh | VERGARI Antonio | UNREAL – A Unified Reasoning Layer for Trustworthy ML | Physical Sciences and Engineering |
| United Kingdom | King’s College London | KLEIN Steven | DERISK – Systemic Risk and the Transformation of Democracy | Social Sciences and Humanities |
| United Kingdom | King’s College London | KRAUSE Ben | PCMEA – Pointwise Convergence of Multiple Ergodic Averages | Physical Sciences and Engineering |
| United Kingdom | King’s College London | KRAVCHUK Petr | CFTSPEC – Spectra of Conformal Theories: From Trajectories, Colliders, and Numerics | Physical Sciences and Engineering |
| United Kingdom | King’s College London | MORENO-ALMEIDA Cristina | DigitalAlAndalus – Digital Al-Andalus: Radical Perspectives Of and Through Al-Andalus | Social Sciences and Humanities |
About the ERC
The ERC, set up by the European Union in 2007, is the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. It funds creative researchers of any nationality and age, to run projects based across Europe. The ERC offers four core grant schemes: Starting Grants, Consolidator Grants, Advanced Grants and Synergy Grants. Learn more
Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.