Congratulations to the researchers from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico and Peru who have just been awarded an ERC Starting Grant.
They are part of the 408 early-career researchers who have been awarded European Research Council starting grants in this year’s call for proposals. The highly-coveted funding will help individual scientists and scholars to build their own teams and conduct pioneering research across all disciplines. The grants, worth in total €621 million, are part of the EU’ Research and Innovation programme, Horizon 2020.
Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, said: “To answer the most difficult challenges of our age, researchers need the freedom and conditions to follow their curiosity. This is what the EU provides via the European Research Council grants: an opportunity for outstanding scientists to pursue their most daring ideas.”
President of the European Research Council (ERC), Professor Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, commented: “Science breaks down borders. With researchers of 51 nationalities, the outcome of this call marks a record high in ERC competitions. It also reminds us that talent is everywhere to be found and it is essential that the EU keeps attracting and funding outstanding researchers from all over the world. It is with great pride that the ERC contributes to this challenge.”
The successful candidates’ research covers a diverse range of topics, including studying how forest foods could provide a solution to world hunger; assessing the intensity, frequency, and distribution of extreme sea levels in Europe; investigating how tech companies sell their products and seek consumers’ trust, or unraveling the survival skills of single cell organisms . See nine examples of the research selected for funding in Croatia, Finland, France, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and the UK.
Open to the World: 51 nationalities among winners of 2019 ERC Starting Grants
The results of this grant competition show a greater diversity of nationalities than ever before: researchers are from 51 different countries of origin across the world, from as far afield as Taiwan and Cuba. 20 researchers will move to Europe from outside the EU and associated countries to conduct new research. The ERC-funded research will be carried out in 24 countries, with institutions from Germany (73), the UK (64) and the Netherlands (53) to host the highest number of projects. Some 13% of applications were selected for funding this time.
These Starting Grants will help the selected scientists build their own research teams, creating an estimated 2,500 jobs for postdoctoral fellows, PhD students and other staff at the host institutions.
Source: ERC. Read more HERE.
ERC Starting Grants call 2020 open
The 2020 call to select the next Starting Grants awardees is open until 16 October 2019. It is open to all researchers of all nationalities, independently of where they are based at the time they submit their application.
More about the open call here.
Important information and documents:
- Starting Grants webpage: https://erc.europa.eu/funding/starting-grants
- Information for Applicants to the Sarting Grants 2020 Call
- Our Guide on the ERC and what's in it for Brazilian researchers: http://bit.ly/FocusERC
- The same ERC Guide, but for for LAC countries: http://bit.ly/FocusERC_LAC
- Read our interviews with ERC grantees from Brazil and other Latin American Countries
- Contact the ERC national contact point Prof. Moacyr MARTUCCI Jr here in Brazil and find the ERC National Contact Points in other LAC countries here.