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The European Research Council (ERC) announced on Thursday the names of 478 early-career researchers who will receive a Starting Grant. Six projects will be carried out in Poland.
The researchers will receive around EUR 1.5 million each to launch their own projects, build research teams, and develop their ideas over a 5-year period.
The Polish projects address issues such as: flood adaptation, battery recycling, mechanisms of PTSD at the neuronal level, novel microscopy methods, shadows cast by mathematical objects, and research related to the Large Hadron Collider.
Starting Grants are available to researchers 2 to 7 years after earning their PhD, for projects lasting up to 5 years. The grants are awarded to the most promising early-career scientists in Europe for implementing high-risk but potentially groundbreaking research projects across all scientific disciplines. Grantees have full freedom to define their research agenda and assemble their teams.
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The announced grantees will carry out their projects at universities and research centers in 25 countries. A record-high number – 99 projects – will be hosted in Germany. Six researchers have chosen to implement their grants in Poland, while several others of Polish nationality will carry out their projects abroad.
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Dr Dominik Paprotny (University of Szczecin) will develop a dynamic model of societal response to flooding, aiming to better assess the effectiveness of available adaptation strategies. By incorporating future climate and socioeconomic projections, he plans to estimate flood losses up to the year 2100 under various scenarios.
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Dr hab. Anna Siekierka, Professor at Wrocław University of Science and Technology, will work on battery recycling, specifically developing methods to separate valuable raw materials from the solution produced after the hydrometallurgical processing of used batteries. Such solutions contain a mix of critical ions, including lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, copper, and iron.
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Dr Mykhailo Batiuk (Łukasiewicz Research Network – PORT) will investigate how PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) affects the brain at the single-cell level. The aim is to identify affected brain cell types and specific epigenetic switches, potentially leading to new PTSD therapies. The project includes the development of a new, more precise animal model of PTSD.
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Dr Damian Dąbrowski (Institute of Mathematics, Polish Academy of Sciences) will study the relationship between the size of projections (i.e., shadows) and the structure or size of the objects being projected, particularly in the context of non-traditional objects, such as fractals, which are not limited to two or three dimensions.
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Dr Wojciech Krauze (Faculty of Mechatronics, Warsaw University of Technology) aims to develop the world’s first microscopy method enabling non-invasive measurement of the 3D refractive index distribution in living tissues.
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Dr Rene Poncelet (Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences) will carry out research related to the Large Hadron Collider. His STAPLE project aims to create a new, highly precise computer simulation of particle collisions.
As for ERC grants awarded to researchers affiliated with Swiss institutions, their status remains uncertain. Switzerland must complete its association process with the Horizon Europe programme in order to co-finance the grants. If this is not finalized in time, grantees based in Switzerland will need to find host institutions within the EU.
The European Research Council (ERC) was established by the European Union in 2007 and is Europe’s premier funding organization for excellent frontier research. It offers four main types of grants: Starting Grants, Consolidator Grants, Advanced Grants, and Synergy Grants, along with Proof of Concept funding.
Source: PAP
