EU awards €507 million to top researchers to pursue innovative projects

The Commission announced today the winners of the 2020 Advanced Grants competition of the European Research Council (ERC). The funding, worth €507 million from Horizon 2020, will go to 209 leading researchers across Europe. Their work is set to provide new insights into various subjects, such as the links between obesity and pancreatic cancer, threats from wildlife viruses, brain-inspired neural networks computer chips, and new ways for architects to design the buildings of the future. In addition to strengthening Europe’s knowledge base, the new research projects will lead to the creation of some 1,900 new jobs for post-doctoral fellows, PhD students and other research staff. More than 2,600 applicants submitted their proposals to this call, while female researchers submitted 22% of proposals and 23% of grants were awarded to women. The share of women among researchers awarded Advanced Grants has been steadily increasing from around 10% in 2014 to more than 22% in 2020. Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said: “The awarding of more than 200 ERC Advanced Grants in key scientific areas will help boost our scientific research and innovation capacity, for the benefit of all EU citizens. We will be able to continue and reinforce investments with the forthcoming Horizon Europe ERC work programmes. I am also pleased to see more women applying for these prestigious grants and winning them.”  The selected researchers will work across three research domains, namely physical sciences and engineering, life sciences and social sciences and humanities. The list of selected researchers is available here. More information is available in this ERC press release.