European Research Council to fund three more projects led by Portuguese researchers

The European Research Council (ERC) announced today, April 11, the projects selected in Call ERC Advanced Grant 2023 Call , which aims to fund scientific projects in all scientific fields led by researchers with recognized expertise in their areas. A total of 255 projects were selected, totaling €652 million.

The INELASTIC project – “Linking the scales towards non-conventional polymer composite structures”, led by Pedro Camanho (LAETA/INEGI/U.Porto), has obtained €3.5 million in funding from the ERC. This mechanical engineering research project aims, among other things, to impact the decarbonization of the aerospace sector by creating knowledge that will lead to the discovery of new unconventional composite materials.

With this result, research carried out at institutions belonging to the National Science and Technology System (SNCT) has reached a total of €88.5 million and 57 projects coordinated in Calls since the start of Horizon Europe (2021), the European framework program for research and innovation funding for the period 2021-2027.

Of the 255 projects selected in theERC Advanced Grant 2023 Call , two projects from the scientific diaspora also stand out :

• Nuno Maulide, University of Vienna, with the C-HANCE project – “Carbon-Hydrogen bond activation via a new charge control approach”, which aims to revolutionize the way organic chemists view the C-H bond, omnipresent in the fields of biology and chemistry, with a widespread impact on the transformation of compounds and their synthesis methods;
• Paula Mendes, University of Birmingham, with the GLYCANREAD project – “New frontiers in glycan recognition and detection,” which has the capacity to cross various fields such as biotechnology, chemistry, and materials to obtain new biosensors, with an impact on diagnostic and therapeutic approaches.

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