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ERC Advanced Grant Funding Reaches the Milestone of 16 Portuguese Projects

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    ERC Portugal FCT Funding ERC Portugal Program

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A laptop on a table, with hands typing on the keyboard. The ERC logo appears in the center of the screen, consisting of the letters “erc” on a circular pattern of dots. The image features a red-and-blue color gradient.

On June 23, the European Research Council (ERC) announced the 319 projects selected in the 2025 ERC Advanced Grant call, totaling 838 million euros. In this round, national funding amounted to 5 million euros (2.5 million euros per project), allocated to two projects led by leading researchers with extensive experience in their scientific fields who are currently conducting their research in Portugal.

There are now a total of 16 projects hosted in Portugal under this ERC category, covering the five rounds of Calls Advanced Grant Calls under Horizon Europe (2021), the European framework program for research and innovation funding for the period 2021–2027. Under the previous framework program, Horizon 2020 (2014–2020), and across the seven rounds of that call, Portugal hosted nine projects; thus, there has been a significant increase in the number of funded research projects under the current Horizon Europe program.

The 2025 Advanced Grant recipients who will be conducting research in Portugal are:

  • Miguel Soares, GIMM Foundation – Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine, with the KILLBILL project “A metabolism-based defense strategy against malaria”;
  • Bruno Romeira, International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory, with the LightSensorAI project, “Brain-inspired Light Sensory AI Computing Using Nanophotonic Sensory Spiking 3D Neuron Chips.”

For Miguel Soares, this is his second Advanced Grant project; he received his first in the 2011 call for proposals. As for Bruno Romeira, this is his first ERC project, and it is worth noting that it was supported by the FCT’s recent ERC-Portugal program, specifically its flagship program, ERC-PT . Thus, 50% of the applications now approved bear the “fingerprint” of ERC-Portugal.

With these results, research conducted at institutions within the National Science and Technology System (SNCT) will reach the milestone of 149 million euros in funding through Calls since the start of Horizon Europe.

The FCT coordinates Portugal’s representation and participation in the European Research Council and has been implementing a series of programs whose integrated framework covers the various stages of national participation in Calls . Notable among these are the ERC-PT , ERC-PT , and ERC-PT .

Published on June 23, 2026