ERC awards a further €6.9 million to Portuguese research

The European Research Council (ERC) announced today, April 26, the results of Call Advanced Grants, with three Studentships awarded Studentships researchers from Portuguese institutions and two to Portuguese researchers working abroad. The three projects to be developed at national institutions received a total of €6.9 million in European funding, representing 1.1% of the total Call.

ERC Advanced Grants are intended for active Principal Investigators (PIs) who, over the last 10 years, have a track record of original research and relevant results. For Portugal, this is an excellent result, considering that in the last 8 Calls Advanced Grants, Portuguese research had only managed to have 8 projects approved in total, i.e., an average of 1 project per Call .

The selected projects cover scientific fields as diverse as astrophysics, gravitation, archaeology, and economics. The projects to be developed at Portuguese institutions are “Dispersals, resilience, and innovation in Late Pleistocene SE Africa,” led by Nuno Bicho (University of Algarve); "Finding ExoeaRths: tackling the ChallengEs of stellar activity," led by Nuno Santos (Center for Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Porto); and "Black holes: gravitational engines of discovery," led by Vítor Cardoso (Association of the Higher Technical Institute for Research and Development). The Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behavior at the University of Algarve, where Nuno Bicho is based, has thus registered three Studentships under Horizon Europe; in turn, both Nuno Santos and Vítor Cardoso had already received Studentships in previous editions and in other types of Call.

Among the projects of Portuguese researchers working abroad are a project in the field of economics, "The distributional consequences of inflation," led by Ricardo Reis (London School of Economics and Political Science), and another in the field of astrophysics, "The 3D motion of the interstellar Medium with ESO and ESA telescopes," led by João Alves (University of Vienna).

With these Studentships, Portuguese research has now secured around €30 million in ERC funding under Horizon Europe (2021-2027). In addition to the projects selected for Advanced Grants, it had already been announced that researchers from Portuguese institutions would be awarded 5 Starting Grants, 4 Proof of Concept Grants, and 5 Consolidator Grants.