ERC allocates another 6.9 M€ to Portuguese research

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

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

The selected projects come from scientific areas as diverse as astrophysics, gravitation, archaeology and economics. The projects that will be developed in Portuguese institutions are "Dispersals, resilience, and innovation in Late Pleistocene SE Africa", led by Nuno Bicho (University of the Algarve); "Finding ExoeaRths: tackling the Challenges of stellar activity", led by Nuno Santos (Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Center of the University of Porto); and "Black holes: gravitational engines of discovery", led by Vítor Cardoso (Instituto Superior Técnico Association for Research and Development). The Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and the Evolution of Human Behavior at the University of the Algarve, where Nuno Bicho is based, has now been awarded 3 ERC Studentships under Horizon Europe; in turn, both Nuno Santos and Vítor Cardoso had already received ERC Studentships in previous editions and under other Call modalities.

Projects by Portuguese researchers working abroad include one 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 now has around 30 million euros in ERC funding under Horizon Europe (2021-2027). In addition to the projects selected for the Advanced Grants, the award of 5 Starting Grants, 4 Proof of Concept Grants and 5 Consolidator Grants to researchers from Portuguese institutions had already been announced.