Eight new ERC Consolidator Studentships for researchers in Portugal

TheEuropean Research Council (ERC) has awarded eight Consolidator Grants to researchers carrying out research at FCT Units. This was the result for Portugal in the 2017 edition of the Call these prestigious European Union Studentships , aimed at researchers with between 7 and 12 years of post-doctoral experience. The eight Studentships correspond to a total of €16,208.28M, which translates into a significant financial investment in Portuguese research.

The researchers and projects awarded these Studentships are:

Manuela Gomes, from 3Bs at the University of Minho, with the MagTendon project, centered on magnetically assisted tissue engineering technologies for tendon regeneration;

Mariana Pinho, from the António Xavier Institute of Chemical and Biological Technology (ITQB) at NOVA University Lisbon, who applied for the ChronosAntibiotics project, which aims to understand the cell cycle of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and find tools to combat this resistance;

Luísa Figueiredo, from the Institute of Molecular Medicine (iMM) at the University of Lisbon, who intends to investigate African trypanosomes and the implications of this parasite in the development of human trypanosomiasis with the FatTryp project;

Joseph Paton, a researcher at the Champalimaud Foundation, who submitted the Dycocirc project, the aim of which is to study the circuit of basal ganglia mechanisms underlying dynamic cognitive behavior;

Susana Lima, from the Champalimaud Foundation, will develop the YinYang project, in which she will investigate the relationship between the circuits of the hypothalamus and defensive and reproductive behavior in females;

Michael Orger, from the Champalimaud Foundation, who in the Neurofish project will observe the brain circuits that control visual and motor behavior;

Luís Teixeira, from the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC), who intends to carry out the Wolbakian project, which involves studying the functional genetics of the proliferation of the Wolbachia bacterium;

Ana Domingos, from the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, who studies the sympathetic and immunological mechanisms at the root of obesity in her project SympatimmunObesity. 

In this Call Consolidator Grants, the ERC distinguished 329 projects out of 2,538 applications received, which amounted to a total of €600 million in funding for scientific research in Europe.

These ERC Studentships for Portuguese research come on top of the results of this year's Starting Grants Call , Studentships for researchers with 2 to 7 years of post-PhD experience, which were announced in September, with the award of another eight Studentships to researchers developing projects in Portugal. By the end of the year, the results of the ERC's Call for Advanced Grants, aimed at senior researchers who are internationally established in their area of research, will also be known.