Portugal has a total of 14 European projects funded by Call Advanced Grant Call

On June 17, theEuropean Research Council (ERC ) announced the 281 projects selected in Call ERC Advanced Grant 2024 Call , which aims to fund leading researchers with extensive experience in their scientific fields. This list includes three projects by researchers conducting their research in Portugal, with funding amounting to €7.5 million (€2.5 million per project). Portugal now hosts a total of 14 projects of this type from the ERC, relating to the four editions of Calls Advanced Grant Calls under Horizon Europe (2021), the European framework program for research and innovation funding for the period 2021-2027. In the previous framework program, Horizon 2020 (2014-2020), and in the seven editions of this Call, Portugal hosted nine projects, so there has already been a significant increase in the number of research projects funded in the current framework program.

The winners of the 2024 Advanced Grant to conduct research in Portugal are:

• Megan Carey, Champalimaud Foundation, with the SCULPTABELLUM project “Sculpting cerebellar activity across timescales";
• Miguel Ferreira, NOVA SBE, with the FINANCEforALL project , “Financial Education in the Workplace: Combining Experimental Evidence with Administrative Data”;
• Mónica Sousa, I3S, with the CORDheal project,“The roadmap enabling spinal cord regeneration in mammals.”

For Megan Carey, this is already the third project funded under the ERC (after Starting Grant in 2014 and Consolidator Grant in 2019); Miguel Ferreira has his second project funded (after Starting Grant in 2012). As for Mónica Sousa, in addition to this being her first ERC project, and at its most advanced level, it is worth noting that she was supported in preparing her application by the Annual College of Reviewers of the recent FCT program, ERC-Portugal, in particular its core program, ERC-PT Pre-Assessment. Click here for more information about this program.

With these results, research carried out at institutions belonging to the National Science and Technology System (SNCT) will reach the milestone of €117 million in funding through Calls since the start of Horizon Europe.

Results of the Portuguese Diaspora

Two projects led by Portuguese researchers working abroad are also worthy of note, with total funding of €5.1 million:

• Ana Domingos, University of Oxford, with the SympNetO project, “Sympathetic Neural Networks protecting against Obesity," which will begin after the completion of the ERC project in the Consolidator Grant category, also on the topic of obesity.
• Paulo de Assis, Orpheus Institute, with the PosthumanMusic project,“Posthuman Music: Creative Practices after AI and Blockchain,” having also previously been funded by the ERC under the ERC Starting Grant category, in a project that ran from 2013 to 2018.

The FCT coordinates national representation and participation in the European Research Council and, as announced at the 1st ERC Portugal Meeting, has been implementing a set of programs whose integrated architecture covers the various cycles of national participation in Calls . Of particular note are ERC-PT , ERC-PT , and ERC-PT .