Portugal totals 14 European projects funded by ERC Advanced Grant Call

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

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

• Megan Carey, Champalimaud Foundation, with the SCULPTABELLUM project "Sculping cerebellar activity across timescales";
• Miguel Ferreira, NOVA SBE, with the project FINANCEforALL, "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 her third ERC-funded project (after Starting Grant in 2014 and Consolidator Grant in 2019); Miguel Ferreira has his second funded project (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 highlighting the fact that she was supported in preparing her application by the Annual College of Reviewers of the recent FCT program, ERC-Portugal, in particular its axis program, ERC-PT Pre-Assessment. See here for more information on this program.

With these results, research carried out in institutions of the National Science and Technology System (SNCT) will reach the mark of 117 million euros in funding through ERC Calls since the start of Horizon Europe.

Results from the Portuguese Diaspora

Also noteworthy are two projects led by Portuguese researchers working abroad, totaling 5.1 million euros in funding:

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

FCT coordinates national representation and participation in the European Research Council and, as reported at the 1st ERC Portugal Meeting, has been implementing a set of programs whose integrated architecture covers the various cycles of national participation in ERC Calls . These include ERC-PT Pre-Assessment, ERC-PT A-Projects and ERC-PT Careers.