European Research Council awards € 713 million to mid-career scientists

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded 372 top researchers with a Consolidator Grant, with a total funding of € 713 million. This funding will enable the scientists to consolidate their research teams and to develop their most innovative ideas. The average awarded grant is € 1.91 million, up to a maximum of € 2.75 million.

Projects selected include analysing the causes of harmful behaviour in teenagers, resolve puzzles about the nature of autism and dyslexia, and go beyond Einstein's theory to bring about a revolution in our understanding of gravity and the dark universe.

The ERC calls target top researchers of any nationality based in, or willing to move to Europe. Grants are awarded to researchers of 38 different nationalities, hosted in institutions located in 24 different countries throughout Europe, with 11 of them hosting five grantees or more. In terms of geographical location, the UK (86 grants), Germany (66) and France (53), Spain (32) and the Netherlands (32) are in the lead. Researchers are also based in Italy (16), Belgium (13), Israel (12), Denmark (9), Portugal (9), Sweden (9), Austria (6), Ireland (6), Hungary (5), the Czech Republic (4), Norway (4), Finland (3), Cyprus (1) and Greece (1).

In this call, there were 2,528 applicants all in all, compared with 3,673 in the first Consolidator Grant competition. This reduction is likely to be related to the stricter re-submission rules for applicants, introduced last year to avoid over-subscription in ERC calls.

Around 48% of grantees are in the domain 'Physical Sciences and Engineering', about 31% in 'Life Sciences' and almost 21% in 'Social Sciences and Humanities'. The division of the budget amongst these three domains was for the first time determined on the basis of the number of applicants, and not decided beforehand by the ERC Scientific Council. The average age of the selected researchers is 39.