The ERC 2022 Synergy Grants include Principal Investigators of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), the University of Lausanne and the University of Neuchâtel.
On 25 October 2022, the European Research Council (ERC) published the results of the ERC Synergy Grants 2022 Call under Horizon Europe. About 360 proposals were submitted for this first ERC Synergy Grant Call under the current framework programme. Overall, the ERC awarded out of 360 proposals, 29 research groups, involving 105 principal investigators of universities and research centres in 19 countries across Europe and beyond.
Maria Leptin, President of the ERC, highlighted that these Synergy Grants “help to tap into international talent both in Europe and around the world.”
The overall funding of this ERC Synergy Grant Call is a total of €295 million, while research groups received grants of around €10 million each. The research teams of the Synergy Grants are composed of two to four outstanding researchers with complementary skills, knowledge and resources to deal with challenging multidisciplinary research problems. The grants will support the creation of 1’000 jobs for postdoctoral fellows, PhD students, and other staff, who will participate in the research teams.
The released statistics show that most frequent locations in the Member States and Associated Countries, where these top researchers will conduct their research, are Germany (23 principal investigators in 14 projects), France (22 principal investigators in 15 projects), Israel (7 principal investigators in 4 projects), and Austria (5 principal investigators in 4 projects). A total of sixteen principal investigators will be based outside of the Member States and Associated Countries, namely, the USA (6 principal investigators in 6 projects), the UK (6 principal investigators in 5 projects), Switzerland (3 principal investigators in 3 projects), and Australia (1 principal investigator in 1 project).
From Switzerland, Julia Steinberger, professor of ecological economics at the University of Lausanne, is contributing to the project `REAL: A Post Growth Deal’ with two principal investigators of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain), namely, Prof. Kallis Giorgos, and Prof. Jason Hickel. The project aims to analyse new pathways for a so called “post growth” era, in which universal human wellbeing is accomplished within planetary boundaries, ensuring that future populations have access to necessities (e.g. energy, food, shelter, health and social security), removing the dependence on economic growth.
Moreover, Philippe Renard of the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland), Marco Dentz of IDAEA-CSIC (Spain), Benoit Noetinger of IFPEN (France), and Bojan Mohar of the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) have been selected for the research project KARST. With the ERC Synergy Grant, they will combine their skills to unravel the physical laws that govern water flow and pollutant transport in underground cave systems (karst aquifers). Karst aquifers are both a treasure and a threat. While up to 25% of the world population depends on them for water supply, they also have capabilities for extremely fast conduction of water and contaminants, which can lead to floods and pollution of freshwater resources. To be able to predict such events, the KARST team will explore and characterise the structure of underground cave networks and compare it to water flow and pollutant transport. This new knowledge will enable the research team to assess the impact of extreme events such as droughts and floods that are expected to occur more frequently due to climate change, but also the fascinating dynamics that lead to the genesis of karst formations.
Lastly, Prof. Ban Nenad of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich) will participate together with Prof. Tans Sander of the Dutch Research Council and Prof. Bukau Bernd of the University of Heidelberg in the project `CoTransComplex: Mechanisms of co-translational assembly of multi-protein complexes’. Elucidating how large and transient co-translational formations produce protein complexes throughout the genome is a challenge that cannot be addressed by a single discipline. Thus, the project partners propose a unique merging of cutting-edge approaches. This ambitious program will provide insight into unprecedented detail and scope, spanning from the cellular to the atomic level, from in vivo to in vitro, from genome-wide patterns to molecular mechanisms, and from bacteria to human cells. It will impact a vast spectrum of protein complexes, reveal unknown layers of control in protein biogenesis, with implications for ribosome quality control, artificial protein design, and mechanisms of disease.
Currently, Switzerland is considered a non-associated third country in Horizon Europe. Researchers from Switzerland can still participate in the ERC Synergy Grants, but are no longer eligible for participation in mono-beneficiary instruments, including the individual grants of the ERC. However, the Swiss government remains committed to its goal of a full association to Horizon Europe and related programmes and initiatives for the period 2021-2027 as soon as possible.
Finally, on 27 October 2022, the ERC announced two newly elected Vice Presidents – Professors Eystein Jansen and Jesper Svejstrup – who will take up duties on 1 January 2023. The ERC is chaired by the ERC President, Professor Maria Leptin, and has three Vice Presidents, who are equally the Vice Chairs of the ERC Scientific Council and represent the three ERC domains. Prof. Jansen will be responsible for the Physical Sciences and Engineering domain, and Prof. Svejstrup for the Life Sciences domain. Professor Eveline Crone, the current Vice President for the Social sciences and Humanities domain, will continue her mandate.