Six AU researchers receive major grants from the European Research Council
The European Research Council has awarded its annual ERC Starting Grants, which give early-career re-searchers in Europe the opportunity to develop their projects and establish their own research groups. Six of the recipients are researchers at Aarhus University.
Six researchers at AU can look forward to a significant financial boost. Each of them has received around DKK 11 million from the European Research Council (ERC), which has just awarded the prestigious ERC Starting Grants.
The European Research Council (ERC) awards grants each year to promising early-career researchers, allowing them to tackle ‘complex scientific challenges’ as well as recruit their own research team and gain experience as research leaders.
Twice as many researchers at AU have received a grant this year compared to last year.
Three researchers from AU receive prestigious million-dollar grants from the European Research Council (in Danish).
The researchers are Jens Emil Grønbæk, tenure-track Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science, Jan P. Vogler, Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, Chao Sun, Associate Professor at the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics and Group Leader at The Danish Research Institute of Translational Neuroscience (DANDRITE), Fiona Müllner, Associate Professor and Group Leader at DANDRITE, Blake Hallinan, Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication and Culture, and Thiago Rodrigues De Oliveira at the Department of Biology.
Half of the group leaders at the AU-Center have received Starting Grants.
The last three researchers applied for the grant while employed at other institutions, but are now at AU, where they will receive the funding. In total, the European Research Council has awarded Starting Grants to ten researchers at Danish universities. As is the case at AU, other Danish universities may also have employed researchers who have received a Starting Grant since applications first became possible.
Two AU researchers from DANDRITE receiving grants means that half of the center’s group leaders have now been awarded ERC Starting Grants, notes center director Poul Henning Jensen in a DANDRITE news release. The other recipients from the center are Taro Kitazawa, Sadegh Nabavi and Keisuke Yonehara.
“With five ERC Starting Grants among ten group leaders from our first two cohorts, DANDRITE has achieved an exceptional success rate for a research center,” the director says.
This year, ERC received 3,889 applications for a Starting Grant from researchers across Europe. In total, 471 research projects have been awarded a grant, corresponding to a success rate of 12%.
This text is machine translated and post-edited by Lisa Enevoldsen.