European Research Council approves five Portuguese applications

The European Research Council will be offering grants in the amount of around 8.3 million euros to five scientific research projects carried out in Portuguese R&D institutions. 

These grants are given under the ERC Starting Grants, which is part of the Horizon Europe 2021-2027, with an average funding of 1.5 million euros per grant. They are intended for researchers at the start of their career so they can set up research teams and carry out projects in all fields of knowledge. 

In Portugal the grants will be offered to: 

I. Manuel Souto, CICECO- Materials Institute of Aveiro University, chemistry and materials

II. Sérgio Rosa Domingos, Physics Department of the Coimbra University School of Science and Technology, chemistry-physics and molecular machinery

III. Susana Soares, LAQV/REQUIMTE of Porto University, food biotech

IV. Yonatan Gez, ISCTE International Studies Centre– Lisbon University Institute, development social anthropology focusing on East Africa

V. Vera Aldeias, Interdisciplinary Centre for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behaviour at Algarve University, study of the human past and archaeology.

The ERC Starting Grant competitions started in 2007 and around half a hundred grants have been offered to Portugal.

In this year’s edition, Portugal hit a new record concerning the number of applications submitted, increasing around 56% on the number of applications in 2020.