Unipd: four researchers have won the European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants
10.01.2022
Four researchers, awarded with the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) 2021 Starting Grant supported by the European Commission within the framework of Horizon Europe, have chosen the University of Padua as their Host Institution, placing it at the first place in Italy for number of funded grants.
Since the start of the ERC Funding in 2007, the University of Padua has obtained funding for about 50 research projects. Researchers from the University are represented and have been awarded funding in all three ERC domains: Physical Sciences and Engineering, Life Sciences, and Social Sciences and Humanities. The new four Starting grant PIs, working in the areas of Physical Sciences and Engineering and Social Sciences and Humanities are: Luca Dell'Amico (researcher at the Department of Chemical Sciences) with the project entitled Synthetic Bimodal Photoredox Catalysis: Unlocking New Sustainable Light-Driven Reactivity; Ludovica Galeazzo (I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies), hosted at the Department of Cultural Heritage: Archaeology and History of Art, Cinema and Music) with the project Venice's Nissology. Reframing the Lagoon City as an Archipelago: A Model for Spatial and Temporal Urban Analysis (16th-21st centuries); Martha Giovanna Pamato (researcher and MSCA Fellow at the Department of Geosciences) with the project Diamonds as the key to unravel the origin of Earth's water; Silvia Benavides-Varela (researcher at the Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialisation and winner of a STARS@UNIPD grant in 2019) with the project Infant verbal Memory IN Development: a window for understanding language constraints and brain plasticity from birth.
Among Italian universities, the University of Padua ranks first in terms of funding provided.
A statement from Rector Daniela Mapelli of the University of Padua, “Excellent news for our University. Starting the 800th year in this way is truly refreshing. The four researchers awarded the ERC Starting Grants are restorative examples that allow me to take great pride and to, once more, boast upon the high level and quality of research that takes place at the University of Padua. In this unprecedented time as we continue to fight the pandemic, the importance of research is there for us all to witness. Precisely in the year in which we celebrate 800 years of our history, the achievements of women and men over these eight centuries continue to focus our attention towards the future. The results we see today are a new starting point as we move forward with no end in sight. Across three framework programmes we attained funding in each of the three areas provided for by the ERC call, yet another good sign. Embracing the interdisciplinary role of our institution is one of the greatest strengths of a university eager to grow, as is demonstrated by the increase in student enrollment. Compared to the previous year, the 2021-2022 academic year enrollment is up 6.4% with a total of 23,270 new students that include a high rate of internationalization, as 9.7% of newly enrolled students are foreigners.”
A comment from the Vice-Rector for Research at the University of Padua Prof. Fabio Zwirner, “The outcome we’ve witnessed from this prestigious competition is a source of great satisfaction for our University as we lead in the ranking of Italian Host Institutions with four funded projects. In recent years, the University implemented policies to encourage the independence of young researchers and stimulate their ability to plan and bring their work to fruition. The profiles of the four winners highlight the thematic breadth of the research conducted in our University and its characteristics of inclusiveness and international openness.”
397 early-career researchers won European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants. Following the first call for proposals under the EU’s new R&I programme, Horizon Europe, €619 million will be invested in excellent projects dreamed up by scientists and scholars. Grants worth on average €1.5 million will help ambitious younger researchers launch their own projects, form their teams and pursue their best ideas. The selected proposals cover all disciplines of research, from the medical applications of artificial intelligence, to the science of controlling matter by using light, to designing a legal regime for fair influencer marketing. Female researchers won some 43% of grants, an increase from 37% in 2020 and the highest share to date.
The laureates of this grant competition proposed to carry out their projects at universities and research centres in 22 EU and associated countries, mostly in Germany (72 projects), France (53), the UK (46) and the Netherlands (44). There are nationals of 45 countries among the winners of this call, notably Germans (67 researchers), Italians (58), French (44) and Dutch (27). Thirteen researchers who were previously based in the US will move to Europe as a result of this funding. This call for proposals attracted over 4,000 proposals, which were reviewed by panels of renowned researchers from around the world. The grants will create more than 2,000 jobs for postdoctoral fellows, PhD students, and other staff at the host institutions.
