Erc starting grant 2024: the University of Padua is the first among state universities

05.09.2024

The European Research Council today announced the winners of its Starting Grants 2024 call. The funding, worth a total of around €780 million, will go to 494 excellent researchers across Europe. The ERC, established by the European Union in 2007, is Europe’s leading funding organisation supporting frontier research.

The University of Padua is in first place in Italy for the number of Starting Grants projects won, thus confirming its position among the most prestigious national universities.

Five researchers (Principal Investigators) have obtained funding by choosing the University of Padua as the location to carry out their highly ambitious and innovative research activity. This is an unprecedented result, which demonstrates the ability of the University of Padua to train and attract young researchers capable of proposing revolutionary projects in the field of basic science and of competing successfully at a European level.

The University of Padua, with five projects, stands out at the top of the ranking of Italian institutions, while Bocconi, Sapienza, Federico II, National Research Council, Polytechnic of Milan, each follow with 3 projects. The result obtained confirms the international scope of the University and the strongly positive trend achieved in the seven-year period 2021-2027, the reference of the Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Program, in which the ERC calls are included.

"The extraordinary, unprecedented result achieved in the awarding of the Starting Grants rewards the university for its investments in research and in the recruitment of young female and male researchers," says Daniela Mapelli, Rector of the University of Padua. "The fact that, once again, scholars are choosing the University of Padua to conduct their research funded by the European Union highlights the attractiveness of our university, while also confirming the high quality of research activities that are essential for imagining and building a better future for everyone. I extend my congratulations, on behalf of myself and the entire university, to Giacomo Pozzi, Alessio Malfanti, Camilla Sguotti, Filippo Pisano, and Claudia Gasparrini."

"It is our best result so far, and it is the outcome of the university's multi-year commitment, which, even through local programmes like STARS@UNIPD, works to create a pool of young researchers who are highly competitive on the international stage, particularly in the ERC selections," adds Fabio Zwirner, Pro-Rector for Research at the University.

The research areas covered by ERC funding are Physical Sciences and Engineering and Life Sciences.

The University program STARS@UNIPD is aimed precisely at researchers aiming for an ERC application. Since 2017, it has supported the most innovative research ideas of young PIs and allows them to gain experience in managing teams and projects. The fact that one of the PI ERC Starting Grant winners of the 2024 call, Dr. Alessio Malfanti, has been awarded a STARS@UNIPD grant once again attests to the effectiveness of the initiative not only as a tool to promote awareness of the ERC call, but also as an opportunity to enhance young talents towards a profitable development of their research career.