Six scientists working in Catalonia receive prestigious ERC Advanced Grants
In the life sciences, Eduard Batlle of IRB Barcelona will receive €2.5 millions in funding to continue with colorectal cancer research.
By Biocat
Catalonia is once again, as in the five previous calls, the region of Spain to receive the most Advanced Grants from the European Research Council (ERC), 6 of 13.
In total, the ERC evaluated 2,408 projects submitted by senior researchers, 4.5% more than last year, only 284 of which have been selected for these prestigious grants that reward basic research on the frontiers of science with a maximum of €3.5 millions over five years. By field, 45.1% of the selected projects are from the physical sciences and engineering; 36.6% from the life sciences; and 18.3% from the social sciences and humanities.
The selected researchers from Catalonia are:
In the life sciences, Dr. Eduard Batlle, coordinator of the Oncology Program and the Colorectal Cancer Laboratory at IRB Barcelona, will receive €2.5 millions to continue researching cells that trigger colon tumors.
In the physical sciences and engineering, Dr. Maciej Lewenstein of the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) has received the grant for the second time. And in the social sciences and humanities, the recipients in Catalonia are Dr. Jan Eeckhout and Dr. Paul Verschure of Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), Jordi Galí of the Center for Research in International Economics (CREI) and José Remesal of the University of Barcelona (UB).
The research of excellence carried out in many Catalan centers and universities puts the region tenth on the ranking of 18, behind the United Kingdom (65), Germany (41), France (35), the Netherlands (29), Switzerland (26), Italy (19), Israel (17) and Belgium (9).
Since 2008, according to the Research Observatory, 1,666 ERC Advanced Grants have been awarded for a total of €3,642 millions. Spain has received funding for 83 projects (5% of the total), 43 of which have been in Catalonia (2.6% of the total).
The budget for this call is €660 millions, down 3% from 2012. European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science Máire Geoghegan-Quinn confirmed that "the ERC budget will receive a major funding boost under Horizon 2020".