The European Research Council (ERC) awarded 30.6 million euros to 13 research projects in spanish centers through the call Advanced Grant 2021. Spain is the fifth EU country in terms of number of funded projects.
This call is addressed to excellent projects led by scientists with an excellent track record of research accomplishments. In total, it will finance 253 projects from 21 EU Member States and associated countries. The budget allocation is EUR 624.6 million.
The Advanced Grant 2021 received 1,735 proposals and the total call success rate was 14.6%. The researchers presented 20.8% of the total requests.
In the Spanish case, nine of the 13 projects awarded will be led by women, representing almost 70% of them. Scientists who received one of these scholarships in Spain work in the fields of economics, politics, humanities, physics and new energy sources.
UK in limbo with Brexit
The statistics and the final list of those selected are provisional. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom provides for the possibility of associating this country to the current EU research and innovation funding program, known as Horizon Europe, subject to the adoption of a Protocol. Since it has not been adopted so far, the UK is still considered not associated with Horizon Europe.
Proposals selected from applicants based in a country in the process of joining Horizon Europe will only be eligible for funding if the relevant partnership agreement is in place at the time of signature of the grant agreement. However, successful applicants from UK host institutions can still receive funding provided they transfer to a host institution in an eligible country.
Selected Spanish investigations
Alberto Martin. MACROTRENDS_FINANCE: Macroeconomic trends and efficiency of financial markets. Center for Research in International Economics.
Martha Reynolds. ORIG_STATE: Colonization, Preliminary Institutions and Origin of State Capacity and Democratization. Pompeu Fabra University.
Tess Knightson. SOUNDSPACE: How processions moved: sound and space in urban ritual performance, c.1400–c.1700. Autonomous University of Barcelona.
Leonor Peña-Chocarro. MEDAPP: Medieval Appetites: food plants in the multicultural Iberian Peninsula (500-1100 AD). Superior Council for Scientific Investigations.
Karen Hardy. Powerful plants. The power of plants as food, medicine and raw material before agriculture. Autonomous University of Barcelona.
Leslea Hlusko. Tied2Teeth: Expanding our understanding of human evolution through pleiotropy. National Center for Research in Human Evolution.
Alberto Esteve. COSIDENCY: Intergenerational Co-residence in Global Perspective: Dimensions of Change. Pompeu Fabra University.
Jordan Sort. REMEMBER: Voltage Resettable Magnetic Invisibility: A new data security concept based on engineered magnetoelectric materials. Autonomous University of Barcelona.
Juan Collaa. ESSCEvNS: Beyond the standard model: coherent scattering of neutrinos in the European spallation source. Foundation of the International Physics Center of Donostia (DIPC).
Marisol Martin Gonzalez. POWERbyU: Powering wearable devices by human heat with highly efficient, flexible and bio-inspired generators. Superior Council for Scientific Investigations.
Blessed Guilhermina Lopez. SPONTSENSE: Patterns of Spontaneous Activity in the Assembly and Rewiring of Functional Sensory Circuits. Superior Council for Scientific Investigations.
Anna Traveset. IslandLife: Determinants of Island Ecological Complexity in the Context of Global Change. Superior Council for Scientific Investigations.
Sea of ​​Alba. NovoGenePop: Deciphering the birth of de novo genes in populations. Fundació Institut Hospital del Mar d’Investigacions Mèdiques.