25 advanced grants <\/a>representing almost a third of 80 grants awarded for these disciplines.<\/p>\nThat success pushed the UK ahead of Germany, which overtook the UK for grant winners after the 2016 Brexit vote and, subsequently, during Britain\u2019s two-year absence from Horizon Europe.<\/p>\n
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UK researchers were still encouraged to apply for the ERC during this period, with the Westminster government providing funding for successful projects via the Horizon Europe guarantee. Success levels nonetheless dipped dramatically, leading research funders to invest significant sums in encouraging applications.<\/p>\n
Last year, Germany won 50 advanced grants compared with 42 from the UK, and 37 went to France, which won only 23 grants this year.<\/p>\n
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The ERC\u2019s advanced grants, each worth up to \u20ac2.5 million over five years,\u00a0form one of Europe\u2019s most competitive funding pots, with\u00a0only 11 per cent of applicants awarded money. Overall, some 2,534 applied to the 2024 funding round, with German (45), Italian (37) and British (26) researchers winning the most.<\/p>\n
Of the 281 projects funded, 118 were in physical sciences and engineering, 83 in life sciences and 80 in social sciences and humanities.<\/p>\n
Ekaterina Zaharieva, commissioner for startups, research, and innovation, said the ERC grants indicated a \u201ccommitment to making Europe the world\u2019s hub for excellent research\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy supporting projects that have the potential to redefine whole fields, we are not just investing in science but in the future prosperity and resilience of our continent,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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Next year\u2019s round will also include additional funding to attract US researchers, continued Zaharieva, noting how \u201cscientists moving to Europe will receive even greater support in setting up their labs and research teams here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is part of our \u2018Choose Europe for Science\u2019 initiative, designed to attract and retain the world\u2019s top scientists,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s funding announcement also drew attention to Switzerland\u2019s absence from the 2024 funding round, with Brussels and the Swiss government yet to sign an agreement about Horizon Europe membership. Similar to the UK in previous years, successful Switzerland-based researchers (20 won ERC grants this year) will need to move to an institution eligible for EU funding or will need to contact their government to secure alternative funding.<\/p>\n
jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK has returned to the top spot for European Research Council (ERC) advanced grants, with British institutions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-191546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114698480859289200","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}