European Research Council to support 5 more Portuguese projects

Computer with the ERC logo on the screen

Research projects on eating behaviors, Parkinson’s disease, nanoparticles, social networks and recycling are receiving a further 2.1 million euros from the European Research Council (ERC) for Portugal. In total, the ERC will support five more projects developed by researchers from the Champalimaud Foundation, UCIBIO – NOVA FCT, ITQB/NOVA, Instituto de Ciências Sociais/ULisboa and CICECO/Universidade de Aveiro.

With these results, research carried out in institutions of the National Science and Technology System (SNCT) has reached the mark of 85 million euros and 56 projects coordinated at the ERC’s Calls since the start of Horizon Europe (2021), the framework program for European funding of research and innovation for the period 2021-2027.

Today, January 18, 2024, the three Portuguese-led projects selected for the Call ERC Proof of Concept 2023, which aims to finance the commercial and societal exploitation of projects previously funded by the ERC, were announced. Another Portuguese-led project, which had been on the reserve list, was recently approved. The funding for these projects is 150,000 euros each.

The new winners of the 2023 ERC Proof of Concept to carry out research in Portugal are:

  • Albino Oliveira Maia, Champalimaud Foundation, with the FoodConnect project, “Modulating feeding behavior in obesity: from brain lesions to non-invasive brain simulation targets“;
  • Ana Cecília Roque, UCIBIO – NOVA FCT, with the UNMASK project, “Unraveling Parkinson’s disease diagnosis”;
  • Cristina Silva Pereira, ITQB/NOVA, with the SNAIL project, “High performance hydrophobic suberin nanoparticles for the generation of liquid-air biphasic droplets with application in food and therapeutics”;
  • Marina Costa Lobo, Instituto de Ciências Sociais/ULisboa, with the PolarScopEU project, “Mapping and Matching Content Diversity and Bias in EU Online Social Networks“

Reference should also be made to the recent approval of a project on the reserve list of the Call Starting Grant 2023, worth 1.5 million euros, by researcher Nicolas Schaeffer, CICECO/University of Aveiro. Entitled “Hydrophobic Eutectic Solvents for Tailored Metal Separation and Recycling” (DESignSX), it promotes sustainable metal separation processes with possible impacts on the metallurgical industry.

 

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