Ten ERC Advanced Grants for Max Planck scientists

Fifty applications for funding successful in Seventh EU Framework Programme

The European Research Council (ERC) has published the names of the successful applicants for Advanced Grants in the sixth and final round of the Seventh Framework Programme. A total of 284 grants were approved, with funding of up to €3.5 million per grant. Ten grants were awarded to scientists at Max Planck Institutes.

The Max Planck grant recipients include nine men and one woman; one grant was awarded for a research project in the humanities, the others were allocated to the life sciences.

The ERC awards Advanced Grants to leading scientists who combine outstanding research with innovative approaches. The long-term, generous funding supports projects that have the potential for a scientific breakthrough in their research area thanks to ambitious ideas, unconventional methods and a pioneering spirit.

The ERC received 2,408 applications – an increase of almost five percent on the previous year. Almost 12 percent of applications were successful. The decision about who receives an Advanced Grant is made in a peer review evaluation: 25 panels, composed of eminent scientists, select the grant recipients in the three categories of ‘Physical Science and Engineering’, ‘Life Sciences’ and ‘Social Sciences and Humanities’. The latter accounts for the lowest proportion of grants awarded (18 percent of all grants); the lion’s share of funding goes to the physical sciences and engineering and the life sciences (45 and 36 percent respectively).

The average grant recipient is 53-years-old and male; approximately 13 percent of the 284 grants were awarded to female scientists, roughly corresponding to the average proportion of women at this high career level in the European scientific community. Since the start of the Seventh Framework Programme, the ERC has funded around 1,700 established researchers at more than 350 scientific institutions in 28 countries throughout Europe.

Following this last competition round, Germany lies in second place with 41 funded applications behind Great Britain, whose scientists were awarded 65 grants. Among the top ten of the most successful scientific institutions in Europe and associated countries, the MPG improved its ranking from fourth to third place with 50 successful Advanced Grants. The undisputed number one 1 institution is the French Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) with a total of 61 grants, followed by the University of Oxford with 53 grants. In Germany, the Max Planck Society’s 50 ERC Advanced Grants in the Seventh Framework Programme makes it the most successful institution, ahead of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich and the Helmholtz Association, which were awarded 22 and 14 grants respectively.

The following Max Planck scientists received funding:

• Ralf Heinrich Adams (MPI for Molecular Biomedicine)
• Nicole Dubilier (MPI for Marine Microbiology)
• Hans-Jürgen Butt (MPI for Polymer Research)
• George Coupland (MPI for Plant Breeding Research)
• Christopher Hann (MPI for Social Anthropology)
• Hans-Thomas Janka (MPI for Astrophysics)
• Stefan Jentsch (MPI of Biochemistry)
• Kurt Kremer (MPI for Polymer Research)
• Detlef Weigel (MPI for Developmental Biology)
• Walter Thiel (MPI für Kohlenforschung).

The MPG is also delighted that Max Planck Directors Gerd Leuchs and Georgi Dvali, chairholders at the universities in Erlangen-Nuremberg and Munich, received Advanced Grants.

SB