This year the EU awarded an ERC Starting Grant to around 480 European researchers in the social sciences, the life sciences, natural sciences and engineering sciences. The grants are dedicated entirely to ground-breaking research: “The European Research Council is investing these grants both in new projects and in new talent,” said EU Research Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, speaking to the media in Brussels on 9 September 2011. The “Starting Independent Researcher Grant” is an ERC promotional too which is designed to support promising, talented scientists and enable them to set up their own research group. For the projects currently being sponsored, the ERC will provide a total of EUR 670 million for a period of five years.

Success once again for project submissions from Zurich universities

Overall the ERC has awarded grants to researchers from 38 countries. The average age of the recipients is 36 and a quarter of them are women. The ERC list reveals that the prize-winners include 22 scientists working at research institutions in Switzerland. The Swiss grants are distributed among the EPFL (6), ETH Zurich (5) and the Universities of Bern (4), Geneva (2), Zurich (2), Basel (1) and Lausanne (1).

Seven of the ERC Starting Grants are therefore going to researchers at Zurich universities. The seven Zurich-based projects will receive support amounting to between EUR 1.1 and 1.7 million. The total of more than EU 10 million flowing into ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich is a sign of the quality of the basic research being carried out in the research location of Zurich: thus the two universities are maintaining the high success rate they have enjoyed in recent years with regard to applications for the sought-after EU funding for new projects. In comparison, a total of ten ERC Starting Grants went to Zurich in 2010, and five in 2009.

All the award-winning researchers:

ETH Zurich

· Philipp Werner, SNF (Swiss National Science Foundation) Professor of Theoretical Physics, for his project “DYNCORSYS - Real-time dynamics of correlated many-body systems”,

· Yaakov Benenson, Assistant Professor of Synthetic Biology, for his project “CellControl - Synthetic regulatory circuits for programmable control of cell physiology”,

· Daniel Wolfram Gerlich, Lecturer and Research Group Leader in the Department of Biology, for his project “DIVIMAGE - Bridging spatial and temporal resolution gaps in the study of cell division”,

· Ansgar Kahmen, Lecturer at the Institute of Agricultural Sciences, for his project “COSIWAX – Compound-Specific Hydrogen Isotope Analyses of Leaf Wax n-Alkanes as a Novel Tool to Assess Plant and Ecosystem Water Relations Across new Spatial and Temporal Scales”,

· Joost VandenVondele, currently Research Group Leader in the Physical Chemistry Institute of the University of Zurich, for his project – submitted via ETH Zurich as the host organisation – “DIAMOND - Discovery and Insight with Advanced Models Of Nanoscale”.

University of Zurich

· Felix Kübler, Professor at the Institute of Banking and Finance, for his project “Solving dynamic models: Theory and Applications”,

· Florian Schiestl, Professor at the Institute of Systematic Botany, for the project “Evolution and consequences of floral signalling in plants”.

The European Research Council (ERC)

The European Research Council (ERC) is the first European funding body set up to support investigator-driven frontier research. The ERC’s second promotional tool is the “ERC Advanced Grants”, which are awarded to established top-flight researchers. The European Research Council awards these grants at the end of each year. The European Research Council (ERC) has published a series of videos graphically illustrating its sponsorship activities and the cutting-edge research that it funds.