Recipients of Synergy Grants to share €363 million
Female researchers have this year won a bigger share of the European Research Council’s highly prestigious Synergy Grants, which award groups of between two and four principal investigators up to €10 million to take on complex challenges.
Of the 126 principal investigators named as winners by the ERC on 11 October, 24 per cent were women, up from 15 per cent in 2018. An ERC spokesperson told Research Europe that 23 per cent of the 288 proposals evaluated came from women.
In a change to the previous round of awards, project proposals were allowed to include one principal investigator based anywhere in the world, rather than being restricted to countries in the EU or associated to the EU’s R&D programme. Funding was secured by eight researchers in the United States—the only successful country in this category.
Among associated countries, the same three that were successful in 2018 won funding in 2019: Israel, Norway and Switzerland. However, only 11 researchers in these countries were successful, making up just under 9 per cent of the total. This was down from 15 researchers and 17 per cent in 2018. Switzerland’s awards nearly halved, from 10 to 6.
Researchers in the EU’s newer 13 member states fared slightly better this time, with six tasting success (5 per cent)—up from three (3 per cent) in 2018. Bulgaria and Croatia, which had no success in 2018, won one and two awards respectively. Hungary and the Czech Republic held steady from 2018, with two awards and one award.
“The result of this grant competition is further proof that the ERC is able to provide support to excellent ideas and outstanding people wherever they may be located,” said ERC president Jean-Pierre Bourguignon. “I’m glad to see that the share of grantees based in newer EU member states has increased since last year.”
Bourguignon said that the involvement of researchers in the US would “help researchers in Europe to achieve ambitious goals [and] increase the global standing of EU-funded research”.
The proportion of awards won by researchers in the EU’s older 15 member states remained flat, at 80 per cent. Germany was again the biggest winner, with 30 of its researchers tasting success (24 per cent of the total), compared with 22 in 2018 (25 per cent). France secured 20 awards (16 per cent, versus 17 per cent in 2018) and the UK 16 awards (13 per cent, up from 11 per cent).
Some countries’ performance changed remarkably. Denmark won 10 awards (8 per cent), up from two (2 per cent) in 2018, while the Netherlands won six (5 per cent), up from one (1 per cent) in 2018. Sweden won five (4 per cent), again up from one (1 per cent); and Spain won just two (2 per cent), down from eight (9 per cent).
Synergy Grants are the ERC’s biggest awards and its only collaborative funding. This year, money went to 37 projects involving 126 principal investigators working across 95 universities and research centres in 20 countries.
Most of the winning proposals crossed “traditional boundaries of disciplines”, the ERC said. For instance, one research group that will examine links between climate and cities includes geographers, a physicist and a meteorologist. Another project focuses on gender and inequalities in healthcare.
“The selected projects show the added value of EU funding for curiosity-driven research that is clearly relevant to some of people’s key concerns,” said research commissioner Carlos Moedas.
The 2020 competition is open, with €350m available and a deadline for applications of 5 November. Grants of up to €10m are awarded for a maximum of six years, and applicants may request additional funding to cover exceptional costs of up to €4m.
A version of this article also appeared in Research Europe