Three out of six new Danish recipients of an ERC Advanced Grant are affiliated with the DNRF
Out of the six newly chosen recipients of an ERC Advanced Grant awarded by the European Research Council (ERC), three are or have been affiliated with the DNRF. A current head of center and two former center leaders have received the prestigious grants for research projects with themes as diverse as the creation and formation of our solar system, plant genetics, and human self-identity.
The European Research Council (ERC) has recently announced that 222 top European researchers from 29 countries will receive an ERC Advanced Grant in an application round that included 2052 applications. Of the 222 recipients, six of them are researchers at Danish universities, and three of the six grants go to researchers who are or have been closely affiliated with the DNRF.
The three grantees are Professor Martin Bizzarro, head of center at the DNRF Center for Star and Planet Formation (STARPLAN), University of Copenhagen, and two heads of former DNRF centers, Professor Dan Zahavi, head of the former DNRF Center for Subjectivity Research (CfS) at the University of Copenhagen, and Professor Jens Stougaard, head of the former DNRF Center for Carbohydrate Recognition and Signaling (CARB) at Aarhus University. Each Advanced Grant is approximately 18 million DKK and runs over a five-year period.
- Professor Bizarro’s project “Probing the History of Matter in Deep Time,” also called DEEPTIME, will focus on examining the circumstances that created our solar system and thus also the prerequisites for a habitable planet like Earth. Read more about Bizarro’s project here.
- Professor Zahavi’s project “Who Are We? Self-Identity, Social Cognition, and Collective Intentionality,” also known as WE, will examine the complex connections between human individual self-identity and collective identity in an attempt to gain a better understanding of some of the fundamental issues within the humanities and social sciences. Read more about Zahavi’s project here.
- Professor Stougaard’s project “The Roots of Infection,” also called RINFEC, aims to identify and characterize the genes behind the interaction between roots of legumes such as Lotus japonicus and soil bacteria called Rhizobium bacteria. The interaction allows these bacteria and plants to form a special symbiosis, where the bacteria supply nitrogen to the plant, and the plant provides nutrients to the bacteria. Read about Stougaard’s project here.