Four ERC Starting Grants for Uni Würzburg

02/05/2016

Four scientists from the University of Würzburg are receiving "Starting Grants" from the European Research Council (ERC). The ERC awards the grant to excellent up-and-coming researchers. The scientists each receive 1.5 million euros for their work.

Clockwise from left: Christian Schneider, Viktoria Däschlein-Geßner, Grzegorz Sumara, Barbara Händel (Foto: Uni Würzburg). (Image: Universität Würzburg Pressestelle)

The ERC allocates a total of 429 million euros worth of funding to 291 early-career researchers in the current round of a grant awards. The Würzburg scientists are from the disciplines of physics, chemistry, biomedicine and psychology.

· Christian Schneider from the Department of Technical Physics of the University of Würzburg is one of the grantees. His research focuses on quantum physics.

· Viktoria Däschlein-Geßner works in inorganic chemistry where she investigates the synthesis of fine chemicals.

· Grzegorz Sumara is a biomedical scientist at Rudolf Virchow Center. Since 2014, he has been leading an Emmy Noether Research Group which studies among others hormones that could assume key functions in diabetes.

· The fourth ERC grantee, neuroscientist Barbara Händel, will join the University of Würzburg at the beginning of March 2016. She is currently working at Ernst Strüngmann Institute (ESI) for Neuroscience in Cooperation with Max Planck Society in Frankfurt.

The four early-career researchers and their work will be presented in detail over the next weeks in the University of Würzburg's journal "einBlick".

Prestigious grant with high prize money

The ERC Grants are the most prestigious European science awards and are presented each year by the European Research Council (ERC). The awards include a sum of money that allows the laureates to tackle complex projects.

There are three categories: Starting Grants for "research talents with proven research potential", Consolidator Grants for "research talents with excellent research potential" and Advanced Grants for "exceptional research leaders".

To subscribe to einBLICK: https://goo.gl/e15SbA

Press Office text on previous works of the winners:

Christian Schneider: "Playing billiard with hybrid light and matter particles", einBLICK from 12/10/2015

Viktoria Däschlein-Geßner: "Röntgenpreis für Viktoria Däschlein-Geßner", einBLICK from 19/05/2014

Grzegorz Sumara: "Neues Hunger-Hormon gefunden", einBLICK from 11/02/2014

Link to the list of all past winners of the ERC Grant.

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