Past winners
ERC Proof of Concept, recent awardees
€150,000 lump sum for current and recent ERC grant holders to test whether an ERC result can leave the lab.
2438 funded projects indexed from OpenAlex and CORDIS
Awards per year
Top countries
- DE×22
- NL×17
- IT×13
- FR×12
- ES×9
Top institutions
2,438 awards recorded, 2014 to 2027, across 31 countries.
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique CNRS×88
- Weizmann Institute of Science×65
- Technion - Israel Institute of Technology×44
- The Chancellor Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge×43
- Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas×41
- Tel Aviv University×35
- Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia×34
- Institut National de la Sante Et de la Recherche Medicale×33
2027
CARBOMED: Intelligent Electrified Carbonylation Platform for Sustainable Flow Manufacturing
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET WIEN · AT · €150,000
CARBOMED aims to translate a breakthrough from the ERC Consolidator Grant CARBOFLOW into a modular, autonomous synthesis platform that integrates high-temperature CO2 electrolysis with continuous-flow carbonylation chemistry and real-time machine learning control. While the primary application field is pharmaceutical manufacturing, the underlying technology establishes a broadly applicable platform for electrified carbonylation processes across the chemical industry. Amide bonds are among the m
Nanoparticles-based Delivery of gene edIting Tools in hematopoietic Stem cells to treat Beta-hemoglobinopathies in vivo
INSTITUT NATIONAL DE LA SANTE ET DE LA RECHERCHE MEDICALE · FR · €150,000
Beta-hemoglobinopathies aBeta-hemoglobinopathies are the most common genetic diseases worldwide. Current gene therapies rely on ex vivo treatment of isolated hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) with CRISPR/Cas9, followed by reinfusion in the patient. However, HSCs are highly sensitive to DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) that can lead to apoptosis and generate large genomic rearrangements. Furthermore, current CRISPR/Cas9 therapeutic protocols involve complex HSC manipulations that reduce HSC fitness
Out-of-Distribution-aware Reasoning Agents for Clinical Learning and Exploration
FRIEDRICH-ALEXANDER-UNIVERSITAET ERLANGEN-NUERNBERG · DE · €150,000
We have recently observed an unexpected and profoundly promising synergy: multi-modal out-of-distribution detection methods, originally developed for normative modelling in the ERC MIA-NORMAL project, appear to endow AI agents with remarkable autonomy in real-world scientific reasoning. By explicitly encoding uncertainty and recognising unfamiliar inputs, these agents become capable of detecting anomalies, and they begin to act independently: curating data, identifying patterns, and proposing hy
Artificial Intelligence, CONstructed Images and immersive Critical Literacy
UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO · IT · €150,000
AICONIC is an innovative educational pathway combining a scalable learning format with a mixed reality application to foster critical and visual literacy in the age of artificial intelligence. As generative and synthetic media increasingly transform communication and public discourse, young people encounter interactive and immersive images that shape perception, emotions and behavior. However, current approaches to AI and media literacy remain mainly text-based and analytical, creating a gap bet
Ampli-sCiSsoRS: amplified backscattering coherent Stokes Raman scattering for real-time cancer diagnostics
CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · FR · €150,000
Coherent Raman imaging can provide rapid, label-free virtual histology, but its clinical translation is constrained by detection geometry and detector noise. Standard stimulated Raman scattering relies on forward detection, which is poorly suited to thick, highly scattering tissue and therefore limits intraoperative implementations. In our ERC-funded research, we introduced backscattering coherent Stokes Raman scattering (b-CSRS), a coherent Raman modality whose red-shifted emission enables epi
Scaling Up Phase-Separated Electrodes for High-Performance Flow Battery Stacks (PhaseUP)
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT EINDHOVEN · NL · €150,000
Redox flow batteries are promising for grid-scale energy storage, but their widespread adoption is limited by critical performance and cost limitations arising from suboptimal porous electrodes and stack design. Conventional fibrous electrodes, repurposed from fuel cells, suffer from poor mass transport and limited accessible surface area, while current stack architectures cannot mitigate local performance heterogeneities – leading to uneven aging, reduced durability, and high system costs. In o
Precision Reasoning In Multimodal Ovarian cancer
INSTITUT REGIONAL DU CANCER DE MONTPELLIER · FR · €150,000
Ovarian cancer remains the deadliest gynecologic malignancy largely because critical treatment decisions are made under persistent uncertainty. Multidisciplinary tumour boards (MDTs) must choose between competing strategies—primary surgery or neoadjuvant chemotherapy, and alternative maintenance therapies—based on fragmented clinical, imaging and pathology information. Current AI systems, including emerging agentic systems, mainly retrieve guidelines or summarize records; they do not embed a dis
Rigorous Micro-Verification of Legacy Embedded Software Systems
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN · BE · €150,000
Formal verification of software systems can, in theory, provide mathematical certainty about their correctness or security. However, current approaches imply a significant, cross-cutting impact on systems' architecture, legacy implementations, and even their long-term engineering processes and developer staffing. In this project, we develop an alternative approach for realistic embedded systems, based on micro-verification and results from our UniversalContracts ERC project. Relying on commodity
Gene Regulatory Analysis for Stress in Plants
UNIVERSITEIT LEIDEN · NL · €150,000
Global food security is increasingly threatened by climate change, population growth, and the rapid spread of plant diseases, which together cause substantial crop losses and economic damage worldwide. Developing crop varieties with improved disease resistance is therefore a major priority for sustainable agriculture. However, breeding for disease resistance remains challenging because the underlying regulatory mechanisms controlling plant immune responses are highly complex. The GRASP (Gene Reg
Standardized patient‑friendly computational language mapping to guide epilepsy surgery
INSTITUT NATIONAL DE LA SANTE ET DE LA RECHERCHE MEDICALE · FR · €150,000
This Proof of Concept (PoC) translates key results from the ERC COG SPEEDY project into a bedside workflow for presurgical language mapping in drug resistant epilepsy. Electrical Stimulation Mapping (ESM) is the clinical gold standard to avoid resecting eloquent cortex, but it is time consuming, fatiguing, and often yields non-informative negative stimulations when language is not engaged. SPEEDY-Clinic combines a patient friendly, self paced bedside acquisition system for naturalistic listening
Functional cementitious materials for energy harvesting
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT DELFT · NL · €150,000
FUN-CRETE aims to translate recent advances in auxetic cementitious cellular composites into a first application-oriented demonstration of infrastructure-integrated energy harvesting. The underlying ERC-funded research has established a new class of cementitious materials with exceptional deformability, damage resistance and recoverable “second-elasticity” behaviour enabled by architected auxetic geometries. This project builds directly on those results by exploring whether such controlled, reco
2026
Light-Activated Oxygen Scavenging in Jet Fuels
CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · FR · €150,000
On its current trajectory, the aviation sector will see its CO2 emissions double by 2040. As the use of zero-carbon energy sources remain long-term prospects, the only short-term solutions for reducing its carbon footprint lie in the use of renewable fuels in more fuel-frugal engines. A significant obstacle to improving the efficiency of current engines is the resistance of materials to higher temperatures. To overcome this technological barrier, the cooling source of the engine must be able to
First-in-man beta-cell regeneration for causal type 2 diabetes therapy
HELMHOLTZ ZENTRUM MUENCHEN DEUTSCHES FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM FUER GESUNDHEIT UND UMWELT GMBH · DE · €150,000
More than 589 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes (IDF atlas 11th edition). Currently, none of the pharmacological therapies can stop disease progression, which leads to devastating micro- and macrovascular complications and a steady increase in patient numbers. Prediabetic individuals develop type 2 diabetes (T2D) when insulin-producing beta-cells in the pancreas become insulin resistant, lose their function and die. Importantly, beta-cells not only produce insulin but also are critic
Demonstration of plasma-assisted combustion for conditions representatives of high power staged aircraft engines
CENTRALESUPELEC · FR · €150,000
The EM2C laboratory and Safran Aircraft Engines are working on a collaborative action to demonstrate for the first time the beneficial effects of plasma-assisted combustion (PAC) to improve the performance and reduce the environmental footprint of aircraft engines. In this action, a series of experiments will be conducted in large-scale combustors representative of actual aeroengines to assess the potential of PAC for flame stabilization, thermoacoustic instability control, ignition, and reducti
Site-specific in vivo T cell engineering
TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY · IL · €150,000
CAR T cells are clinically effective in hematological malignancies and autoimmune diseases. Marketed therapies rely on ex vivo T cell engineering, performed in specialized centres only. In vivo T cell engineering may profoundly reduce timelines and expenses. Most current methods for in vivo T cell engineering use either promiscuously integrating vectors, bearing risk of insertional mutagenesis, or CAR mRNA in LNPs, conferring a transient effect only. Here, we establish in vivo gene targeting in
Bioorthogonal Prodrug Activation at Nanomolar Levels
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET WIEN · AT · €150,000
Bioorthogonal click-to-release chemistry enables selective bond cleavage in complex biological environments and has emerged as a powerful concept for controlled prodrug activation, most prominently through trans-cyclooctenes and tetrazines. However, established systems face trade-offs between reaction speed, release efficiency, and stability, limiting their application in therapeutic settings. We have discovered a strained cleavable trans-cyclooctene linker that uniquely combines ultrafast click
Automating Structured Historical Knowledge from Digitised Archives
UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI TORINO · IT · €150,000
Archives are living through a paradox: unprecedented investment in digitisation has made historical records accessible and readable–but not analytically usable without significant expert effort and expense. Platforms now convert millions of handwritten documents into searchable text–opening archival records spanning centuries to potential users from genealogists and economists to environmental researchers and policymakers. Yet the entities and relationships that give these records their full ana
A Conceptually New 3-Dimensional Blood-Brain Barrier Model- Designed to Overcome the Limited Predictive Power of Current In Vitro Systems
UNIVERSITAET MUENSTER · DE · €150,000
Therapeutic access to the brain is severely restricted by the blood–brain barrier (BBB), and current in vitro models fail to reliably predict drug penetration mainly because they fail to recapitulate key aspects of BBB physiology. Existing 2D and 3D models oversimplify multicellular architecture, neglect the astroglial barrier, and lack physiologically relevant mechanical and biochemical environments, contributing to high failure rates in CNS drug development. This significantly hampers the deve
Flash Sorption Analysis for Ultra-Fast Adsorbent Evaluation
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN · BE · €150,000
Adsorptive separations using nanoporous materials underpin major industrial processes, including air separation, natural gas sweetening, and hydrocarbon purification, and are expected to become increasingly important with the growing focus on CO2 capture technologies. Evaluating the performance of an adsorbent requires understanding how the uptake of a target molecule is affected by the presence of competing species. However, the multicomponent adsorption measurements needed to obtain this infor
Quantum-inspired Correlation-Based Adaptive Optics for Microscopy
CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · FR · €150,000
The CORAMI proposal aims to validate the viability of Correlation-based Adaptive Optics (CAO), an innovative approach that leverages optical correlations to correct aberrations in microscopes. CAO is set to become a true universal AO solution capable of performing aberration correction and enhancing the performance of a wide range of microscopes, addressing two large and active markets: biological research and medical diagnostics. With CAO, biologists, neuroscientist, dermatologists, ophthalmolo
Commercialisation of a High-Throughput Proteomic Service for Biological Sex Identification of Ancient and Degraded Human Remains
KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET · DK · €150,000
Biological sex identification of human remains is fundamental to archaeology but is hampered by the cost and destructive nature of DNA analysis, or the inaccessibility of advanced proteomic methods. The PALAEOSex project will overcome these barriers by commercialising a validated, high-throughput, micro-destructive proteomic method into an accessible, fee-for-service platform.The core objectives of this Proof of Concept are to: (1) fully automate the sample preparation workflow using a liquid ha
Bulk-material Low-pressure Atomic-scale Deposition Engine - Cutting Edge Powder Coating
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN · DE · €150,000
The Bulk‑material Low‑pressure Atomic‑scale Deposition Engine (BLADE) introduces a continuous, low‑pressure Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) technology designed specifically for flowable bulk materials such as powders and smaThe Bulk-material Low-pressure Atomic-scale Deposition Engine (BLADE) - establishes a cutting edge continuous low-pressure atomic layer deposition (ALD) process for flowable bulk materials. ALD coatings of particles can prevent corrosion of battery cathodes and anodes, reduce t
Thermochromic Hydrogel Films for Energy-Efficient Smart Windows
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT DELFT · NL · €150,000
Energy-efficient solutions are urgently needed to reduce the environmental and economic burdens associated with controlling temperature inside buildings. A promising approach is the implementation of thermochromic smart windows. These windows integrate materials that reversibly alter their optical characteristics in response to temperature changes, automatically modifying light transmission to manage indoor climates. In hot conditions, the material turns opaque to limit solar heat intake and dec
Laser Ablation for upScaled and Efficient tree-Ring-based stable Oxygen isotope analysis
MINISTERIE VAN ONDERWIJS, CULTUUR EN WETENSCHAP · NL · €150,000
Wood is commonly found in archaeological sites and historic buildings across central and western Europe. When precisely dated, it provides valuable evidence about past construction, trade networks, forest management, and landscape changes. Dendrochronology based on ring-width patterns is the most cost-effective dating method, but it requires long ring sequences with strong year-to-year variation and suitable reference chronologies. Many samples do not meet these requirements and remain undated.O
Selective condensates to capture, isolate and enrich cancer biomarkers
THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH · GB · €150,000
Capturing cancer biomarkers, such as circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA), from liquid biopsies is a significant challenge because these biomarkers are typically present at very low concentrations and are embedded within highly heterogeneous and high background solutions. Current capture and separation technologies do not achieve the necessary sensitivity to detect stage I cancer in many cancer types, e.g. breast, lung, kidney and brain. Capturing, separating and enriching cancer biomarkers will all
A genome-scale platform for automated biodiversity monitoring and regulatory reporting
STOCKHOLMS UNIVERSITET · SE · €150,000
In 2024 the European Union introduced the Nature Restoration Regulation, mandating all member states to restore at least 20% of Europe’s degraded ecosystems by 2030. These policies require robust biodiversity monitoring solutions to ensure compliance and effectively measure conservation progress. This proposal seeks funding to validate a technology that enables accurate, rapid, cost-efficient, and large-scale biodiversity monitoring through genome-wide environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis. Unlike c
Brain monitoring in ICU via continuous pupillometry in closed eyes conditions
TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY · IL · €150,000
In this PoC we will validate Ocumind, a novel technology for closed-eye pupillometry in the neurological/neurosurgical ICU (neuroICU) and advance it toward commercialization. Assessment of pupil size and reactivity is central to evaluating neurologic injury, where pupillometry detects clinical deterioration such as brain herniation and elevated intracranial pressure (ICP), third-nerve palsy, seizures, and stroke. However, current bedside pupillometry is typically intermittent, qualitative, manua
Iterative Pi-Guided Polyaromatic Synthesis
RHEINISCHE FRIEDRICH-WILHELMS-UNIVERSITAT BONN · DE · €150,000
Polyaromatics are ubiquitous structural motif present in bioactive compounds and functional organic materials. Despite their importance, the synthesis of complex polyaromatic structures is implemented by customized, target-specific synthetic routes. Unlike peptide and oligosaccharide chemistry, where iterative and automated assembly strategies have transformed discovery, there is no general platform that employs commercially available building blocks for the iterative construction of carbon-carb
CellTuned: AI-driven regulatory genomics for precision therapy
VIB VZW · BE · €150,000
Drug attrition due to insufficient efficacy or safety remains a major driver of drug development costs, addressable through improved understanding of disease at the genetic and cell type level. Large-scale genetic and single-cell studies provide correlative associations between genetic variants and disease phenotypes but lack mechanistic insight into disease-causal effects. While AI-based foundation models have advanced towards this goal, they are trained on heterogeneous, non-disease-specific d
Compact animal-attached holographic plankton-imaging tag for resolving responses of endangered megafauna to ocean change
MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM · GB · €150,000
This project will deliver MicroSCOPR, the world’s first animal-attached continuous optical plankton and microplastic recording tag, creating a transformative new capability for marine ecological and environmental monitoring. The overarching objective is to obtain high resolution, in situ holographic (3D) imaging of zooplankton, microplastics, and other particles encountered by free-living planktivorous megafauna – data that are currently unobtainable with existing ship or vehicle based instrumen
heaVy pnIctogens based indoor Photovoltaics with up-cyclEd caRbon electrodes
POLITECNICO DI TORINO · IT · €150,000
The rapid expansion of indoor electronics, wireless sensors and IoT devices is creating an urgent demand for sustainable, low-cost and maintenance-free energy sources capable of operating efficiently under artificial lighting. Conventional photovoltaic technologies are poorly suited for these conditions, while existing high-performance indoor photovoltaics often rely on scarce, toxic or costly materials, limiting their commercial viability. VIPER aims to translate a novel class of lead-free pero
Liver mRNA-based immunotherapies
UNIVERSITA VITA-SALUTE SAN RAFFAELE · IT · €150,000
Primary liver cancer is the third cause of cancer-related death worldwide with about 900 000 new cases and 830 000 deaths worldwide each year and a 5-year survival of only 20%. Current systemic treatments, including checkpoint inhibitors and tyrosine kinase inhibitors, benefit only a minority of patients, and around 70% of FGF19-positive HCCs remain refractory to immunotherapy. In this PoC project, LiveRNA will develop a first-in-class liver-targeted mRNA platform. It will combine mRNA-cGAS with
Whales in the Wall: A Scalable Cultural Digital Twin Infrastructure for Europe’s Ocean Heritage
UNIVERSIDADE NOVA DE LISBOA · PT · €150,000
Europe is investing heavily in Digital Twins (DT) and ocean governance, yet cultural ocean heritage remains digitally documented but infrastructurally excluded. Archaeological, historical, environmental and societal knowledge are embodied in the objects part of coastal landscapes and architectures. These remains hold memory and information with potential to be integrated into operational digital systems. However, even though being at risk of destruction and forgetfulness, they are disconnected f
AN OFF-THE-SHELF VACCINE FOR TRIPLE-NEGATIVE BREAST CANCER
VIB VZW · BE · €150,000
Recent studies have demonstrated that mRNA-based vaccines targeting neoantigens, in combination with immune checkpoint blockade, can elicit robust anti-tumour responses across multiple cancer types. These advances have propelled the cancer vaccine market towards a projected growth from $7 billion to $19 billion by 2033. Despite this promise, critical technological hurdles remain. Current antigen selection strategies rely heavily on computationally predicted neoantigens, yet the majority fail to
A self-deactivating cytokine platform technology
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN · DE · €150,000
Adoptive cell therapies harness the power of our immune system to treat and even cure severe diseases from cancer via infections to autoimmunity. These emerging therapies use engineered lymphocytes to fight disease-causing cells in patients and major progress has been achieved in the treatment of blood cancers. In contrast, solid tumors remain notoriously difficult to treat with adoptive cell therapies. Very often, this is due to the strongly immunosuppressive microenvironment of solid cancers,
A self-actuated neural interface dock for self-paced all-optical neural recordings in freely moving animals
UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA · ES · €150,000
NEURODOCK will enable a new generation of neuroscience experiments in which animals themselves determine when neural recordings occur. Recent advances in two-photon microscopy allow researchers to record and manipulate the activity of tens of thousands of neurons in awake mice with cellular precision. However, these powerful technologies still rely on manual handling, head fixation, and experimenter-scheduled sessions. As a result, experiments are short, human-centred, and often stressful for an
Novel Electrolyzer for ProducTion of green H2 Using fresh & coNtaminated watEr
CARDIFF UNIVERSITY · GB · €150,000
Green hydrogen is hydrogen produced by water electrolysis using renewable electricity. Its production dramatically reduces CO2 emissions compared to grey H2 derived from fossil fuels without carbon capture. There is potential for green hydrogen to play a significant role in decarbonizing energy systems, particularly in sectors where direct electrification is challenging–such as heavy industries (e.g., steel, cement, glass), ammonia production, transport (e.g., shipping, aviation, heavy-duty vehi
In vivo targeting of neoepitopes induced by arginine deprivation in cancer
STICHTING HET NEDERLANDS KANKER INSTITUUT-ANTONI VAN LEEUWENHOEK ZIEKENHUIS · NL · €150,000
More than five decades have passed since asparagine depletion was developed into a successful therapy for childhood leukaemia. However, attempts to extend this treatment to other cancer types and amino acids were unsuccessful due to limited clinical benefit. One of the most promising approaches for amino acid deprivation therapy leveraged the fact that most solid tumours (~70%) suppress intracellular arginine production, thereby becoming auxotrophic for arginine. However, although arginine depri
ALINA: Active Learning Inference for Nucleic Acid Delivery
LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN · DE · €150,000
RNA therapeutics hold enormous potential, yet progress is hindered by slow, costly, and empirical formulation workflows that translate poorly from in vitro to in vivo and complicate freedom-to-operate (FTO) decisions. Current strategies rely on trial-and-error, one-factor-at-a-time approaches that deliver incremental gains and rarely unlock extrahepatic delivery. ALINA will establish the technical and commercial proof-of-concept for an integrated machine learning (ML) and molecular dynamics (MD)
An actionable, decision support platform to predict LDL-C response to dietary restriction of animal products
EREVNITIKO KENTRO VIOIATRIKON EPISTIMON ALEXANDROS FLEMINGK · GR · €150,000
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of mortality worldwide, with elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) representing a major causal, yet modifiable risk factor. Dietary restriction (DR) of animal products is widely recommended as a preventive strategy to lower LDL-C levels, however while some individuals experience clinically meaningful LDL-C reductions, others derive little benefit despite adherence. This heterogeneity limits the effectiveness of current populat
ReACT (Resilience Acute Challenge Test): Functional assessment of human adaptive capacity through controlled ex vivo challenge
UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO · IT · €150,000
Modern medicine offers a wide range of diagnostic tools to detect disease and estimate risk, yet it lacks a standardized method to measure an individual’s adaptive reserve, i.e. a systemic biological capacity that determines how the organism maintains stability when challenged. This adaptive reserve reflects the dynamic regulatory potential of the system, rather than the presence or absence of pathology. Despite its central role in health trajectories, it remains indirectly inferred rather than
Image-enabled phenotypic selection to study and direct evolutionary diversity
EUROPEAN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY LABORATORY · DE · €150,000
Engineering cellular evolution is a powerful strategy for studying and exploiting the diversity of life, but its versatility is mostly limited to cases where cell enrichment is linked to growth or survival advantages. We propose adapting a technique, photoadhesion by contextual phenotype (PACP), to select phenotypes of interest in laboratory-directed evolution (LDE) workflows. This will combine closed-loop AI feedback and photosensitized adhesion to select cells based on complex intracellular an
Sustainable High-Performance Protein-based Multilayer Films
ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE · CH · €150,000
Replacing synthetic plastics with circular-economy-ready materials is one of key challenges for a sustainable future. Natural materials, especially the ones from waste streams, are promising. Unfortunately, they suffer from limited performance, especially at high relative humidity (RH). To date, the only solution is to use synthetic additives that increase performance, while undermining the overall sustainability. We have recently developed a novel approach to address both these limitations. It
Extreme Ultraviolet Scatterometry for Semiconductor Inspection and Nanoscale Metrology (EUVISION)
STICHTING NEDERLANDSE WETENSCHAPPELIJK ONDERZOEK INSTITUTEN · NL · €150,000
Modern nanolithography patterns have features well below 20 nm, yet wafer metrology still struggles to provide non-invasive, at-resolution measurements of critical dimensions, sidewall profiles, overlay and edge-placement errors across increasingly three-dimensional stacks. This proposal (EUVISION) tackles that gap with soft X-ray/extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) scatterometry driven by table-top high-harmonic generation (HHG). Short wavelengths provide the needed penetration and sensitivity; HHG deliv
A Mineral Pathway for Sustainable Hydrogen Production
FUNDACION DONOSTIA INTERNATIONAL PHYSICS CENTER · ES · €150,000
This Proof of Concept project investigates an innovative method to produce hydrogen based on mineral reactions. During our experimental approach to the geochemistry of early Earth, we discovered that under specific chemical conditions, self-organized osmotic mineral structures can generate a significant amount of hydrogen. The project will investigate this surprising finding in detail to develop a new, sustainable method for producing hydrogen.The objectives are threefold: (1) thoroughly underst
Natural extracellular vesicle hybrids as antibiotic carriers
FRIEDRICH-ALEXANDER-UNIVERSITAET ERLANGEN-NUERNBERG · DE · €150,000
Antibiotic resistance has rapidly increased over the past decades, resulting in an estimated 1.3 million annual deaths globally, with 35,000 in the EU alone, making it one of the top threats to humanity according to the World Health Organization. The frequent misuse of antibiotics and inadequate clinical hygiene practices contribute to the rise of resistant bacteria, highlighting the urgent need for innovative strategies to combat bacterial infections and avert a post-antibiotic era. Concurrentl
3D Carbon Based Tricyclic Spiropentane Building Blocks for Pharmaceutical Applications
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAT DORTMUND · DE · €150,000
Over the last decades there has been a growing demand to leave the flat land of drug design and to access the three-dimensional (3D) space by embedding 3D scaffolds into drug molecules. 3D building blocks such as cubanes, bicyclo[2.2.2]octanes or bicyclo[1.1.1]pentanes have been well explored, are commercially available and are commonly found in the patent literature of pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. Substituting phenyl groups by 3D building blocks (bioisosters) can increase pharmacokinetics
TBX4 enhancer based precision gene targeting for lung health
JUSTUS-LIEBIG-UNIVERSITAET GIESSEN · DE · €150,000
Chronic respiratory diseases (CRDs) represent a major global health burden, with limited therapeutic options available. Gene therapy offers significant potential; however, current approaches often lack organ specificity, resulting in off-target effects. TBX4-PRECIS is a novel lung-specific gene delivery platform based on a uniquely engineered genetic sequence that enables precise targeting of therapeutic genes to the lung. Unlike conventional promoter-based systems, TBX4-PRECIS provides highly s
AI-assisted Analysis of Single Molecule Images for High-throughput Biomolecular Characterization
MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN EV · DE · €150,000
Project ATLAS revolutionizes single molecule analysis by building an AI-assisted platform to interpret multidimensional biomolecular images from scanning probe microscopy (SPM). This tackles two bottlenecks in biomolecular research: (i) the time-consuming manual interpretation of multidimensional SPM images, and (ii) the lack of singular digital environment, where agentic AI could assist users in interpreting image data. Project ATLAS aims to demonstrate AI-assisted multilayer image analysis and
ON-Target: One-Step Activation of PEGylated Nanocarriers for Targeted Bioimaging
STICHTING RADBOUD UNIVERSITEIT · NL · €150,000
Early cancer detection significantly improves survival rates, yet current MRI contrast agents lack specificity, limiting their diagnostic precision. Developing targeted bioimaging solutions is crucial to enhancing detection accuracy and patient outcomes. This project aims to overcome this limitation by utilizing our one-step activation method to construct a targeted bioimaging multimodal system. Compared to traditional functionalization methods, one- step activation offers key advantages: simpli
Femtosecond laser superconducting circuit gap engineering
INSTITUT JOZEF STEFAN · SI · €150,000
Femtosecond laser tuning of superconducting quantum circuits introduces a revolutionary new approach to addressing noise and decoherence in quantum processors. If successfully applied, it could represent a transformative leap forward in superconducting quantum chip technology. Our recent discovery of femtosecond pulse-tuneable increase of superconducting Tc of superconducting Al films on Si chip substrates provides a fundamentally new post-fabrication capability: the creation of designer superco
Neotropical AI-assisted VErtebrate identification through ZooMS
UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA · ES · €150,000
The biodiversity crisis in the Neotropics, driven by illegal wildlife trade and habitat loss, threatens global food security and social equity. Reversing this “defaunation” requires deep historical baselines found in archaeological remains. However, extreme bone fragmentation renders 90-95% of these specimens, and many confiscated wildlife products, taxonomically unidentifiable through traditional morphology. While DNA analysis can bridge this gap, it remains prohibitively expensive and slow for
Ultra-Thin Oxide Membrane Encapsulation for Perovskite X-Ray Detectors
DANMARKS TEKNISKE UNIVERSITET · DK · €150,000
Metal-halide perovskites are among the most promising materials for next-generation X-ray detectors, combining high sensitivity, fast response, and low-cost manufacturing potential. They could enable faster medical imaging, lower patient radiation doses, and more efficient industrial inspection. However, their widespread use is blocked by a major limitation: intrinsic instability. Moisture, heat, electric fields, and ionizing radiation rapidly degrade perovskites, causing signal loss and short d
HemaTrax: Lineage-resolved prediction of hematotoxicity for human-relevant drug development
UNIVERSITAT BASEL · CH · €150,000
Hematotoxicity is a major determinant of treatment intensity and dosing in cancer therapy and a frequent cause of late-stage attrition in drug development. Current pre-clinical assessment strategies provide limited mechanistic insight into how drugs perturb human hematopoiesis. Animal models often translate poorly to human lineage sensitivities and rely on late aggregate outcomes, such as cytopenias, while human in-vitro assays typically lack bone-marrow niche context. As a result, lineage-speci
Valorisation of agri-food residues via the formulation of low carbon footprint, plant-based fat ingredients for the production of functional foods
POLITECNICO DI TORINO · IT · €150,000
ECOF2AT will address two interrelated problems: the lack of processes that fully valorize agri-food waste in EU and around the world, and the need of the food industry to find economical, healthier and sustainable alternatives to currently used solid fats. The EU agri-food system generates enormous quantities of residues every year, many of which remain significantly underutilised despite containing valuable nutrients and health promoting bioactive compounds. Among these residues, spent coffee g
Validation of artificial intelligence-based minibinders and inhibitors of Midkine in immune resistant tumours
FUNDACION SECTOR PUBLICO ESTATAL CENTRO NACIONAL INVESTIGACIONES ONCOLOGICAS CARLOS III · ES · €150,000
This proposal aims to validate artificial intelligence (AI)-designed minibinders and blockers of the growth factor Midkine (MDK) as anticancer agents to bypass resistance to current immunotherapies. The rationale stems from reports by our laboratory in Nature, Nature Medicine, EMBO Mol Reports and Nature Cancer describing pro-metastatic and immunosuppressive functions of MDK in melanoma, the most aggressive form of skin cancer. In particular, our work identified MDK as a driver of the “hot-into-
Epigenomic Liquid Biopsy for Early Detection and Monitoring of Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatohepatitis
THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM · IL · €150,000
The silent epidemic of Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) has a massive toll on human health. MASH is characterized by fat accumulation in the liver, accompanied by inflammation and liver-cell injury. Closely linked to metabolic conditions such as Type 2 diabetes and Obesity, MASH has become one of the fastest-growing causes of chronic liver disease worldwide. Individuals remain asymptomatic for years while the disease gradually advances from fat accumulation to inflammation
Targeted Genetic Manipulation of Muscle Stem Cells in vivo Towards New Treatment Strategies Against Muscular Dystrophies
INSTITUT PASTEUR · FR · €150,000
Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is a devastating disorder affecting 1/5000 male births, leading to progressive muscle wasting and early mortality. Current gene therapy strategies for muscular dystrophies have shown partial benefits but remain limited by systemic toxicity, inefficient transduction of muscle stem cells (MuSCs), and a continuous turnover of muscle fibres that progressively reduces the therapeutic effect over time. To address these bottlenecks, we propose a receptor-targeted gene
Engineered hyaluronic acid hydrogel for enhanced EV retention and controlled release
UNIVERSITY OF GALWAY · IE · €150,000
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are rapidly emerging as a next-generation therapeutic modality in regenerative medicine and immunomodulation. However, a major translational limitation is their rapid dispersion and clearance following administration. Existing hydrogel delivery systems typically rely on physical encapsulation in gels developed for other biomedical applications, or chemical/ genetic modification of EVs to tether them to hydrogels to achieve retention. Such approaches lack control over
Scale-up of high entropy sulfides for thermal catalysis and tribology
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET WIEN · AT · €150,000
“ScaleHES” develops the first scaled synthesis for high entropy sulfides (HES, (Me1…Me5)xSy) to overcome the single‑principal-element limitations of conventional sulfides and unlock entropy‑engineered, multi‑functional sulfide performance in sustainability‑relevant markets. We will scale batch synthesis from <1 g to >100 g via two complementary routes: a high‑temperature solid‑state process that yields highly crystalline bulk HES for subsequent nanostructuring and a low‑temperature wet-chemistry
Patient Modelling & Simulation System for planning and prognosis of Adult Spine Surgery
UNIVERSIDAD POMPEU FABRA · ES · €150,000
"SimOSpine addresses the clinical challenge of revision rates in spinal fusion surgery, primarily caused by Proximal Junctional Disease (PJD) and Adjacent-Level Disease (ALD). In long thoracolumbar fusions (LTLF), PJD-related revision rates exceed 20% within 2 years. In short lumbar fusions (SLF), ALD complications peak at 3–5 years, with revision rates reaching 8%, while 14%–18% of procedures are identified as unnecessary. These failures are fundamentally mechanical, driven by altered lever arm
AI driven data compression for high-bandwidth brain neural sensing interfaces
STICHTING IMEC NEDERLAND · NL · €150,000
Next-generation intracortical brain-computer interfaces (iBCIs) and large-scale neuroscience experiments require simultaneous recording from thousands of neurons at high spatial and temporal resolutions. However, current wireless systems are fundamentally limited by a bandwidth–energy bottleneck: extracellular spike recordings generate extremely large data streams, while implantable and head-mounted devices operate under strict power constraints. As a result, existing telemetry cannot scale to h
Integrated Natural Fibre Printing with Lignin Ink and Ultrasonic Welding for On-the-Go Consolidation
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT DELFT · NL · €150,000
In my ERC Consolidator project (AM-IMATE), I explore embedding the adaptive capabilities of living systems into materials, using mycelium as a biological binder to consolidate wood-based lattice assemblies. Building on this, our research on ultrasonic welding of wood demonstrates that lignin can be formulated into a printable, energy-directing ink to achieve rapid, strong, and resin-free bonding. However, a fundamental manufacturing bottleneck persists: the consolidation of natural fibre composi
NbMEA: Niobium Multi-Electrode Arrays for Next-Generation ofElectromyographic Interfaces
FRIEDRICH-ALEXANDER-UNIVERSITAET ERLANGEN-NUERNBERG · DE · €150,000
Intramuscular electromyography (iEMG) is the clinical gold standard for diagnosing neuromuscular disorders, yet the dominant material used by doctors is stainless-steel, and has remained unchanged for decades. These electrodes provide only a single or few recording channel per wire, suffer from corrosion and nickel sensitization risks, require separate polymer insulation that doubles the wire diameter and introduces delamination failure modes, and are MRI-incompatible. During the ERC-funded GRAS
Non-verbal Objective VR-based Diagnostic Assessment for Anxiety Disorders
RHEINISCHE FRIEDRICH-WILHELMS-UNIVERSITAT BONN · DE · €150,000
Anxiety disorders are among the most prevalent mental health conditions, affecting more than 40 million persons in the EU alone and causing a major socioeconomic burden. Current diagnostic assessment relies on subjective self-report and clinician interpretation, resulting in diagnostic imprecision, cultural bias, lengthy procedures, and limited scalability. The NOVA project addresses this critical gap by developing an innovative, objective, non-verbal, transdiagnostic and scalable assessment too
Stopping Abuse and Exploitation Risks for Children through Innovative Low-cost Delivery
THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD · GB · €150,000
Childhood sexual abuse is a major global societal challenge, affecting one in five girls worldwide and resulting in severe lifelong health, social, and economic consequences. Despite decades of research, no prevention intervention has previously demonstrated both effectiveness and feasibility for delivery at population scale in low-resource settings. ERC-funded frontier research has generated a breakthrough solution: ParentApp, a low-cost, digitally delivered parenting intervention shown to sub
AtoMIc-based Quantum magnetometry meets Ultrasound for Medical Early Detection
SORBONNE UNIVERSITE · FR · €150,000
MIstiQU-MED addresses a central gap in medical diagnostics: most imaging modalities detects disease once it becomes morphologically visible, while earlier functional changes in tissue remain inaccessible. Early malignancy and internal injury alter ion transport and membrane polarization, producing shifts in electrical conductivity (σ) and permittivity (ε), but today these contrasts are difficult to measure in vivo at depth with portable systems because electrical methods rely on electrode coupli
Tuning claustrum circuits to restore cognitive function
UNIVERSITE DE GENEVE · CH · €150,000
Cognitive dysfunction is a major contributor to disability in several neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. These conditions often involve deficits in executive functions such as working memory, cognitive flexibility and attentional control. Despite their impact on daily functioning, current medications largely rely on global neurotransmitter modulation and remain only modestly effective at im
Full field optoretinography for elderly eye health
INSTITUT NATIONAL DE LA SANTE ET DE LA RECHERCHE MEDICALE · FR · €150,000
"Full field optical coherence tomography (FFOCT) developed by my team has in recent years established its place as a leading technology for retinal cell imaging in patients. Its wide field, rapid acquisition, and robust, compact setup have allowed its successful clinical transfer in Paris and Pittsburgh in an ongoing clinical study. I developed optoretinography (ORG), the non invasive optical measurement of retinal cell function, during my ERC Consolidator grant ""Optoretina"". The objective of
Vital sperm selection for assisted reproduction in severe male infertility conditions
UNIVERSITETET I TROMSOE - NORGES ARKTISKE UNIVERSITET · NO · €150,000
StarFreeze targets a painful and unresolved bottleneck in assisted reproduction: finding and recovering rare vital sperm in samples where sperm are immotile and visually resemble dead cells. These difficult cases occur in severe male-factor infertility, are highly demanding for embryologists, and often require time-consuming manual procedures with limited throughput and imperfect reliability. The project seeks to translate frontier research from my ERC into a practical route toward objective, s
Multiscale 3D virtual histology with non-destructive x-rays
DANMARKS TEKNISKE UNIVERSITET · DK · €150,000
XHIST aims to introduce three-dimensional virtual histology into clinical pathology using non-destructive X-ray phase-contrast tomography. Conventional histopathology relies on micrometre-thin slices cut from standardized formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue blocks. By slicing, routinely only about 1% of the tissue in these millimeter-thick blocks is assessed and the three-dimensional organisation can only be extrapolated. XHIST mitigates these constraints by enabling volumetric imagin
nGHOST2Market : Bringing to market next-Generation Handling of Optical Stray-light in Telescopes
UNIVERSITE DE LIEGE · BE · €150,000
Stray light is a critical limitation in high-performance space optical instruments, affecting image quality and limiting operational performance of space missions. Current diagnostic methods provide limited capability to identify the physical origin of stray-light contributions, making their correction complex and costly. The Time-of-Flight stray-light diagnostic method developed within the ERC project nGHOST introduces a novel approach by enabling the temporal separation of stray-light contribu
Next-generation AI-powered fraMEwork for radiative cooling SYStems design, optimisation and market uptake
UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PERUGIA · IT · €150,000
Cooling demand is emerging as one of the fastest-growing global energy challenges. By 2050, it is expected to more than triple, driven by urbanisation, hotter climate, and eCooling demand is emerging as one of the fastest-growing global energy challenges. By 2050, it is expected to more than triple due to urbanisation, rising temperatures, and expanding middle-income populations in warm regions. This trend increases electricity consumption, stresses power grids, and amplifies heat-related health
Human Blastoid-Based Platform for Post-Implantation IVF Optimization and Therapeutic Screening
INSTITUT FUER MOLEKULARE BIOTECHNOLOGIE GMBH · AT · €150,000
Since the first successful IVF birth in 1978, the technology has become a cornerstone of assisted reproduction, driven by the trend toward delayed parenthood. While IVF now accounts for roughly 5% of births in Europe, its overall efficiency remains low, with only about 25% of cycles resulting in a live birth. A major bottleneck is the high rate of failure during implantation. Due to the limited availability of human embryos and ethical restrictions, IVF optimization has historically relied on mo
Establishing the Centre for Reparative Finance
UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM · NL · €150,000
Reparative payments—i.e. reparations and compensation payments that aim to address harm—are becoming more important around the world. Our ERC funded research project on new calls for reparations (REPAIR) shows that reparative payments are emerging in new domains of life and new industries, and that they cover new types of harm. Yet many public and private actors still lack the expertise to claim, make, or assess reparative payments. They lack a systematic understanding of whether and to what ext
Nano-electro-mechanical electro-optic modulators for energy-efficient data-center interconnects
DANMARKS TEKNISKE UNIVERSITET · DK · €150,000
The exponential growth of data driven by the rapid expansion of information technologies is creating a major bottleneck for data centers, which must meet the resulting surge in processing, storage, and energy demands. A modern data center consists of thousands of computers interconnected by optical fibers, implying that data must be converted from electronic signals within the computers to optical signals to be transmitted along the fibers. The devices that perform this crucial functionality are
Next-Generation X-Ray Laser Light Sources
HEINRICH-HEINE-UNIVERSITAET DUESSELDORF · DE · €150,000
X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) are today’s by far most advanced technology for imaging of atomic structures and ultrafast dynamics, underpinning breakthroughs in life sciences, structural biology, materials, semiconductor and fusion science and technology. However, today’s XFELs rely on kilometre-scale underground electron accelerators housed in billion-euro facilities, restricting them to a handful of large giga-infrastructures worldwide. As a result, research teams that want to use XFELs n
A Flexible Publishing Platform for Knowledge Environments: Streamlining the Creation of Interactive and Layered Scholarship
THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM · IL · €150,000
This Proof of Concept will develop and validate a configurable platform that enables researchers to create and publish novel knowledge environments – navigable, evidence-linked digital publications that innovatively present the full relational architecture of complex scholarship. Researchers increasingly work with interconnected texts, images, objects, datasets, terminology, and layered interpretation, yet they still lack accessible technologies to publish this material while preserving its stru
Real-Time Acoustic Biodiversity and Threat Monitoring in the Global South
JYVASKYLAN YLIOPISTO · FI · €150,000
Biodiversity loss is accelerating, yet managers of protected areas and other local stakeholders in the Global South lack timely, affordable tools to monitor ecological change and respond to threats. Current biodiversity monitoring technologies generate vast amounts of data but results often reach local stakeholders only after long delays, undermining their practical value. BioSounds aims to transform this situation by delivering an innovative proof of concept for a real-time acoustic monitoring
Lab-Protect: Translating phyllosphere-adapted microbial insights into a new class of lactobacilli-based biocontrol solutions
UNIVERSITEIT ANTWERPEN · BE · €150,000
Transitioning to sustainable crop protection is a pillar of the European Green Deal, calling for a 50% reduction in chemical pesticide use by 2030. This requires reliable, field-robust biological alternatives. LAB-Protect builds on the ERC StG Lacto Be and aims to develop next-generation microbial biocontrol agents (MBCAs) based on plant-derived lactic acid bacteria (LAB), an underexploited yet highly promising class of beneficial microbes. One lead strain isolated from strawberry tissue shows e
Advancing the Technology of PRIME editing to broaden the scope of gene correction therapies
UNIVERSITAIR MEDISCH CENTRUM UTRECHT · NL · €150,000
Genetic disorders cause substantial childhood morbidity and mortality. They affect more than 30 million individuals in Europe alone and are estimated to cost over $1 trillion each year. Therapeutic options remain limited. Prime editing is an emerging precise gene-editing approach that promises causal treatment of genetic disorders by correcting the disease-causing genetic variants. Whereas conventional gene therapies add or knock out a gene, prime editing can rewrite endogenous DNA with high pre
Fully Automated Reprogramming-to-Organoid platform
FONDAZIONE PER LA RICERCA BIOMEDICA AVANZATA ETS · IT · €150,000
Patient-specific organoids derived from induced pluripotent stem cells are transforming disease modelling, drug discovery and precision medicine. However, their widespread adoption remains limited because organoid production is slow, expensive and highly dependent on manual expertise. Current workflows require multiple disconnected steps - cellular reprogramming, stem cell expansion and organoid differentiation - performed across different laboratories over several months, resulting in poor repr
Siderophore-mediated delivery of antibacterial antisense agents
STICHTING RADBOUD UNIVERSITEIT · NL · €150,000
Antibacterial resistance represents a major and growing threat to global public health, while the development of new antibiotics with novel mechanisms of action has largely stagnated. The SIDEROSENSE project addresses this challenge by advancing a fundamentally new antibacterial modality based on antisense technology. SIDEROSENSE enables selective intracellular delivery of antibacterial antisense oligonucleotides, overcoming a long-standing barrier to the clinical translation of antisense-based
XENObiotic-based PREDiction platform of inter-individual differences in drug metabolism
UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PARMA · IT · €150,000
Inter-individual variability in drug metabolism remains a major barrier to clinical practice and drug development, often leading to adverse reactions, therapeutic inefficacy, and costly trial failures. While genetics explain only part of this variability, the contribution of the gut microbiome remains largely underestimated. The ERC-StG PREDICT-CARE project has shown that dietary (poly)phenols, a large family of plant xenobiotics metabolised through pathways that partly overlap with those involv
iChatRD: A user-centred clinical decision support system for the diagnosis of rare and inherited metabolic diseases
UNIVERSITY OF GALWAY · IE · €150,000
Rare diseases, including inherited metabolic diseases (IMDs), affect ~5% of the global population, yet diagnosis often takes years, causing preventable morbidity. Many computational tools are either limited to structured phenotype inputs or operate as “black boxes” prone to errors. Within the ERC project, Avatar, we have developed ChatRD, an AI-assisted, fully transparent clinical decision support tool that suggests expert-level rare disease diagnoses from unstructured patient descriptions withi
Translation-Guided RNA engineering Platform for Cardiac disease
JOHANN WOLFGANG GOETHE-UNIVERSITAET FRANKFURT AM MAIN · DE · €150,000
Many inherited diseases arise not merely because a gene is mutated, but because cells no longer produce enough of the right protein. Because pathogenic variants are often highly diverse and spread across the gene, correcting each mutation individually is difficult to scale. TRANSLATE introduces a new therapeutic logic: precise translation engineering at the RNA level to reinstate physiological protein output without genomic modification in genetic dosage disorders. TRANSLATE builds on discoverie
Synthetic Multi-timepoint AI-enhanced Breast MRI
STICHTING RADBOUD UNIVERSITAIR MEDISCH CENTRUM · NL · €150,000
Smart-MRI (Synthetic Multi-timepoint AI-enhanced Breast MRI) aims to eliminate the need for gadolinium-based contrast agents while preserving the diagnostic accuracy of Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI).Smart-MRI consists of three key phases. The first phase focuses on AI model optimization and external validation. Our deep learning model is trained on a large dataset of paired contrast-enhanced and non-contrast breast MRI scans, designed to capture essential temporal and morphological fea
Rare Earth Element Automated Chemistry for Targeted Optimized Recovery
UNIVERZITA PALACKEHO V OLOMOUCI · CZ · €150,000
Rare-earth elements (REEs) are indispensable for the energy transition, digital infrastructure, and strategic technologies, yet their sustainable separation remains a critical bottleneck. Industrial REE refining relies on a small set of legacy organic extractants developed decades ago, which show poor selectivity between chemically similar lanthanoids, require hundreds of extraction stages, generate large waste streams, and demand capital-intensive infrastructure. As a result, many European reso
Cryo-iLM: A High-NA Cryoimmersion Microscopy Platform for Nanometre Imaging
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAT DARMSTADT · DE · €150,000
Cryo-iLM aims to transfer key results from the ERC project MICROCRYO into a modular, portable cryo-immersion microscopy platform that can be adopted by the wider life-science community and integrated into existing cryo-EM laboratories. The core challenge addressed is that cryogenic fluorescence light microscopy (cryo-FLM) and cryo-correlative workflows remain limited by low numerical aperture (NA) optics and by practical barriers to combining high-performance cryogenic fluorescence imaging with
Conditioned CAR-T cells (cirCAR-T) for enhanced tumor immmunotherapy
UNIVERSITE DE GENEVE · CH · €150,000
Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy is a breakthrough immunotherapy for aggressive blood cancers. With >250 companies active in the field, >1,200 CAR- T variants in clinical development, and a market exceeding $5B, CAR-T therapies represent an expanding biomedical sector. However, despite response rates of up to 90%, long-term remissions remain limited (30–40%), and efficacy in solid tumors remains poor, highlighting a major unmet medical need. Improving CAR-T cell potency, persiste
From Research Infrastructure to Radiology AI Platform
UNIVERSITATSKLINIKUM BONN · DE · €150,000
Radiology AI faces a dual infrastructure crisis: developing next-generation AI, particularly radiology foundation models, requires access to large-scale clinical imaging data that remains siloed across hospital systems. Evaluating the growing number of commercial AI products requires the same data access, yet hospitals cannot benchmark these tools on their own patients before procurement, cannot identify performance gaps, or systematically monitor performance after deployment. We developed and o
Continuous AMIde-band Ring-laser Array
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET WIEN · AT · €150,000
Widely tunable mid-infrared (mid-IR) lasers are key enabling components for chemical and bioanalytical spectroscopy. Broadband spectral access to the molecular fingerprint region is currently dominated by external-cavity quantum cascade lasers (EC-QCLs), which are bulky, expensive, and rely on mechanically tuned free-space cavities, making the laser the primary cost and architectural bottleneck in many mid-IR instruments.This ERC PoC introduces CAMIRA, a chip-integrated mid-IR source that replac
ERror-free CLAdded PHOtonic circuits
CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · FR · €150,000
Today’s nanometer-scale imprecision in the fabrication of Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) induce optical phase errors, with multiple negative consequences. Current error mitigation techniques negatively impact PICs energy budget, PICs complexity, PICs costs and more broadly PICs potential to scale-up. ERCLAPHO’s aim is to establish a new technique for permanently correcting these fabrication errors in cladded PICs, with the following assets: the technique is non-volatile, is specific, it imp
Oligonucleotide Backbone Modifications
UNIVERSITAT BASEL · CH · €150,000
Therapeutic oligonucleotides are rapidly emerging as novel modalities for the treatment of several previously unaddressable diseases. The development of oligonucleotide therapeutics has thereby been significantly driven by chemical modifications that enhance nuclease resistance, pharmacokinetic properties, and target engagement. Especially the modification of the phosphorus site at the internucleoside linkage, in particular by the replacement of an oxygen with sulfur in the form of phosphorothio
FLEX-CODESWITCH
THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD · GB · €150,000
All current successful automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems (largely for English) are trained on hundreds of thousands of hours of training data, invariably based on individual languages. However, multilingual communities switch between two or more languages (code-switching): E What is my bank balance? Bengali/E amar bank balance kɔto? (my bank balance how much). Thus, for the recognition of speech involving code-switching, recognition rates are seriously impaired. Moreover, since code-swi
Benchmarking and commercialization route for In utero engineering of mouse models with Robotics
KAROLINSKA INSTITUTET · SE · €150,000
Breakthrough biology often requires transgenic mouse models: labor-heavy, expensive, slow, and reliant on large cohorts. This ERC Proof of Concept will translate our ERC-funded breakthroughs into a disseminatable semi-automated “click-to-inject” platform for reproducible and direct in utero genetic manipulation of mouse embryos - a transformative yet technically demanding procedure for rapid, versatile, and efficient generation of mouse models, currently limited to a handful of expert laboratori
Metabolic Hepatoprotection to Enable Curative Cancer Therapy in Patients with Vulnerable Livers
UNIVERSITAET BERN · CH · €150,000
SAFE-LIVER aims to establish proof-of-concept for a first-in-class metabolic hepatoprotectant that enables safe delivery of cancer therapies in patients with compromised liver function. Liver toxicity is a major barrier to curative cancer therapy. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy frequently cause hepatic injury that limits treatment intensity or excludes patients entirely. This problem is particularly severe in patients with pre-existing liver disease such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFL
uBeAt-powered closed-loop sTandardisaTion of beatIng heart-on-chip for reliable cardioTOxicity screening
POLITECNICO DI MILANO · IT · €150,000
Drug-induced cardiotoxicity remains a primary cause of late-stage clinical attrition. Current preclinical safety assessments are focused heavily on electrophysiology assays and animal models and shows limited predictivity for human outcomes, largely failing to detect critical cardiac liabilities. Heart-on-Chip models represent a transformative New Approach Methodology (NAM) to address this gap. However, their routine industrial adoption is severely hindered by biological variability and a lack i
HARNESSING HETEROTYPIC T CELL CLUSTERS TO BOOST TIL CANCER THERAPY
STICHTING HET NEDERLANDS KANKER INSTITUUT-ANTONI VAN LEEUWENHOEK ZIEKENHUIS · NL · €150,000
Despite major advances in cancer immunotherapy, most patients still lack durable benefit. Tumor-infiltrating T lymphocyte (TIL) therapy can induce deep cancer remissions, but potency varies and complete clinical responses are limited to 20%. Crucially, although truly tumor-reactive T cells are rare in cancers (<5%), current manufacturing protocols expand TILs in bulk, without inclusion of a selection or enrichment step. Together, these observations create both a dire clinical need and unique opp
In vivo validation of a novel, high precision Positive Allosteric Modulation-based therapy for immune-inflammatory diseases
VIB VZW · BE · €150,000
Immune-inflammatory diseases arise when the balance between stimulatory and inhibitory checkpoint signals is disrupted, causing excessive immune responses and ultimately breaking immune tolerance and tissue homeostasis. Current therapies either broadly suppress the immune system or block stimulatory checkpoints, but none exploit the activity of inhibitory checkpoints as a mechanism built by nature to restore immune homeostasis. This leaves a clear therapeutic gap, and an opportunity to locally c
Leading small molecules for the selective protein clearance in ER disorders
FONDAZIONE TELETHON ETS · IT · €150,000
Many severe genetic and age-related diseases are driven by the accumulation of misfolded proteins within the endoplasmic reticulum, leading to chronic cellular stress, tissue damage and organ failure. Despite major advances in targeted protein degradation, no current technology can selectively eliminate toxic proteins residing inside this cellular compartment. As a result, patients affected by the so-called ER-storage diseases (e.g. collagenopathies, corneal dystrophies or serpinopathies) still
A Domain-Adapted Multimodal AI Platform for Substellar Astronomy: Foundation Models, Vision- Language Spectral Analysis, Retrieval-Augmented Generation, and Automated Research Workflows
INSTITUTO DE ASTROFISICA DE CANARIAS · ES · €150,000
SubstellarLLM is the first domain-adapted multimodal AI platform designed to dramatically reduce the “Time-to-Science” for substellar astronomy—from months to minutes. It integrates a fine-tuned text foundation model, a Vision-Language Model (VLM) for automated classification of Euclid’s 2D spectral images and multi-band imaging, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), real-time public catalogue APIs (Gaia DR3, 2MASS, AllWISE, SIMBAD), and a suite of specialised tools including visual spectral cla
Multimaterial High-Entropy Anodes for Green Hydrogen
UNIVERSITEIT TWENTE · NL · €150,000
Affordable green hydrogen requires durable electrolyzer materials that avoid scarce precious metals such as iridium.HEA-H2 addresses this challenge by establishing a multilayer anode technology based on high-entropy oxide (HEO) materials, recently disclosed in a patent application. The invention integrates these new catalyst materials into engineered multilayer electrode architectures that substantially improve the oxygen evolution reaction, the main efficiency bottleneck in water electrolysis.
Functionalized Glass Membranes for Resource Recovery from Waste Streams
AALBORG UNIVERSITET · DK · €150,000
Desalination is an essential process for securing access to safe drinking water, but it produces large volumes of concentrated brine, which harms marine ecosystems and is costly to dispose of. Brine, however, also contains valuable elements, including EU designated Critical Raw Materials (CRMs). For example, magnesium, which is vital to pharmaceuticals, electronics, and transport, is routinely discarded. Recovering it offers environmental and economic gains and supports a circular economy, but n
Seebeck-unlocked photoelectrochemical fuels
UNIVERSITAT POLITECNICA DE CATALUNYA · ES · €150,000
Photoelectrochemical (PEC) processes represent a promising pathway for sustainable solar-driven chemistry. However, a fundamental bottleneck in the field is the trade-off between current and voltage: while state-of-the-art wide-bandgap photoelectrodes offer high photovoltage, they are limited by low photocurrents. Conversely, innovative narrow-bandgap photoelectrodes excel in generating high photocurrents but fail to produce the necessary photovoltage to drive the electrolytic reaction effective
LIVEMAP: Live-cell mapping of drug–protein interactions across the human proteome
DEUTSCHES KREBSFORSCHUNGSZENTRUM HEIDELBERG · DE · €150,000
Drug discovery remains one of the most challenging endeavours in modern medicine. Despite decades of investment, approximately 90% of clinical drug candidates fail before reaching patients, with late-stage failures costing billions and delaying effective therapies. A key underlying reason is the inability to reliably determine the full range of proteins a drug engages in living cells, including both intended targets and unintended off-targets. Existing technologies either miss large portions of
Automated Sequence Discovery of Elite Responder Antibodies from REVAMP Sera
UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT · NL · €150,000
The most potent human antibodies – those secreted by plasma cells of elite responders – remain invisible to conventional single-cell BCR sequencing (scBCR-seq) and are therefore inaccessible for therapeutic discovery. Frontier research in REVAMP (ERC AdG 101141457) has pioneered a breakthrough protein-centric discovery platform, AbDirect, that directly sequences these genuine in vivo-matured antibodies from smallvolume biofluids. It captures the active molecules themselves, with preselection bef
Single-Atom Cartridges: From Powder to Product
POLITECNICO DI MILANO · IT · €150,000
SAC3 takes the world’s first structured single-atom catalyst (demonstrated within the ERC StG “SAC_2.0” using vat photopolymerization) and does what laboratory discoveries rarely achieve: turns it into a manufacturable technology. The goal is not to discover a better catalyst but to validate a manufacturing process for obtaining atomically precise catalytic cartridges ready for integration into industrial continuous-flow reactors.Conventional heterogeneous catalysts expose only 5-20% of their me
Wearable Cardiac Biomarker Testing at the Point of Need
KOC UNIVERSITY · TR · €150,000
Every year, an estimated 2 million EU emergency ambulance transports for chest pain reach hospital without a single troponin measurement — the biomarker needed to confirm or rule out myocardial infarction (heart attack). After discharge, a substantial proportion of patients who develop post-infarction heart failure are rehospitalised within 30 days, with no tool to monitor troponin at home. This gap persists because troponin circulates at concentrations orders of magnitude lower than glucose, th
Short Tandem Repeat Instability QuantIfier for Next-Generation sequencing
DEUTSCHES ZENTRUM FUR NEURODEGENERATIVE ERKRANKUNGEN EV · DE · €150,000
Over 50 severe genetic disorders are caused by short tandem repeat (STR) expansions. Emerging evidence indicates that increased STR instability plays a critical role in their pathogenesis. However, current analysis tools can only determine basic STR length but not instability, severely limiting both therapeutic development and clinical care. Our project aims to commercialize innovative software that enables targeted and genome-wide quantification of STR instability, addressing urgent needs in dr
Intrinsic Flame Instabilities for Engine Control: Translating Hydrogen Combustion Physics into Control Strategies
RHEINISCH-WESTFAELISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE AACHEN · DE · €150,000
Hydrogen internal combustion engines offer carbon-free power for applications where electrification is difficult. Ultra-lean operation enables high efficiency and low nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions, however, under these conditions, intrinsic flame instabilities (IFIs) caused by differential diffusion of hydrogen and heat, significantly influence burning rate, pollutant formation, and thermal efficiency. These effects have a huge impact but cannot be reliably predicted by current industrial work
From waste to wealth: implementing wastewater and sewage sludge elemental phytomining (eMINING)
CENTRO DE INVESTIGACION ECOLOGICA Y APLICACIONES FORESTALES · ES · €150,000
Most wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) release significant amounts of heavy metals and nutrients into aquatic ecosystems, threatening biodiversity and increasing the cost of reusing effluent water. Other waste products, like sewage sludge (SS), are still largely incinerated or disposed of in landfills, generating CO2 emissions and risking heavy metal leaching into water systems. The EU's Directive EU 2024/3019 mandates the phased implementation of tertiary treatments, yet currently only 10-15%
Progressive lenses on the spot - reimagining the ophthalmic value chain
TECHNION - ISRAEL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY · IL · €150,000
In this PoC we propose to develop a Progressive Lens Generator – a device that will enable rapid, wasteless, and automated end-to-end fabrication of high-quality multifocal ophthalmic lenses, without relying on capital-intensive surfacing infrastructure or centralized manufacturing facilities. The device will be based on our ERC-funded technology, which allows the formation of high-quality optical elements. As part of the ERC, we have already demonstrated fabrication of single-vision lenses in u
SMART-SMAPs: a new paradigm of cell-free cytotoxic immunotherapy for resistant CLL
UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI SIENA · IT · €150,000
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is the most prevalent adult leukemia, with ~32,000 new cases annually in Europe and a disease burden that has more than doubled over the past three decades. Despite significant advances with BTK and BCL-2 inhibitors, CLL remains incurable. Acquired resistance driven by the immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment (TME) leads to inevitable relapse in most patients. This challenge is shared across B-cell neoplasias, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma, diffuse large
Enzymatic STEreospecific RNA phosphorothioate modification for next-generation therapeutics
WEIZMANN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE · IL · €150,000
RNA therapeutics have emerged as a powerful medical modality, from COVID-19 vaccines to treatments for rare genetic diseases and cancer. However, a fundamental bottleneck limits their potential: RNA instability. Most approved RNA drugs rely on phosphorothioate (PS) modifications for stability and delivery, but current chemical synthesis produces stereochemical mixtures reducing efficacy, increasing toxicity, and complicating regulatory approval. Moreover, chemical PS synthesis is restricted to s
An LLM-Resilient Tool for Safe RTL Sharing
TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAT DARMSTADT · DE · €150,000
Modern chips are no longer designed in isolation. Instead, they are assembled from numerous third-party intellectual property (IP) blocks that are exchanged and reused across complex global supply chains. While this modular ecosystem is convenient for development, it also exposes valuable design assets to reverse engineering and unauthorized reuse. These risks are rapidly increasing with the emergence of AI models for code understanding, such as large language models, which can infer the functio
Safer Therapeutics Through Early Toxicity Detection
QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON · GB · €150,000
The development of safer and more effective medicines is constrained by the late detection of drug-induced toxicity, one of the principal causes of attrition during drug development and a major contributor to escalating costs. Existing screening strategies are primarily designed to identify target engagement, whereas toxic liabilities frequently become apparent only during advanced preclinical studies or clinical trials, resulting in costly failures and significant delays in bringing new therapi
Map for the Mediterranean: A Scalable Four-Dimensional Application to Manage Data on a Deep Environment
UNIVERSIDAD DE SEVILLA · ES · €150,000
MAP FOR THE MEDITERRANEAN: A Scalable Four-Dimensional Application to Manage Data on a Deep Environment.The Mediterranean Sea is among the most complex regions globally, facing acute geopolitical and environmental tensions. The challenges it faces, and the opportunities it presents, extend beyond the surface into the deep waters, making traditional bidimensional mapping from above inadequate for analysis, teaching, and decision-making. Moreover, historical and scientific data on the Mediterranea
Sustainable Marine Autonomous Real-Time Platform Technology
INSTITUT DE RECHERCHE POUR LE DEVELOPPEMENT · FR · €150,000
Plankton drives the ocean’s biological carbon pump, regulating climate and sustaining marine ecosystems. Yet its dynamics remain largely unobserved because current technologies cannot deliver continuous, high-frequency (hour, day), vertically integrated measurements. This observational gap limits our ability to understand and predict ocean services such as climate regulation. The ERC HOPE project demonstrated the feasibility of autonomous offshore monitoring, deploying a prototype integrating 12
DeepSonic: Deep sea soundscapes from machine learning
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON · GB · €150,000
Acoustic recordings of ocean noise offer vital insights into marine ecosystems, revealing the impacts of human activities such as noise pollution and climate change. Large baleen whales like blue and fin whales emit low-frequency calls that travel long distances and can be detected by ocean bottom seismometers (OBS)—instruments originally deployed for seismological research. This makes OBSs a cost-effective, passive tool for long-term marine mammal and ocean noise monitoring in deep and remote a
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