ERC Advanced Grants

The European Research Council (ERC) is the first European Union funding body set up to support investigator-driven frontier research. The main goal of the European Research Council (ERC) is to encourage high quality research in Europe through competitive funding. ERC grants will be awarded to highly innovative and risky research projects in Europe solely based on the criterion of excellence. The aim here is to recognise the best ideas, and retain and confer status and visibility to the best brains in Europe, while also attracting talented scientists from abroad. The organisation supports research on the sole criterion of excellence of the researcher and his or her scientific idea.

 

12/2012: ERC Advanced Grant for the promotion of cutting-edge research in the field of neuroscience at the Mainz University Medical Center

The European Research Council (ERC) has earmarked some EUR 2.5 million to fund research being conducted by neuroscientist Prof. Dr. Robert Nitsch, Drector of the Institute of Microscopic Anatomy and Neurobiology and spokesperson of the FTN. His work focuses on the role played by so-called bioactive lipids in the brain that assumingly impair signal transmission at cerebral synapses, which act as ‘switching stations’ in the brain. Disturbances of this kind to cerebral network homeostasis, i.e., in the balance between inhibition and excitation in the brain, occur for example in people with mental illnesses and epilepsy.

 

12/2010: Edge research at the University Medical Center Mainz awarded in the research field of bio silicate with the ERC Advanced Grant

The European Research Council (ERC) has earmarked some EUR 2.2 million for the work of molecular biologist Prof. Dr. Werner Müller, Institute of Physiological Chemistry and member of the FTN. Müller and his team developed intelligent nano-medical biomaterials, which are suitable as bone substitutes and treatment of osteoporosis. Also in the field of nano-optics Müller’s research gives important impulses. Foundations of these works constitute evidence obtained at the oldest known animals – sponges.