University of Birmingham researchers awarded €1.5M European Research Council Starting Grants

The European Research Council (ERC) - the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research - has announced the awarding of 494 major European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants to young scientists and scholars across Europe, including three University of Birmingham researchers.

The funding – totalling nearly €780 million this year– is part of the Horizon Europe programme and will support researchers at the beginning of their careers to launch their own projects, form their teams, and pursue their most promising ideas.

This is the first time since the UK left the EU that the ERC Starting Grants have been made available to UK researchers and the application process was highly competitive. This year, around 14% of applications were successful, with 494 researchers selected out of 3,474 proposals, with 50 grants being awarded to researchers based in the UK.

Each of the University of Birmingham researchers selected for a Starting Grant – Asst. Prof Clément Bonnerot from the School of Physics & Astronomy, Dr Oliver Maguire from the School of Chemistry, and newly-appointed Dr Ali Sadaghiani from the School of Engineering – will receive up to €1.5 million for a period of five years.

Announcing the new round of grants, President of the European Research Council Professor Maria Leptin said: “Empowering researchers early on in their careers is at the heart of the mission of the ERC. I am particularly pleased to welcome UK researchers back to the ERC. They have been sorely missed over the past years. With 50 grants awarded to researchers based in the UK, this influx is good for the research community overall.”

University of Birmingham’s 2024 ERC Starting Grant winners:

Assistant Professor Clément Bonnerot, School of Physics and Astronomy

Assistant Professor Bonnerot’s work addresses the phenomena of tidal disruption events – instances when a star gets too close to a supermassive black hole and is consequently torn apart by intense gravity, resulting in a powerful flash of light detectable by our telescopes. His research will focus on theoretically understanding these phenomena making use of computer simulations, in order to optimally exploit future observations to learn about various mysteries surrounding supermassive black holes, their environment, and the extreme processes taking place in their vicinity.

He said: "I am delighted and honoured to have been awarded this grant, which will provide me with financial autonomy to start building my own research group in the next five years. I look forward to working alongside young researchers to tackle the challenging and fascinating research questions involved in this project."

Assistant Professor Oliver Maguire, School of Chemistry

Dr Maguire is starting with the university as Assistant Professor in the School of Chemistry in December. His project aims to create new artificial materials which are capable of making decisions about how to move when the environment changes. These new materials will have a potentially transformative impact in areas such as MedTech and Soft Robotics.

Whilst there are already materials with autonomous decision making in the natural world - in the way certain plant leaves are able to rotate themselves to follow the sun during in order to maximise photosynthesis or turn away from it if they become too hot - there are not yet man-made materials with the same capabilities. Dr Maguire’s work aims to address this by developing novel protein-based networks which process electrochemical signals and decide how to move the material in response.

He said: “I’m absolutely delighted to have been awarded an ERC Starting Grant and I am excited to get started on developing these new decision-making materials. I’m very grateful to the ERC for this opportunity and to the University of Birmingham School of Chemistry and the Research Support Office for their fantastic support in securing this substantial funding.”

Dr Ali Sadaghiani, School of Engineering

Dr Sadaghiani recently moved to the University of Birmingham from Sabanci University in Istanbul. The ERC grant will support his work which aims to develop a highly efficient and sustainable water purification system using solar energy. At its core, the SolWater project focuses on developing innovative 3D-engineered structures to enhance evaporation. This approach, called solar-driven interfacial evaporation (SDIE), produces clean water by evaporation. The project’s primary goal is to deepen our understanding of liquid/vapor phase change and interfacial transport in SDIE systems, helping to address global water scarcity and offering a greener solution for freshwater production.

He said: “I’m incredibly honoured and excited to receive this prestigious ERC grant. It’s a wonderful recognition of our innovative approach to tackling one of the world’s most pressing issues – access to clean water. This grant will allow us to explore new frontiers in sustainable water purification, and I’m eager to begin this next chapter at the University of Birmingham. I’m grateful for the opportunity to make a tangible impact on science and society.”