The European Research Council (ERC), the EU’s largest funding scheme for discovery research, recently announced the winners of this year’s Starting Grants.
ERC Starting Grants will help excellent younger scientists, who have 2 to 7 years’ experience after their PhDs, to launch their own projects, form their teams and pursue their most promising ideas. The ERC received 2932 applications from across Europe. Of these, 408 researchers were awarded grants worth a total of €636 million, according to the ERC’s announcement.
Among them, Péter Nagy, the only Hungarian researcher to receive a grant. The scientist at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering of BME won a five-year grant of €1.2 million. His project aims at the high-accuracy, quantum chemistry based modelling of molecular processes, which can also be utilised for the knowledge-based development of molecules, materials, and catalytic processes.
– according to BME press release.
Péter Nagy, is the only researcher from Hungarian institutions with a successful ERC Starting Grant application in 2022 (Photo: BME)
The last time a BME researcher won a Starting Grant was in 2010. In the last 5 years, Péter Nagy is only the third researcher from Hungarian institutions with a successful ERC Starting Grant application.
As for BME, we recently reported that it will launch a new English-language bachelor training programme in physics and engineering from September 2023, the first of its kind in Hungary, in response to the shortage of specialists in innovative companies.
