ERC Advanced Grants : CNRS in the lead among European institutions

The European Research Council (ERC) has announced the recipients of its 2017 Advanced Grants, awarded to experienced male and female researchers well known in their fields. In total, across all disciplines, 269 projects were selected, including 34 hosted in France. With its 15 winners, the CNRS leads the pack: 15% of the candidates it hosts were accepted, while the success rate for all European candidates combined was 12%. ERC Advanced Grants target high-level researchers recognized as leaders in their respective fields. Grants can each total as much as €2.5 million over 5 years—or even €3.5 million in the event of major equipment purchases or international relocations. Altogether, 34 French projects were selected, placing France in third place among host countries, behind first-place United Kingdom (66 projects funded) and second-place Germany (42 projects funded). The 15 winning projects hosted by the CNRS are respectively represented by 13 researchers from the CNRS, one from the Collège de France, and one from the University of Chicago. They account for nearly half of the French projects selected. These results rank the CNRS first among hosting institutions, ahead of Oxford University (14 grant recipients), and ETH Zurich (10 recipients). The projects address topics in the biological sciences, ecology and environmental science, the social sciences, mathematics, physics, nuclear and particle physics, and astronomy. Find out more about the 15 winning CNRS projects: 3DEpi Project