The projects of two ERC grants laureates will be carried out at the University of Warsaw. Prof. Grażyna Jurkowlaniec from the UW’s Faculty of Culture and Arts is the first Polish female researcher awarded with the Advanced Grant. Prof. Emanuel Gull, a Swiss from the University of Michigan, will conduct his project at the Faculty of Physics, where he will move his lab.
On 11th April at 12 am the European Research Council published the results of the call for Advanced Grants. Three projects from Poland received funding, two of which will be carried out at the University of Warsaw.
From 1829 submitted proposals 250 were selected for funding. The success rate for the Advance Grant call is around 13.9 %. The largest share of these are projects from the Physical Sciences and Engineering panel. Most of grant laureates represent German and French academic institutions.
To date, the ERC has awarded grants to researchers from the University of Warsaw thirty-three times, including eleven times to women, and one time to the scientist who decided to pursue the grant at the UW. Information on all UW laureates can be found under the “Research” tab: https://en.uw.edu.pl/research/european-research-council-grants/
Fauna and the concept of Eastern Europe
Prof. Grażyna Jurkowlaniec from the Faculty of Culture and Arts, the University of Warsaw, is leading the project SAIGA (Scholars, Animals, Images, Geographies, and the Arts: De-exoticizing Eastern Europe in the Early Modern Period). The researcher is the second Pole who is carrying out an Advanced Grant as part of the Social Sciences and Humanities panel, and the first woman in the country who received this grant.
As part of the SAIGA project, Prof. Jurkowlaniec’s team will analyse the relationship between the research on the fauna of Eastern Europe, and the ways in which the region was perceived in the early modern period, i.e. between the 16th and 18th centuries.
Quantum algorithms
Predictive algorithms for simulating quantum materials is the title of the research project conducted by Prof. Emanuel Gull. The Swiss-born scientist is a theoretical physicist engaged in developing methods that are key to understanding quantum systems, in particular, quantum materials. The researcher from the University of Michigan will carry out the ERC Advanced Grant at the UW’s Faculty of Physics.
In his research project, Prof Gull will combine existing and develop new methods, building on techniques from quantum field theory, condensed matter theory, quantum Monte Carlo, applied mathematics, as well as machine learning.
European Research Council (ERC) grants are prestigious awards given for ground-breaking research in a chosen scientific area. They are awarded by the European Union’s independent agency, the European Research Council, in five categories: ERC Starting Grant, ERC Consolidator Grant, ERC Advanced Grant, ERC Proof of Concept and ERC Synergy Grants.
The Advanced Grant of the European Research Council is given to active researchers who have a track-record of significant research achievements. The past laureates of the grant from the University of Warsaw are Prof. Andrzej Udalski from the Astronomical Observatory, and Prof. Stefan Dziembowski from the Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics. The UW served also as an institutional partner of two other projects awarded with the Advanced Grant conducted at other universities.