Prestigious European funding awards to advance the work of world-leading researchers have been made to two Edinburgh academics. Image Professors Loeske Kruuk and Alice Turk have both been awarded European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grants, which are made to researchers with a track record of excellence in their field. The University has secured €5 million in funding from the scheme, which supports academics whose achievements mark them out as exceptional leaders in terms of the originality and significance of their research. The grant awardees from Edinburgh, who each received €2.5M of funding, seek to address complex scientific questions. With mounting evidence that climate change is having major impacts on natural populations, Professor Loeske Kruuk’s EVOWILD project will seek to shed light on how environmental variation shapes evolutionary and ecological processes. For this last ERC call under Horizon 2020, over 200 researchers will be funded to follow their scientific instinct and dreams. Still, the great increase in demand led to a very fierce competition: only 8% of candidates were successful. We look forward to seeing what major insights and breakthroughs will spring from this investment and trust. We are pleased with the continued positive trend for women researchers showing that ERC’s sustained efforts on this matter pay off. Professor Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, ERC President Find out more To read the full story visit: https://edin.ac/3GItBI1 This article was published on 2024-07-01
