European Research Council announces €5M proof of concept grants

The ERC has named 34 scientists who will receive proof of concept grants to support translation of their research, providing funding to cover activities such as establishing intellectual property rights, market research and achieving technical validation.

This system is one of the ERC's trademarks, said ERC President Professor Jean-Pierre Bourguignon. "A continued increase in demand for these grants illustrates the interest of scientists in exploring possible extensions of their research. This scheme is most welcome as it helps push the best fundamental research towards the market."

The 34 grants announced today (February 6) bring the total number of awards in the €10 million call to 67. The first 33 grants were announced in September 2013.

The winning researchers are based in 13 countries: the Netherlands (5), Germany (4), UK (4), Ireland (3), Israel (3), Spain (3), Switzerland (3), Belgium (2), France (2), Sweden (2), Denmark (1), Finland (1) and Italy (1).

A total of 147 proposals were submitted to this second round. Overall, there have been 293 applications for funding under this call, more than double the 2012 call, when 139 ERC-funded researchers applied for grants. Award winning projects include:

• A study on the potential for photocatalytic air purification (Caterina Ducati, University of Cambridge)
• The applicability of gene therapies for diseases (Nicholas Dionysios Mazarakis, Imperial College Of London)
• Reagents that may accelerate drug discovery (Jeffrey William Bode, ETH Zürich)
• New methods of statistical inference in the study of proteins (Jan Ramon, University Of Leuven)

The next call for proposals - 'Proof of Concept' 2014 – is currently open to ERC grant holders, with a first deadline of 1 April 2014.