Romanians Ionut Epurescu-Pascovici, Mihaela Mihai and Mihaela Delcea are among the 328 scientists selected by the European Research Council (ERC) to receive its prestigious Starting Grants, worth up to EUR 2 million each.

The awarded EUR 485 million contributes to supporting a new generation of top scientists in Europe developing so-called "blue sky research": ambitious high-risk, high-gain research projects in any field.

The projects selected cover a wide range of areas including wearable electronic textiles powered by body heat, detection of bacteria by smell, 'toxic expertise' in the petrochemical industry, the origins of human rationality, combatting cancer related inflammation, as well as optimising user interface design.

The European Research Council (ERC) was set up in 2007 by the European Union and is the first European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. Every year, it selects and funds the very best, creative researchers of any nationality and age, to run five-year projects based in Europe.  It has funded over 4500 top researchers so far.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com