ERC publications

2015 was a very fruitful year for the ERC, fulfilling its core mission to support ambitious projects proposed by scientists. Some of these will certainly result in ground-breaking research pushing ahead the frontiers of human knowledge, indispensable to open the way to radical innovations. This is key in the battle for keeping Europe an exciting place to be and strengthening its capacity to deal with the numerous challenges it has to come to grips with.

This summary report provides a general overview of the research landscape of the projects funded by the ERC in FP7 in the domains of life sciences, physical sciences and engineering, and social sciences and humanities. One interesting analysis in the report concerns how bottom-up research funded by the ERC contributes to particular European thematic policy priorities — the examples given are nanotechnology, energy, health and migration. Other analyses that could be envisaged include how the scientific content of projects varies along the career stage of researchers (i.e. Starting Grant/Consolidator Grant versus Advanced Grant grantees). The data could also be used to localise clusters of excellence in particular research fields at a European level. The possibilities are almost infinite and provide an exciting avenue for further exploration.

This report aims to provide an authoritative quantitative overview of the European Research Council (ERC) funding activities over the course of the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Union for research, technological development and demonstration activities 2007-2013 (FP7).

Spotlight on ERC projects

The idea of automated machines that can perform tasks autonomously dates back to ancient times but robotics is a relatively new research domain – less than 60 years old. Today, this broad, interdisciplinary scientific field combines mechanical and electrical engineering, computational studies, communication engineering, but also neurosciences and cognitive sciences. From the big industrial robots that assist production in factories, to the robotic sensors in navigation systems and the nanorobots that might be injected in our cells for therapeutic purposes, researchers in robotics do not have to look too far for a scientific challenge or room for progress. The European Research Council (ERC) aims at supporting top researchers with these challenges by funding their best scientific ideas. Around 60 robotics-related projects have been funded by the ERC since its creation, representing more than €104 million invested in research areas such as human-robot interactions, robot tasks and abilities with various industrial or service applications (e.g. health, care, safety and domestic). This brochure showcases a few examples of these projects.

Annual report on the ERC activities and achievements in 2014

Every year, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) organises the world’s largest general scientific meeting which brings together thousands of scientists, policy makers, educators, journalists and students. This year’s AAAS Annual Meeting takes place from 12 to 16 February in San Jose, California, and focuses on the theme of Innovations, Information, and Imaging. The objective is to debate the impact on science and technology of the novel ways used nowadays to collect and explore information and data.

Examples of ERC projects at ESOF 2014

The projects presented in this brochure are investigating: how to model urban agglomerations; the development of “smart cities”; how the urban environment could affect cardiovascular health; energy poverty; anxiety, consumer culture and food safety and the role of space in policy making.

Cancer is among the leading causes of death worldwide, accounting for 8.2 million deaths in 2012 according to the World Health Organization. According to the same source, it is expected that annual cancer cases will rise from 14 million in 2012 to 22 million by 2030. Research on cancer development, treatment and prevention, as well as basic research in this area, is essential to reduce the burden of this disease. Research specialisms in the field of cancer funded by the European Research Council (ERC) include diverse topics ranging from cancer metabolism, microenvironment, metastasis, epigenetics, angiogenesis, drug resistance, immunity to treatment and epidemiology, amongst others. More than 100 proposals on cancer research have been funded so far, and even more projects in the Life Sciences have a strong cancer component. To date, the ERC has invested over €200 million in cancer research.