Waldemar Kütt has been confirmed as director of the European Research Council (ERC) Executive Agency, the administrative arm of the ERC. Having been the acting director of the executive agency since August 2019 when he took over after Pablo Amor, his new mandate starts on 16 May.

Before joining the ERC, Waldemar Kütt worked for the European Commission's Directorate General for Research and Innovation, where he headed units for "Bioeconomy and Food Systems”, "Bio-based Products and Processing" and “Bioeconomy Strategy”. Prior to this, he inter alia worked in the Cabinets of European Research Commissioners J. Potočnik and M. Geoghegan-Quinn, as Deputy and Head of Cabinet. He holds a doctor's degree in Physics from the Technical University Aachen, Germany. The ERC is led by an independent Scientific Council, supported by the executive agency, which implements the scientific funding strategy established by the Scientific Council and executes the operational activities. The ERC Executive Agency has over 500 staff members.