On Thursday, the European Research Council (ERC) awarded 19 grants to projects to be carried out at Spanish centers. This funding round will distribute €705 million (US$817.87) among 421 early-career researchers across Europe. Spain is the most represented nation with 24 of the awardees, making it the fourth most represented country, surpassed only by Germany, Italy, and France.
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Of the 19 grants based in Spain, eight are in Life Sciences, eight in Physics and Engineering, and three in Social Sciences and Humanities. The disciplines range from cosmology, with research on the use of gravitational lensing and multiple probes to study the accelerating universe, to quantum physics, with projects on neutral atom simulators.
The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) is the Spanish institution with the most grants, with four projects, followed by the University of Valencia, which receives two. The remaining grants are distributed among the University of Santiago de Compostela, the University of Granada, the Catalan research institute IREC, the CNIC (National Center for Cardiovascular Research), Hospital del Mar, the University of the Basque Country, Complutense University of Madrid, and Carlos III University of Madrid.
Among the selected projects, the ERC highlighted the “SynCity” project by María Isabel Navarro Mendoza, a Ramón y Cajal researcher who will join the University of Murcia. Her research will focus on Mucorales fungi, which cause mucormycosis, or “black fungus,” an infection with high mortality and resistance to most antifungals.
Un atlas genómico, nueva cosmología de precisión, vidrios híbridos y fenómenos de la materia
El #CSIC es el organismo español que más ‘Starting Grant’ del Consejo Europeo de Investigación ha conseguido en esta convocatoria
https://t.co/w28MFUjKrd pic.twitter.com/kizMQcCtQ1
— CSIC (@CSIC) September 3, 2026
The text reads, “A genomic atlas, new precision cosmology, hybrid glasses, and phenomena of matter. The CSIC is the Spanish organization that has obtained the most ‘Starting Grant’ from the European Research Council in this call”
“More than 50 nationalities are represented among these researchers,” stated ERC President Maria Leptin, who added that the grants “will give them the independence and support they need at the beginning of their careers to expand the frontiers of science.”
“More than 50 nationalities are represented among these researchers.” Furthermore, 20 of the 21 awardees currently residing outside Europe are from the United States. European Commissioner for Research and Innovation, Ekaterina Zaharieva, stated that this reflects Europe’s “growing attractiveness for cutting-edge research.”
Each Starting Grant provides up to €1.5 million (US$1.7 million) for up to five years to early-stage researchers. The call for applications broke records with 4,807 proposals, 22% more than the previous year, of which only 8.8% were funded.
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