Nine ERC Consolidator Grants for Max-Planck

In a European comparison, the MPG is in second place

The European Research Council (ERC) uses them to fund promising scientists who completed their doctorate seven to twelve years ago: the ERC Consolidator Grants. Nine of them will go to the Max Planck Society in 2024. As different as the fields in which they conduct their research are, all the Max Planck researchers who have been awarded grants share a common goal: they will receive funding of up to two million euros over the next five years to help them expand their scientific independence.
 
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In a European comparison, the Max Planck Society ranks second, alongside the Helmholtz Association. The French CNRS leads the ranking with 20 grants. Israeli institutions follow in third and fourth place, with the Weizmann Institute receiving seven grants and the University of Tel Aviv receiving six.

This year's ERC Consolidator Grants go to the following Max Planck researchers:

Chemistry, Physics and Engineering

• Marcel Böhme, MPI for Security and Privacy in Bochum, Project: In-Vivo Software Security Analysis at Scale (AT_SCALE)
• Mario Flock, MPI for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Project: Revealing Accreting Planets Through Observations and Refined simulations (RAPTOR)
• Manuel Gomez Rodriguez, MPI for Software Systems in Kaiserslautern, Project: Counterfactuals in Minds and Machines (Counterfact)
• Mariana Rossi, MPI for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter in Hamburg, Project: "Steering the Quantum Dynamics of Confined Molecular Materials" (QUADYMM)
• Birgit Stiller, MPI for the Science of Light in Erlangen, Project: Computing with Light and Sound (SOUND-PC)

Biology and Medicine

• Henning Fenselau, MPI for Metabolism Research in Cologne, Project: Decoding the Wiring of Integrative Neurocircuits in Metabolic Control (DeWireMetab)
• Duarte Figueiredo, MPI of Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam, Project: Engineering pollen-independent seed and fruit production in crops (NoSexSeed)
• Valerie Hilgers, MPI of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, Project: Regulation and impact of the nervous system's unique RNA signatures (NeuroRNA)

Humanities and Social Sciences

• Andrea Martin, MPI for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen (NL), Project: Integrating structure and statistics in language processing: an ecological neural dynamics and manifolds approach (DYNALANG)

A total of 27 applications were submitted by the Max Planck Institutes. With an approval rate of 36 percent, the CPTS (14 applications submitted) was particularly successful. The BMS (9 applications submitted) has a success rate of 33 percent. One in four applications from the GSHS was approved (25 percent). The gender ratio of grantees is almost balanced this year: four of the nine grantees are female researchers.