Two NCN grant winners, Dr hab. Artur Obłuski (archaeologist) and Dr Michał Drahus (astronomer), win prestigious ERC Consolidator Grants 2022.
Research in Old Dongola, fot. Mateusz Rekłajtis/CAŚ UW
Dr hab. Artur Obłuski is an archaeologist who specialises in medieval Nubia and promotes the ideas of social responsibility in archaeology and the involvement of local communities in cultural heritage management. In 2017, he became the first Polish archaeologist to win an ERC Starting Grant. This year, the ERC has decided to award him a Consolidator Grant for a project entitled “Afropolis Tungul. Urban Biography of a Cosmopolitan African Capital”. The project will develop an “urban biography” of Tungul (Old Dongola), a Nubian metropolis situated in what is now Sudan, which existed for more than 1500 years.
Artur Obłuski works at the University of Warsaw. He served as a PI under an NCN SONATA project , and is currently a PI under SONATA BIS.
Dr Michał Drahus is an astronomer affiliated with the Jagiellonian University; he studies comets and planetoids. He has completed a FUGA project and, like his Warsaw-based colleague, now serves as a PI under a SONATA BIS project. His NCN-funded research looks into the natural lifespan of comets and the spontaneous break-up of minor bodies in the Solar System.
He won an ERC Consolidator Grant 2022 for a project entitled “YADES. Hydrogen and Deuterium Survey of Minor Bodies: Transformative Science with a Purpose-built CubeSat”.
The European Research Council awards Consolidator Grants to researchers within 7 to 12 years after their PhD programme. This time, it selected 321 researchers from 37 different countries.
Earlier this month, the ERC also awarded a Proof of Concepts Grant to Professor Magdalena Król.