Ewa Szczurek, Szymon Toruńczyk, Paweł Caputa, and Magdalena Wojcieszak from the University of Warsaw have just grabbed four ERC Consolidator Grants. They have also worked on NCN-funded projects.
Prof. Ewa Szczurek will work on a project entitled Deep Optimised Generation of Antimicrobial Peptides (DOG-AMP) to generate new antimicrobial peptides that would be more active and less toxic than the peptides we have today. They could be used more effectively in therapies and help counteract antimicrobial resistance.
Prof. Szczurek is a winner of three NCN grants: POLONEZ, SONATA BIS and OPUS, and works at the Faculty of Mathematics, Mechanics and Computer Science of the University of Warsaw. Her faculty colleague, Prof. Szymon Toruńczyk, who also won a CoG, will focus on the “Limits of Structural Tractability”. His project aims to develop a mathematical theory composed of definitions, theorems and proofs to describe the theoretical limits of effective graph-computation algorithms.
Professor Toruńczyk has previously completed a SONATA project on database theory.
Prof. Paweł Caputa will work on a project entitled “Quantum Complexity from Quantum Field Theories to Quantum Gravity”. His goal is to develop precise measures of state complexity and operators in quantum theories and employ them in quantum gravity models to improve our understanding of the interior of black holes and cosmological singularities.
Prof. Caputa works at the Faculty of Physics of the University of Warsaw, where he is also working on a SONATA BIS projects in quantum gravity, quantum information and quantum computing.
Last but not least, the fourth CoG will go to Prof. Magdalena Wojcieszak from the Centre of Migration Research at the University of Warsaw, who will work on a project focused on “Incentivizing Citizen Exposure to Quality News Online: Framework and Tools”.
ERC Consolidator Grants, worth up to 2 million euro, are available to researchers who earned their PhD 7 to 12 years ago. In this iteration of the CoG call, funding was awarded to a total of 308 researchers of 43 different nationalities. The greatest number of projects will be conducted in Germany (66), the Netherlands (36), and France (23).
More information about the call and its winners can be found on the website of the ERC.
A list of the previous winners of all ERC grants (Starting Grant, Consolidator Grant, Advanced Grant, Proof of Concept and Synergy Grant) working at Polish institutions is available here: https://www.kpk.gov.pl/horyzont-europa/excelence-science/erc-frontier-research
Nearly all Polish ERC winners have previously served as a PI or worked in an NCN-funded project.