2 ERC Synergy Awards & 2 ERC Public Engagement with Research Awards
Two researchers based in Ireland, Dr Nicola Fletcher (University College Dublin) and Associate Professor Ruth Britto (Trinity College Dublin) have joined an elite number of distinguished scholars announced as European Research Council (ERC) Synergy laureates.
ERC grants are recognised as the most prestigious and competitive European-level awards in research, with the Synergy awards specifically aimed at promoting collaborative efforts among international consortia engaged in transformative research.
The almost €5 million in funding awarded through this call brings the national total in funding through the ERC under the Horizon Europe framework programme (2021-2027) to over €142 million.
As Synergy awardees, Dr Fletcher and Associate Professor Britto joined with other European researchers as partners on two exceptional and revolutionary research proposals designed to boldly challenge the boundaries of knowledge and discovery.
(l-r): ERC Synergy awardees Dr Nicola Fletcher and Associate Professor Ruth Britto
Dr Fletcher, Assistant Professor at the School of Veterinary Medicine, Research Ireland Frontiers for the Future awardee and Fellow of the Conway Institute at UCD, is a veterinary pathologist and infectious disease expert with a background in high-containment zoonotic viral diseases and development of complex 3D in vitro and ex vivo cell and tissue models for viral disease. Applying this expertise and that of her partners, based in the UK and Germany, the awardees intend to apply their unique skillset to tackle the limitations of conventional microscopy techniques in the visualisation of complex tissues through the NanoX ERC project. The results generated have the global and powerful potential to further our understanding of disease mechanisms.
Reacting to being awarded ERC funding to pursue the NanoX project, Dr Fletcher, the coordinating partner on NanoX, said:
I am delighted and honoured to receive this ERC synergy grant, which will allow me to work with world-leading researchers in the field of soft x-ray microscopy. I am confident that this project will deliver new ways to diagnose and treat a wide range of diseases in humans and animals. I’m passionate about One Health, the idea that animal, human and environmental health are all linked, and we must consider all of them when trying to improve the health of any one. This project fits perfectly within One Health and will benefit all species.
No stranger to ERC success, having won an ERC Consolidator grant for her research in 2014, Associate Professor Ruth Britto’s inclusion in the class of 2024 ERC Synergy awardees further cements her position as a global leader in her field. Associate Professor in Pure & Applied Mathematics at TCD, she has partnered with scholars from Germany, the UK and Sweden to create a multidisciplinary team with expertise in pure mathematics and theoretical physics to develop a set of novel and efficient algorithmic methods with applications in mathematics, particle physics and gravity through the MaScAmp project.
Reflecting on the significance of the ERC Synergy award, Associate Professor Britto commented:
For years, I’ve been probing the structure of scattering amplitudes to try to get a handle on computing them as neatly as possible, in the face of rapidly increasing complexity.
I’ve made progress by relying on the mathematics of well-known functions, but we’ve reached the point where it’s clear that we need to develop new mathematics to meet the needs of current and future experiments. Based on our common recognition of an underlying hidden geometry in scattering amplitudes, I am teaming up with colleagues who can develop wholly new mathematical concepts and bring insights from string theory. This grant allows us to commit to a long-term alignment of our separate research goals, and to form an integrated community advancing both physics and mathematics, with concrete computational impact for the current generation of observations in particle physics and gravity.
In further ERC news, Profs Orla Muldoon and Frédéric Dias, who were previously awarded ERC grants in Ireland, have been recognised (as two, among only six) for their outstanding achievements in successfully engaging audiences outside of academia with 2024 ERC Public Engagement with Research Awards.
Prof. Muldoon, (University of Limerick), who won an ERC Advanced Grant in 2020, was recognised for her public engagement addressing gender-based violence as a societal and public health issue, challenging the view that it is solely a personal or intimate problem. Through research and public advocacy, Prof. Muldoon and her team highlighted how the risk of gender-based violence shapes women’s social identities and has serious mental and physical health implications. The jury praised the project for its ‘highly effective real-time communication, courage and passion’, noting that it succeeded in gaining national media attention and achieving political change with very limited resources.
Professor Dias’s (UCD and ENS Paris-Saclay) public engagement project, part of his 2019 ERC-funded research, aimed to study energetic waves by establishing a research station on the Aran Islands in Ireland. The project took a community-based approach, integrating local islanders into the scientific process. The jury praised the project for ‘sensitively embedding their research station in the community and involving islanders in its work’, describing it as ‘a jewel of a small-scale project’ and a benchmark for future public engagement initiatives.
Their recognition serves as a testament to the value of public engagement in research and highlights the importance of collaboration between academia and the communities it serves.
Commenting on the recent ERC success, Dr Maria Nash, ERC National Delegate and National Contact Point based at Research Ireland, said:
Congratulations to Associate Professor Britto and Dr Fletcher on the momentous achievement of becoming ERC Synergy scholars. ERC Synergy research projects, in particular, are highly ambitious and expansive by design and sheer scale, and address global challenges that can only be mastered through the pooling of expertise and abilities. How wonderful it is that two outstanding female researchers in Ireland have been funded with their international partners through this ERC Synergy call to deliver on their world-changing research ideas. I wish them the very best of luck in their explorations and eagerly anticipate news on the impactful contributions their research will make. Congratulations also to Profs Muldoon and Dias on their ERC Public Engagement awards. Their work serves as a leading example of the strength in bridging the gap between science and society.