EU "ERC Starting grant" goes to IMP group leader Stefan Westermann
The IMP scientist Stefan Westermann has received one of the European Research Council’s first awarded "ERC Starting grants" this year. Westermann’s project "Molecular Dissection of the Kinetochore-Microubule Interface" prevailed in the strict Starting Grants competition. In the first round, over 9,000 applications were submitted by Principal Investigators (PIs) of 88 nationalities. From the 559 successful candidates at the first stage, the ERC will fund some 300 proposals from 32 nationalities of PIs, at around 170 host institutions in 21 countries.
Through the ERC, in the 7th supporting program for research, this represents the first time that the European Union is promoting fundamental research, with a focus on "first-class research". And in the course of the next seven years, up to a total of 7.5 billion euros will be made available for this. In the first year, scholarships will only be awarded to young and talented scientists.
The second grant awarded to date has gone to Westermann’s colleague, Kazufumi Mochizuki, from the partner institute IMBA.