The ERC Advanced Grant is aimed at established researchers who have carried out significant research work over the past ten years. The grant, on average, is EUR 2.5 million over a five-year period. In total, EUR 721 million is allocated to 281 European researchers. In addition to three ERC Advanced Grants, Lund University has also received four Starting Grants, five Consolidator Grants, one Synergy Grant and two Proof of Concept Grants.
“It’s fantastic that researchers at Lund University have had so much success and received a record number of grants from the ERC based on applications in 2024. The ERC’s research grants are awarded in very tough scientific competition and the results are proof of the cutting-edge research being conducted at Lund University,” says Per Mickwitz, pro vice-chancellor for research, sustainability and campus development.
Anders Rantzer, professor of automatic control, has received an ERC Advanced Grant for his project “Dual Control at Scale: Learning-based control for systems with millions of states”
Congratulations! Can you tell us a little about your project?
“My subject is automatic control. This generally concerns how you use measurements and control measures to achieve the behaviour you want in various dynamic systems. Conventional applications include controlling pressure and temperature in industrial processes, guiding a space rocket to a moon landing, or regulating speaker amplification in a sound system.”
“This project has been particularly inspired by medical applications in which genetic analysis of the cells in blood samples taken at regular intervals can be used to understand how the patient responds to a cancer treatment using immunotherapy. Using this approach, the treatment can be adapted to the individual and made more effective than a predetermined schedule.”
What do you hope to achieve with this research?
“The project will develop new mathematical methods that can also be used in many non-medical contexts. The world is full of connected systems that can be understood and improved with the use of mathematical models.”
“It’s well-known that artificial intelligence is based on collecting large volumes of data. However, the collection of good data is expensive and complicated, and sometimes even unethical. In automatic control, we therefore strive to make the learning process more efficient and avoid conducting more experiments than necessary. This is what is termed as “dual control” – using minimal control measures to achieve both a short-term effect (the patient feels better) and long-term value (we understand the patient better).”
What does the ERC grant mean to you?
“The ERC grant is very important to me, above all because it enables a long-term approach and the freedom to try new ideas. The prestige associated with the grant also helps in international recruitment. We can reach out to Lund’s students through our courses, but if you want to reach the younger generation from other parts of the world, visibility and quality are important. And in that context, it helps to have the ERC behind you.”
Eric Warrant, a professor at the Department of Biology, has received an ERC Advanced Grant för his project “Incredible journeys: How do multiple sensory cues allow animal migrants to precisely navigate to a distant goal?”
Congratulations Eric, how does it feel?
“Very gratifying! This is my second Advanced Grant and it feels like a good confirmation that we are on the right path with our research.”
Can you tell us about your “incredible journeys” project?
“We will continue our research on the Bogong moth’s navigational ability. We have discovered that they can use the stars and the Earth’s magnetic field as compasses to navigate a distance of about 1,000 kilometres to a place they have never been before. We have also discovered that there is a special scent at the destination that the moths “recognise” when they get there. This acts as a kind of “stop signal”. We will investigate how the senses for sight, magnetism and smell are used to control navigation in terms of behaviour and neuron activity in the brain.”
What do you hope to achieve through the project?
“We first want to understand how this impressive navigational ability is enabled by the moth’s sensory systems. For example, we want to understand how visual, magnetic and olfactory signals are detected by the moth and how they are integrated in the brain to allow navigation. A major goal for the project is to discover the sensory mechanisms the moth uses to respond to the Earth’s magnetic field. How animals manage to do this is a mystery.”
What practical uses do the findings have?
“The fact that a relatively simple nervous system with minimal energy needs can manage such a mammoth navigation task is of great interest to engineers who develop flying drones and other autonomous craft.”
What does the grant mean to you?
“It means an awful lot, there are many research dreams than can be realised with a grant like this! I am very grateful to both the European Research Council and Lund University.”
Johan Malmström, professor of proteomics and infectious medicine , has received an ERC Advanced Grant for his project “Antibody-guided design of multivalent nanoparticle vaccines against bacterial pathogens”
What is your research project about?
“It concerns the use of new technology to develop a vaccine against bacteria. The global prevalence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing problem. AMR means that microorganisms – bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites – develop resistance to the drugs that are normally used to kill them. Vaccination is the most effective measure to protect against infectious diseases without increasing the development of resistance, but at the present time it’s difficult to develop effective vaccines.”
What is the goal?
“Our goal is to show how methodological advances in proteomics (the study of all proteins in the body), protein biochemistry and protein design can help to develop a protein-based nanoparticle vaccine that provides good immunological protection against bacteria. Nanoparticle vaccine is a type of vaccine in which very small particles are used to carry and deliver parts of a virus or bacterium to the body.”
“Our project focuses on developing vaccine candidates against families of proteins that can provide broad immunological protection against several bacteria at the same time.”
What did you think when you got the news that you had received the ERC grant?
“Long-term research funding is crucial for us, as researchers, to be able to focus on projects that are high risk but have considerable potential. The ERC grant enables us to build a team of competent researchers who will focus on our research for five years. We are very grateful that the ERC chose to invest in our particular project in view of the tough competition!”