ERC funding at KI

The main goal of the European Research Council (ERC) is to encourage high-quality research in Europe through competitive funding.

ERC Synergy Grants

ERC Synergy Grants, worth up to 10 million EUR over 6 years, aim to bring together 2-4 outstanding scientists at the forefront of complementary fields to jointly undertake bold, curiosity-driven research with the potential to transform the research landscape. (This funding scheme was launched as a fully-fledged scheme in 2018.)

KI ERC Synergy Grants

(awarded to KI)

CartoHostBug (ERC-2023-SyG) – Eduardo Villablanca: 'Functional cartography of intestinal host-microbiome interactions'

Collaboration with Julio Saez-Rodriguez at University Hospital Heidelberg, Stefania Giacomello at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, and Georg Zeller at European Molecular Biology Laboratory

Read more at KI News

D2Smell (ERC-2023-SyG) – Johan Lundström: 'Digitising Smell: From Natural Statistics of Olfactory Perceptual Space to Digital Transmission of Odors' 

Collaboration with Noam Sobel at Weizmann Institute of Science and Jonathan Williams at Max Planck Society

Read more at KI News

EPIC (ERC-2023-SyG) – Vicente Pelechano: 'Unravelling the eukaryotic post-transcriptional regulatory code'

Collaboration with Kevin Verstrepen at Flanders Institute for Biotechnology and Julien Gagneur at Technical University of Munich

Read more at KI News

SALAMANDRA (ERC-2020-SyG) – András Simon: 'Decoding the organization and regeneration of locomotor neuronal networks in tetrapods by integrating genomics, systems neuroscience, numerical modeling, and biorobotics'
Collaboration with Auke Ijspeert at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland and Dimitri Ryczko at Université de Sherbrooke in Canada

Read more at KI News

SPHERES (ERC-2019-SyG) – Mikael Rydén: 'Lipid droplet hypertrophy: the link between adipocyte dysfunction and cardiometabolic diseases'
Collaboration with Bruno Antonny at CNRS in France and Dominique Langin at the Université Paul Sabatier in France

KILL-OR-DIFFERENTIATE (ERC-2019-SyG) – Igor Adameyko and Susanne Schlisio: 'Using cell-cell interactions to unlock new cancer treatments'
Igor Adameyko is also affiliated to MedUni Vienna in Austria. Collaboration with Peter Kharchenko at the Harvard Medical School in the US and Olivier Delattre at the Institut Curie in France

Read more at KI News

ERC Advanced Grants

ERC Advanced Grants, worth up to 2.5 million EUR over five years, allow exceptional research leaders of any nationality and any age to pursue ground-breaking, high-risk projects that open new directions in their respective research fields or other domains. The ERC Advanced Grant funding targets researchers who have already established themselves as independent research leaders in their own right. 

KI ERC Advanced Grants

(awarded to or moved to KI)

SingleMS (ERC-2022-AdG) – Gonçalo Castelo-Branco: 'Unveiling the functional outcome of single nucleotide polymorphisms and variants in oligodendroglia in multiple sclerosis'

SOMATICART (ERC-2022-AdG) – Maria Eriksson: 'Somatic mutations in vascular-wall function and age-associated disease'

qScope (ERC-2022-AdG) – Björn Högberg: 'The sequencing microscope – a path to look at the molecules of biology'

Read more at KI News

DescendPain (ERC-2021-AdG) – Patrik Ernfors (third ERC Advanced Grant): 'Descending control of pain'

Read more at KI news

PreciseCellPD (ERC-2019-AdG) – Ernest Arenas: 'A precision cell-replacement strategy for Parkinson's Disease'

Read more at KI News

EYELETS (ERC-2018-AdG) – Per-Olof Berggren (second ERC Advanced Grant): 'A regenerative medicine approach in diabetes'

Read more at KI News

SELF-UNITY (ERC-2017-AdG) – Henrik Ehrsson: 'The Unity of the Bodily Self'

IMMUNEDIVERSITY (ERC-2017-AdG) – Gunilla Karlsson Hedestam: 'Defining human adaptive immune gene diversity and its impact on disease'

Read more at KI News

5D Heart Patch (ERC-2016-AdG) – Kenneth R. Chien: 'A Functional, Mature In vivo Human Ventricular Muscle Patch for Cardiomyopathy'

PainCells (ERC-2016-AdG) – Patrik Ernfors (second ERC Advanced Grant): 'Decomposition of pain into cell types'

HEPASPHER (ERC-2016-AdG) – Magnus Ingelman-Sundberg: 'Mimicking liver disease and regeneration in vitro for drug development and liver transplantation'

mtDNA-CURE (ERC-2016-AdG) – Nils-Göran Larsson (second ERC Advanced Grant, moved from Max Planck Institute): 'Treating mitochondrial disease caused by pathogenic mtDNA mutations'

Read more at KI News

Neurogenesis (ERC-2015-AdG) – Jonas Frisén (second ERC Advanced Grant): 'Exploration and promotion of neurogenesis in the adult brain'

TAROX (ERC-2015-AdG) – Thomas Helleday (second ERC Advanced Grant): 'Targeting oxidative repair proteins for treatment of cancer and inflammation'

LocomotorIntegration (ERC-2015-AdG) – Ole Kiehn (second ERC Advanced Grant): 'Functional deciphering of the integrated brainstem connectome that selects locomotor behavior'

TRANSREAD (ERC-2015-AdG) – Klas Wiman: 'Restoration of tumor suppressor function by induction of translational read-through of premature termination codons - a strategy for improved cancer therapy'

Read more at KI News

BETAIMAGE (ERC-2013-AdG) – Per-Olof Berggren: 'An in vivo imaging approach to understand pancreatic beta-cell signal-transduction'

P75NTR (ERC-2013-AdG) – Carlos Ibanez (second ERC Advanced Grant): 'Understanding death-receptor signaling and physiology in the nervous system'

MEMORYSTICK (ERC-2012-AdG) – Lars Olson: 'Plasticity and formation of lasting memories in health and disease'

BBBARRIER (ERC-2011-AdG) – Christer Betsholtz: 'Mechanisms of regulation of the blood-brain barrier; towards opening and closing the barrier on demand'

NEURAL RENEWAL (ERC-2010-AdG) – Jonas Frisén: 'Neurogenesis in the adult human brain'

NEURONSINMOTION (ERC-2010-AdG) – Ole Kiehn: 'Linking glutamatergic spinal cord and brainstem neuronal circuits to the control of locomotor behavior'

GENECADD (ERC-2010-AdG) – Thomas Helleday: 'GEnetic NEtworks as a tool for anti-CAncer Drug Development'

PREVENTRA (ERC-2009-AdG) – Lars Klareskog: 'Genes, environment and immunity in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis'

ANGIOFAT (ERC-2009-AdG) – Yihai Cao: 'New mechanisms of angiogenesis modulators in switching between white and brown tissue'

STEMRENEWAL (ERC-2008-AdG) – Patrik Ernfors: 'Identification of new mechanism of stem cell self-renewal'

ALK7 (ERC-2008-AdG) – Carlos Ibanez: 'Metabolic control by the TGF-x superfamily receptor ALK7: A novel regulator of insulin secretion, fat accumulation and energy balance'

GROWTHCONTROL (ERC-2008-AdG) – Jussi Taipale: 'Dissecting the transcriptional mechanisms controlling growth during normal development and cancer'

ICEBERG (ERC-2008-AdG) – Juleen Zierath: 'Discovery of type 2 diabetes targets'

ERC Consolidator Grants

ERC Consolidator Grants, worth up to 2 million Euro over 5 years, are designed to support researchers at the stage at which they are consolidating their own independent research team or programme. The scheme will strengthen independent and excellent new individual research teams that have been recently created. 

KI ERC Consolidator Grants

(awarded to or moved to KI)

MYCinTOPshape (ERC-2022-CoG) – Laura Baranello: 'Mechanism and targeting of topoisomerase regulatory interactions to arrest MYC-driven tumors'

Read more at KI News

ChromaDYN (ERC-2022-CoG) – Simon Elsässer: 'Quantitative multimodal pulse-and-label time-resolved chromatin maps'

Read more at KI News

divENSify (ERC-2021-CoG) – Ulrika Marklund: 'Dissecting a stepwise principle of cellular diversification to instruct regeneration in the enteric nervous system'

Read more at KI News

DELIVER (ERC-2020-CoG) – Samir El Andaloussi: 'Release of engineered Extracellular vesicles for delivery of Biotherapeutics'

Read more at KI News

ANTIBODYPAIN (ERC-2019-CoG) – Camilla Svensson: 'Autoantibodies and chronic pain - Unraveling new mechanisms contributing to pain in rheumatic disease'

MacinNASH (ERC-2019-CoG) – Myriam Aouadi: 'Revealing the contribution of liver macrophage populations to NASH in insulin resistance'

Read more at KI News

SCHIZTYPE (ERC-2018-CoG) – Jens Hjerling Leffler: 'Brain cell type-specific interactions and schizophrenia'

ARTSILK (ERC-2018-CoG) – Anna Rising: 'Novel approaches to the generation of artificial spider-silk super fibers'

Epi4MS (ERC-2018-CoG) – Maja Jagodic: 'Targeting the epigenome for a better understanding of disease pathogenesis and novel therapeutic strategies in Multiple Sclerosis'

Read more at KI News

Reprogram-Diabetes (ERC-2017-CoG) – Olov Andersson: 'In vivo drug discovery for cellular reprogramming to β-cells; towards a future regenerative therapy for diabetes'

PREVENT RA (ERC-2017-CoG) – Anca Catrina: 'Towards prevention of autoimmune diseases; the case of rheumatoid arthritis'

Read more at KI News

CellTrack (ERC-2016-CoG) – Björn Högberg: 'Cellular Position Tracking Using DNA Origami Barcodes'

More reading on KI News

EPIScOPE (ERC-2015-CoG) – Gonçalo Castelo-Branco: 'Reversing the epigenetic state of oligodendrocyte precursors cells in multiple sclerosis'

PreventStoCan (ERC-2015-CoG) – Weimin Ye: 'Understanding microbe-induced stomach cancer; the key to a workable strategy for worldwide prevention'

Read more at KI News

Allelic Regulation (ERC-2014-CoG) – Rickard Sandberg: 'Revealing allele-level regulation and dynamics using single-cell gene expression analyses

PROGSY (ERC-2014-CoG) – Per Svenningsson: 'Prosaposin and GPR37 in synucleinopathies'

REBOOT (ERC-2013-CoG) – Martin Lövdén: 'Releasing the breaks on adult plasticity'

MECHCOMM (ERC-2013-CoG) – Ana Teixeira: 'Mechanotransduction in cell-to-cell communication'

ERC Starting Grants

ERC Starting Grants, worth up to 1.5 million Euro over five years, aim to support up-and-coming research leaders who are about to establish a proper research team and to start conducting independent research in Europe. The scheme targets promising researchers who have the potential to become independent research leaders. It will support the creation of excellent new research teams. 

KI ERC Starting Grants

(awarded to or moved to KI)

BrainLoops (ERC-2023-StG) – Alessandro Furlan: 'Control of body weight by specialized brain-adipose loop neurons'

Read more at KI News 

Precision Lethality (ERC-2023-StG) – Kasper Karlsson: 'Precision Lethality to overcome clonal heterogeneity in high-risk neuroblastoma'

FASTer (ERC-2023-StG) – Juan Pablo Lopez: 'Identifying the Fast-acting Antidepressant Signatures of Treatment Response with psychedelic compounds using a novel behavioral tracking system and single-cell resolution'

Read more at KI News

MultiPRESS (ERC-2022-StG) – David Marlevi: 'Multiscale imaging of cardiovascular pressure gradients – a paradigm shift in hemodynamic risk prediction' 

EnhanceRegen (ERC-2022-StG) – Enric Llorens: 'Rewiring gene regulatory circuits to enhance central nervous system repair'

E-CTRL (ERC-2022-StG) – Onur Dagliyan: 'Engineered Control of Cellular Circuits'

Read more at KI News

TRACE (ERC-2021-StG) – Marcus Buggert: 'Tracing virus-specific CD8+ T cell clonotype zonation and function in humans' 

Read more at KI News

SUBTREAT (ERC-2021-StG) – Lu Yi: 'Subtype as a key to reduce heterogeneity of treatment effects in major depressive disorder' 

Read more at KI News

SOLAR (ERC-2021-StG) – Björn Lindström: ‘Mechanisms of Social Learning in Social Contagion and Cultural Evolution’ (moved from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

RESIDE (ERC-2020-StG) – Niklas Björkström: 'Dissecting tissue-resident lymphocyte homeostasis in humans'

OLFLINK (ERC-2020-StG) – Janina Seubert: 'Olfaction as the link between flavour preference formation and retrieval during food consumption'

SEXimmune (ERC-2020-StG) – Nils Landegren: 'Deciphering sex differences in the human immune system' (moved to Uppsala University)

Hot-Coal WM (ERC-2020-StG) – Mikael Lundqvist: ‘The Hot-Coal hypothesis of working memory’ (moved from Stockholm University)

Read more at KI News

GUT-SEQ (ERC-2019-StG) – Jenny Mjösberg: 'Single-cell analysis of intestinal lymphocytes reveals targets for treatment of inflammatory bowel disease'

TroyCAN (ERC-2019-StG) – Maria Genander: 'Redefining the esophageal stem cell niche – towards targeting of squamous cell carcinoma'

VIVA (ERC-2019-StG) – Pia Dosenovic: 'Vaccine development against variable pathogens' 

Read more at KI News

MegaALS (ERC-2018-StG) – Fang Fang: 'Unraveling the Interplay between Metabolism, Gut Microbiome and Adaptive Immunity in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis'

Read more at KI News

TRIBAL (ERC-2017-StG) – Erik Melén: 'Biomarkers for respiratory disease'

PROMETHEUS (ERC-2017-StG) – Georgios Sotiriou: 'Fighting infections and antimicrobial resistance with nanoengineering'

GENOMIS (ERC-2016-StG) – Magda Bienko: 'Illuminating GENome Organization through integrated MIcroscopy and Sequencing'

RAPID (ERC-2016-StG) – Simon Elsässer: 'Chromatin dynamics resolved by rapid protein labeling and bioorthogonal capture'

MitoMethylome (ERC-2016-StG) – Anna Wredenberg: 'Mitochondrial methylation and its role in health and disease'

Read more at KI News

Born-Immune (ERC-2015-StG) – Petter Brodin: 'Shaping of the human immune system by primal environmental exposures in the newborn child'

NORVAS (ERC-2015-StG) – Lars Maegdefessel: 'Therapeutic and biomarker potential of long non-coding RNAs in vascular disease'

CogOpto (ERC-2013-STG) – Marie Carlén: 'The role of parvalbumin in interneurons in cognition and behaviour'

Cardiomics (ERC-2013-StG) – Erik Ingelsson: 'Use of -omics methods in large populations for identification of novel drug targets and clinical biomarkers for coronary heart disease'

NOVEL_MYOKINE (ERC-2012-StG) – Pontus Boström: 'Irisin–a novel myokine protective against metabolic disease'

SEQ-CYTOTOX (ERC-2012-StG) – Yenan Bryceson: 'Next-generation sequencing for detection of human primary immunodeficiency syndromes'

PERICYTESCAR (ERC-2012-StG) – Christian Göritz: 'The role of pericytes in central nervous system scarring and fibrosis'

TUMORGAN (ERC-2012-StG) – Kristian Pietras: 'Exploring the tumor as a communicating organ'

F12 (ERC-2012-StG) – Tomas Renné: 'Factor XII and the contact system: cross-talk between thrombosis and inflammation' 

ELSI​​​​​​​ (ERC-2011-StG) – Andreas Olsson: 'Emotional learning in social interaction'

SENSTRIATUM​​​​​​​ (ERC-2011-StG) – Gilad Silberberg: 'Sensory integration in the striatal microcircuit'

BRAINGAIN​​​​​​​ (ERC-2011-StG) – Andras Simon: 'Novel strategies for brain regeneration'

ENDOSWITCH​​​​​​​ (ERC-2010-StG) – Christian Broberger: 'Network principles of neuroendocrine control: Tuberoinfundibular Dopamine (TIDA) Oscillations and the Regulation of Lactation'

GAMETE RECOGNITION (ERC-2010-StG) – ​​​​​​​Luca Jovine: 'Molecular basis of mammalian egg-sperm interaction'

BRAINCELL (ERC-2010-StG) – ​​​​​​​Sten Linnarsson: 'Charting the landscape of brain development by large-scale single-cell transcriptomics and phylogenetic lineage reconstruction'

HUFATREG​​​​​​​ (ERC-2010-StG) – Kirsty Spalding: 'Adipose tissue mass regulation in lean and obese individuals'

IMMUNOSWITCH (ERC-2009-StG) – Qiang Pan-Hammarström: 'Switch recombination: A model for DNA editing and repair in human lymphocytes with relevance for primary immunodeficiency and cancer formation'

SINGLE-CELL GENOMICS​​​​​​​ (ERC-2009-StG) – Rickard Sandberg: 'Single-cell gene regulation in differentiation and pluripotency'

BODY-OWNERSHIP​​​​​​​ (ERC-2007-StG) – Henrik Ehrsson: 'Neural mechanisms of body ownership and the projection of ownership onto artificial bodies'

GENOMIC STABILITY (ERC-2007-StG) – Camilla Sjögren: 'Genomic stability: Chromosome segregation and repair'

ERC Proof of Concept

(awarded to KI)

The "Proof of Concept" ERC funding scheme is open to researchers who have already been awarded an ERC grant. The grant is worth up to 150.000 Euro over 1.5 years. ERC grant holders can apply for this additional funding to establish the innovation potential of ideas arising from their ERC-funded frontier research projects. 

KI ERC Proof of Concept Grants 

SILORGS (ERC-2023-PoC) – Per-Olof Berggren: 'Sensor islet organoids (SILORGS) for in vivo identification of anti-diabetic drugs'

News article: ERC Proof of Concept grant to KI researcher Per-Olof Berggren

SPHERO-NASH (ERC-2023-PoC) – Magnus Ingelman-Sundberg: 'A novel NASH model for target and drug candidate identification'

News articleMagnus Ingelman-Sundberg awarded ERC Proof of Concept Grant

TREATMENT (ERC-2022-PoC) – Adam Williamson: 'Targeting peripheral nerves: a method for therapeutic modulation of inflammatory disease with non-invasive temporal interference' 
News article: KI-researcher awarded ERC PoC grant for non-invasive treatment of inflammatory diseases

hmqPro (ERC-2022-PoC) – Simon Elsässer: 'Highly multiplexed, quantitative protein biomarker profiling'

FuseSeq (ERC-2022-PoC) – Björn Högberg: 'Single-molecule reconstruction for high-throughput, short-read sequencing technologies'

ArtSilkTex (ERC-2022-PoC) – Anna Rising: 'Artificial spider silk textiles'

News articleThey are awarded ERC Proof of Concept Grants

HOTSKIN (ERC-2020-PoC) – Georgios Sotiriou: 'Hybrid drug-loaded plasmonic photothermal microneedle patch against skin infections' 
News articleERC awards medical device to fight lethal skin infections

hmqChIP (ERC-2020-PoC) – Simon Elsässer: 'Highly multiplexed, quantitative epigenetic profiling'
News articleKI-researcher awarded with ERC Proof of Concept Grant 2020

DOIIF (ERC-2020-PoC) – Thomas Helleday: 'Development of small molecule OGG1 Inhibitor and proof of concept in bleomycin-induced disease model of Inflammation and pulmonary Fibrosis'
News article: A new treatment for severe pneumonia and fibrosis

BETASCREEN (ERC-2016-PoC) – Per-Olof Berggren: 'Validation of an in vivo translational medicine approach for the treatment of diabetes and diabetes complications'

NOVITREP (ERC-2016-PoC) – Thomas Helleday: 'Novel viral therapy through targeting DNA repair'

CODIC (ERC-2015-PoC) – Thomas Helleday: 'Commercializing first-in-class dCTPase Inhibitors for treatment of hematological Cancers'

GlioVac (ERC-2014-PoC) – Patrik Ernfors: 'Validation of a conceptually new treatment for glioblastoma multiforme'

POCUMINT​​​​​​​ (ERC-2013-PoC) – Thomas Helleday: 'Proof of concept use of MTH1 inhibitors as new treatments for cancer'

PRACTICE​​​​​​​ (ERC-2012-PoC) – Lars Klareskog: 'Prevent Rheumatoid Arthritis in Practice'

Meet some of the researchers