Brussels - Among the recipients of the ERC Consolidator Grants 2024, awarded by the European Research Council with a total funding of €678 million to 328 outstanding researchers across Europe, are two Principal Investigators who submitted their projects through the University of Padua.

Guido De Philippis, currently a mathematics professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University, secured €1,655,000 to pursue mathematical research on geometric problems in the field of calculus of variations. Meanwhile, Davide Risso, an Associate Professor in the Department of Statistical Sciences at the University of Padua, was awarded nearly €2 million to develop new computational methods for cutting-edge molecular biology techniques.

The funded proposals, spanning 25 countries, saw the highest number of grants awarded to Germany, followed by France and the United Kingdom, with Italy ranking sixth. Thanks to these new grants, the University of Padua retains its position as the leading institution in Italy for ERC grants funded under Horizon Europe.

“The excellent results achieved by our university on this occasion,” commented Fabio Zwirner, Vice Rector for Research, “are also the outcome of two recently well-leveraged strategies by the respective departments to enhance research competitiveness: one involved the direct recruitment of a researcher trained and established abroad, while the other was a re-hiring through a Montalcini grant of a researcher trained in Padua after significant international experience.”