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Seven Utrecht-based researchers each receive an ERC Starting Grant of 1.5 million euros this year. These European grants for five years are granted to promising researchers who have proven themselves to be capable of becoming independent researchers.

The Faculty of Geosciences receives no less than three ERCs this year: Peter Bijl, Simon Scheider and Giuseppe Feola all filed successful applications. UMC Utrecht has three laureates as well, specifically: Frank Meye, Maeike Zijlmans and Hugo Snippert. At the Faculty of Science, Robert de Vries receives an ERC Starting Grant.

Peter Bijl – Influence of oceanic conditions on the Antarctic icecap in the past

Geoscientist Peter Bijl is going to investigate what role oceanic conditions play in the changing size of the Antarctic icecap in warm periods in the past. With this knowledge, the melting of icecaps in the future can be predicted more accurately. We currently cannot make good predictions of the melting of ice in time scales of centuries or longer. Bijl wants to improve that by looking at two warmer periods in the past that are comparable with the expected future climate.

Giuseppe Feola – 'Unmaking’ capitalism in transformations towards sustainability

Radical initiatives from the middle field can contribute to the social transformation in the direction of a sustainable society. Sociologist Giuseppe Feola will apply a new interdisciplinary theory to explain when and how these initiatives contribute to the “unmaking” of environmentally-unfriendly institutions and practices that are deeply embedded in capitalist societies. For this project, he will specifically target some initiatives within agriculture in Germany and Italy.

Simon Scheider – New method for geo-analytic research

In times of big data, geographical information has become essential to data scientists from all kinds of disciplines. But there are so many different data sources these days that it has become close to impossible to fully understand and operate all the tools that can analyse the data as completely as possible. This results in the academic community in this field becoming more and more divided into specialisms. With his ERC, Simon Scheider is going to develop a new theory that should solve this problem.

Robert de Vries – Better vaccines for flu viruses

Pharmaceutical researcher Robert de Vries will use his starting grant of 1.5 million euros to investigate which sugar molecules are functional receptors to flu viruses, in order to develop better vaccines.

– The communication between cancer stem cells and neighbouring tumour-cell types

Stem-cell researcher Hugo Snippert of UMC Utrecht wants to use his ERC to chart the communication between cancer stem cells and neighbouring tumour-cell types. For this purpose, he combines the growing of human mini intestines and intestinal tumours with cutting-edge microscopy. This enables Snippert and his group to study the various cell types, the cell behaviour and the cell-to-cell communication in real time. More knowledge on this field will eventually lead to more effective cancer treatments.

Frank Meye – Reducing stress-related eating fits

With some patients with eating disorders, stress can result in gluttonous eating fits (so-called binge eating) – which in turn result in additional stress and, possibly, new eating fits. Frank Meye of UMC Utrecht is going to investigate how such eating behaviour is caused on a neurobiological level – an important step in understanding (and preventing) this phenomenon.

– Improving epilepsy-related brain surgery

Epileptic seizures can be prevented with brain surgery. But such treatments are very complicated and often unsuccessful. Neurologist Maeike Zijlmans of UMC Utrecht wants to improve this treatment by identifying the core of epilepsy in the brain and doing more research on the effects of the treatment on the brain's normal functions.