21 researchers in Sweden to receive an ERC Starting Grant 2025

The ERC starting grant is awarded to promising early-career researchers and has scientific excellence as the only selection criteria. The ERC starting grant recipients and their research proposal undergo a stringent and competitive peer-review process. This year 3928 researchers applied for an ERC starting grant (in 2024 it was 3474 applicants).

In total, 478 researchers in Europe will share more than 761 million euro, with a success rate of about 12 percent.

Among the 21 researchers in Sweden receiving ERC Starting Grants, eight are active in life sciences, eight in social sciences and humanities and five in physical and engineering sciences.

In addition, two researchers affiliated to a Swedish host institution has received the highest grade (A) and have been placed on the ERC reserve list.

”This year we give an extra congratulation to Malmö University, which for the first time will be hosting a researcher who has been awarded the ERC Starting Grant", says Anethe Mansén, national contact person for the ERC.

Approved research projects 2025

Chalmers University of Technology

• Rocio Mercado: POLYGEN: New Paradigms for Deep Generative Modeling of Polymers
• Mathilde Luneau: ReGenCAT: Design of Electro-Thermocatalytic Reactors for Controlled Regeneration of Atom-Efficient Catalysts

University of Gothenburg

• Daniel Bojar: SWEETSWAP: The Nuclear Frontier: Expanding the Horizons of Protein Glycosylation
• Carolina Guibentif: CatchTheWave: Single-cell OMICS-informed in vitro models of human development
• Marcel Du Plessis: SOFIA: Southern Ocean fine-scale ocean dynamics and storm impacts on air-sea heat exchange
  

Karolinska Institutet

• Erik Benson: SELECTDNA: Selection of DNA nanostructures for multivalent binding and drug delivery
• Arvid Guterstam: MINDSIM: Simulating Other Minds in Autism
  

Linköping University

• Linda Bojmar: SYST-E-MET: Systemic Effects on Metastasis - a look beyond the tumor
• Yizhou Yang: COFActiveCO2: Covalent Organic Framework Membrane Reactors for Full-Volume Active Electrodes in CO2 Electrolysis
  

Lund University

• Jacob Vogel: TauTime: Computational network-based models of tau progression in Alzheimer’s disease
• Camila Consiglio: fertiliMMUNE: Systems-level investigation of the immune-reproductive crosstalk in humans
• Florence So: ECONENGAGE: More Money, Different Problems? Peoples’ Engagement with Politics during Good Economic Times
• Johan Miorner: DECENT: Socio-technical modularity and the decentralization of infrastructure
  

Malmö university

• Jacob Lind: GIVE RIGHTS: The right to give rights. Welfare professionals as guardians of undocumented migrants’ human rights.

Stockholm University

• Jessica Stephenson: EpiSex: The effects of sexual selection on epidemic outcomes
• Natalia Lahén: ILMATAR: Unravelling the Cosmic Dawn: origin of globular clusters and their host galaxies
• Olga Perski: Time Matters: Uncovering dynamic mechanisms and optimising the intervention timing across the addictions
• Siska De Baerdemaeker: DECIDE: Deciding about Future Science: How Scientists Can Collectively Set Research Priorities in the Era of Big Science
• Signe Svallfors: SeRO: Sexual and Reproductive Outcomes of Violent Crime
  

Umeå University

• Gudrun Norstedt: SESAME: Unlocking Hidden History: The Sami in Swedish Farming Areas

Uppsala University

• Martin Qvarnström: DINO-DIGEST: Unravelling early dinosaur success through fossil digestive contents and trophic dynamics

The ERC website has more statistics and a list of all the grant External link.

The next call for ERC Starting Grant has application deadline 14 October 2025.