22 researchers in Sweden to receive an ERC Starting Grant 2026

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 4 807 researchers applied for an ERC starting grant (in 2025 it was 3 928 and in 2024 it was 3 474 applicants).

In total, 421 researchers across Europe will share 705 million euro, with a success rate of about 9 percent.

Among the 22 researchers in Sweden receiving ERC Starting Grants, eight are active in life sciences, five in social sciences and humanities and nine in physical and engineering sciences.

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

Approved research projects 2026

Chalmers University of Technology

• Giacomo Valle: BIONIC-DEXTERITY: Bionic Symbiosis: restoring manual Dexterity after paralysis via a multimodal cortical neuroprosthesis

University of Gothenburg

• Daniel Zuleta: TWIG: Beyond mortality: redefining forest biomass dynamics through structural damage and recovery

Karolinska Institutet

• Bjørt Katrinardóttir: ErythrO2Reg: Deciphering the gene regulation of oxygen homeostasis and human fitness
• Amanda Andersson Rolf: PanID: Cell identity across foetal pancreas development and adult regeneration
• Florian Rosenberger: MITOSPACE: Reconstructing temporal trajectories of cellular adaptation and failure in mitochondrial disease
• Shuyang Yao: CANARY: Cannabis Neurobiology And Schizophrenia Risk in Youth: A Multi-Omics Translation
• Laila Sara Arroyo Mühr: ESCAPE-HPV: Cervical Cancers Escaping HPV Screening: Decoding HPV-Independent Carcinogenesis through Multi-Omics Profiling

Royal Institute of Technology

• Noémie Jaquier: GEOMANIP: The Geometric Nature of Deformable Object Manipulation

Linköping University

• Nara Kim: HEAT-BRIDGE: High-Efficiency Thermal Energy Harvesting via Ionic Thermoelectric–Electronic Bridging
• Catherine Aitchison: CRY-OH: Crystallisable Organic Heterojunctions for Photons to Fuel

Lund University

• Nils Axel Henningsson: RAM: Resolution Adaptive 3D Microstructure and Strain Movies
• Anders Reinholdt: N-VERT: Polarity-Inverted Nitrogen: Construction of Reactive Multiply-Bonded Functional Groups and Their Utilization
• Susanna De Rezende: META: Meta-Computational Perspectives on Proof Complexity
• Kim Cuong Le: AEROSOL: Advanced Laser- and X-ray Diagnostics of Soot: From Formation to Atmospheric Life
• Eleni Karageorgiou: CONPLEX: The Consultancy Complex: Inside the Black-Box of Private Migration and Asylum Governance
• Camilo Rodriguez Ronderos: IRIS: Irony Re-examined in Interactive Settings (IRIS): Towards a Paradigm Shift in Experimental Pragmatics

Stockholm University

• Maria Rugenstein: KAPPA-LAMBDA: Constraining projections of global climate change by understanding the interplay of ocean heat uptake and radiative feedbacks
• Jósef Sigurdsson: SUCCESS: The Nature and Nurture of Economic Success
• Rosa Weber: immiGEN: (Dis)advantage Across Countries and Generations: Intergenerational Social Mobility in Immigrant Families

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

• Chuxian Li: SOSeabird: Long-term impact of declining seabird populations on the Southern Ocean ecosystem

Uppsala University

• Veronica Rendo: RESET-DMG: Decoding the transcriptional and evolutionary maps of diffuse midline glioma to overcome treatment resistance
• Eline Visser: ALD: Automating language documentation

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 2026. External link.