Oxford Scholars Win ERC Grants for Scientific Challenges

Four Oxford University academics are to co-lead ambitious new research projects backed by European Research Council (ERC) Synergy Grants , part of the EU's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme. Synergy Grants foster interdisciplinary and international collaboration between outstanding researchers, enabling them to combine their expertise, knowledge, and resources to push the boundaries of scientific discovery.

This year, 57 research projects were awarded a Synergy Grant out of 548 submitted proposals, a success rate of approximately 10.4%. The Grants, worth up to 14 million Euros over a 6-year period, support groups of researchers to use innovative approaches to tackle complex scientific problems.

About the Oxford University recipients:

Professor Francis Brown. Photo credit: John Cairns.

Professor Francis Brown (Mathematical Institute) will be co-leading the Mathematics of Scattering Amplitudes project. Modern particle collider experiments and gravitational-wave detectors require increasingly high-precision theoretical computations to make new discoveries. In practice, this happens via calculating scattering amplitudes (probabilities assigned to interactions between particles), currently a highly labour-intensive process. This new project is based on the recent observation that a range of different theories in physics, and several fields in mathematics, share a common geometrical framework. The goal is to transform our understanding of scattering amplitudes from this new perspective.

Professor Brown said: 'This grant recognises the importance of building bridges between mathematics and physics. As a mathematician, I'm excited to team up with three colleagues from theoretical physics, each of whom brings different kinds of expertise to the table.'

The Mathematics of Scattering Amplitudes project is a collaboration between the University of Oxford; the Max Planck Society, Germany; Trinity College Dublin; and Uppsala University, Sweden.

Professor Helena Hamerow. Photo credit: John Cairns.

Professor Helena Hamerow (School of Archaeology and Faculty of History) will be one of four Principal Investigators leading a project called MEMELAND (Molecular Ecology of Medieval European Landscapes). This will investigate the impact of the agricultural transformation that took place during the Middle Ages on northern Europe's landscapes and biodiversity. The team will analyse sedimentary DNA found at the bottom of lakes, which can preserve traces of human activity and reveal how the vegetation and animals present around the lake changed over time. The results will be used together with archaeological remains to examine the impact on biodiversity and land use of the spread of the mouldboard plough and crop rotation, the introduction of new plant and animal species, epidemics, and climate change.

Professor Hamerow said: 'MEMELAND will transform our understanding of the impact of medieval farming by revealing plants and animals that are normally invisible in the archaeological record. It will allow us to situate excavated remains from medieval settlements within a wider eco-system, something I couldn't have imagined doing even a few years ago'.

MEMELAND involves a collaboration between the University of Oxford; The Arctic University, Tromsø (the coordinating institution); Paris Lodron Universität, Salzburg; the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Zurich; and Charles University, Prague.

Professor Aditi Lahiri.

Professor Aditi Lahiri (Faculty of Linguistics, Philology and Phonetics) will be co-leading a project which will explore the interaction between phonological representations (mental representations of the sounds that comprise words) and 'cognisance'-the intuitive knowledge or awareness speakers have of these structures. The project will investigate how an individuals' understanding of sound structures and their mental representations influences their ability to process and acquire both written and spoken language. A central theory is that while speakers may have different individual vocabularies, their underlying phonological cognisance is similar within a speech community, which helps to maintain consistency in language use.

Professor Aditi Lahiri said: 'I am deeply honoured to receive this grant. In the current academic atmosphere where Humanities is thought to be of no real importance, this grant suggests that the ERC appreciates our work.'

The project 'Phonological cognisance and allied linguistic representations: acquisition, bilingualism, change and script' is a collaboration between the University of Oxford; Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands; and the University of Agder, Norway.

Professor Elena Seiradake.

Professor Elena Seiradake (Department of Biochemistry and Kavli Institute for NanoScience Discovery) will be co-leading a project to uncover the mechanisms driving aggressive cancer cell behaviours in paediatric tumours. This will build on recent research on neuroblastoma cells (a cancer of early nerve cells in children), which found these use a receptor called UNC5 to migrate and form tumours. The project will take an innovative approach by integrating molecular and structural biology technology with targeted, structure-based experiments to precisely investigate different UNC5 interactions. Ultimately, the team aim to provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms behind neuroblastoma and other paediatric cancers, potentially paving the way for novel therapeutic strategies.

Professor Seiradake said: 'Cutting-edge research requires international collaboration that brings together the best teams for the job. I am thrilled about the opportunity to work with the outstanding students and staff in my team here at Oxford, and with our collaborators in France and Spain, to address this very important research question.'

The project is a collaboration between the University of Oxford; the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France; and the University of Barcelona.

Further information about the 2024 ERC Synergy Grants can be found on the ERC website .