Chalmers University of Technology

Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, conducts research and education in technology and natural sciences at a high international level. The university has 3,100 employees and 10,000 students, and offers education in engineering, science, shipping and architecture.

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Some research areas to highlight:

Cutting edge quantum research
Chalmers is building Sweden’s first quantum computer and developing quantum algorithms for application in massive simulations in the research centre WACQT. Also being studied are new quantum materials for quantum technologies, quantum sensing and quantum optics.

Materials research for green transition
At Chalmers, there is experimental and theoretical research in the field of energy. This includes the conversion of solar energy and energy storage in novel batteries to large-scale transport of energy, with significant breakthroughs in structural batteries and floating solar energy. The research is conducted on renewable raw materials, lightweight materials and reduced environmental impact of materials.

Optimisation of human health
Chalmers has a field of research that focuses on optimisation of human health. This includes cutting edge research in the development of improved diagnostics, prevention of resistant bacterial infections, including through the development of materials such as graphene and gels, new methods for drug delivery and precision nutrition.

Microwave and antenna technology
At Chalmers, there are close collaborations with industry leaders for certain research, including improvement of hardware, such as transmitters and receivers for 6G, integration of gallium nitride technology and space components required to perform in extreme conditions. Researchers are developing the wireless systems of the future for everything from cancer treatment to self-driving cars, fast mobile networks and space antennas. Chalmers’ cleanroom and Gigahertz lab are world-class research environments.

Sustainable energy systems
At Chalmers, there is research on electric power generation and distribution to increase renewable and variable electricity in the power system, as well as research into materials and diagnostics for high-voltage networks. Within energy, road transport is the dominant field of research, but there are also studies looking into hydrogen, electric and hybrid vehicles, how a vehicle’s energy impacts design and environmental impact, as well as industrial combustion and gasification processes, carbon capture and energy systems analysis.

About the city of Gothenburg
Gothenburg is an open and welcoming city on the west coast, with a buzzing city centre, a picturesque archipelago and great travel connections to all the capital cities nearby. The city is leading the way in technology and logistics, being the hub for Northern Europe’s automotive industry and the main port for northern Europe. It also boasts thriving industry clusters and two highly ranking universities.


Genome of Europe

The Genome of Europe project is at the forefront of science and will -for the first time- bring together a large and comprehensive genetic dataset of DNA variation across all major groups of citizens living in Europe. GoE represents a unique collaboration across >30 countries to gather genetic information from their citizens as a reference database and make that accessible for medical and basic research. It is a very important first step to start using genetic information in health care and prevention, in particular in personalized or precision medicine and prevention.
So far, several genetic datasets have been available to scientists but these were relatively small and biased towards in particular inhabitants of the USA and UK. While the current GoE project is funded to collect at least 100,000 genomes of European citizens, the GoE database is expected to grow to >500,000 reference genomes as part of the 1 million genomes initiative (https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/1-million-genomes). The GoE project promotes scientific excellence by bringing together the major genetic groups, bio-informaticians, ELSI experts, and sequencing centers across Europe (>50 institutes and >200 scientists) which will collaborate in creating the GoE database for the coming 4 years.

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The project is highly innovative for genomics technology by using (combinations of) the latest whole genome sequencing techniques from diverse companies including Illumina, PacBio, Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT), and MGI. These include so-called long read sequencing techniques which have so far never been used in any genome database. Long read genome sequencing techniques allow to reveal the last missing 10% of the human genome after the Human Genome Project and its sequela since 2000 have determined the first 90% by short read technologies. GoE will boost such technological innovation and bring Europe to the forefront of genomics at the international stage.
Several ground breaking pilot projects are embedded that will use the genetic data as collected within GoE, such as the calibration of the polygenic risk scores (PRS) to local genetic variation. PRS are now widely investigated and also touted to move precision medicine and prevention forward, especially for the most common diseases of our greying society such as cancer, dementia, diabetes, osteoporosis and osteoarthritis, and cardiovascular diseases. The large and diverse GoE dataset will allow such PRS to be implemented across European population subgroups that differ in their genetic background. Examples include the application of PRS in breast cancer screening programs based on mammography, cardiovascular screening programs using genetically determined cholesterol levels, and use of pharmacogenetic information to select and optimize medication.

Department of Mathematics – University of Valencia

The research done in applied mathematics can be crucial to numerical simulations in other fields in physics and astrophysics, so the nature of my research is quite multidisciplinary since input from the field associated to the simulations is crucial to succeeding. On the other hand, the gravitational wave astronomy field is qualified as frontier research due to the complexity of the research in all the areas involved, from building of the detectors to modeling source and development of data analysis techniques. Understanding the universe and all their fascinating objects has always had a great impact in our society.

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The research lines focus on applied mathematics and astrophysics, with special interest in the development of numerical methods for partial differential equations, numerical relativity and gravitational waves. Isabel Cordero-Carrión is currently a member of the Virgo Collaboration as part of the Valencia Virgo group. In this role, she holds several management positions: Isabel serves as one of the two co-ombudspersons, is the current Virgo outreach coordinator, and is a member of the Core Program committee. Additionally, she is involved with the Einstein Telescope project and the Einstein Telescope Preparation Phase project.

Apart from her teaching, research, and management responsibilities at the university, Isabel Cordero-Carrión is highly engaged in outreach and communication. She is a member of the team behind the Oscilador Armónico podcast, a regular participant in the Coffee Break: Señal y Ruido podcast, and occasionally contributes to the A Ciencia Cierta podcast.

Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine

The Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) was founded in 2009 as one of the first interdisciplinary research centres of the University of Luxembourg. Our staff members combine their expertise in a broad spectrum of disciplines – from computational biology to clinical and experimental neuroscience – to study the brain and its diseases.

The LCSB aims to gain a mechanistic understanding of neurodegenerative processes and to use the resulting knowledge to develop new ways to diagnose, prevent and treat neurodegenerative disorders, like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. To realise this vision, we conduct research in the field of Systems Biology and Biomedicine – in the lab, in the clinic and in silico (computer modelling and simulations).

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For over a decade, the LCSB has established a state-of-the-art infrastructure and developed skills in several fields, such as genetics, metaproteomics, enzymology and cheminformatics. We foster interdisciplinarity because we strongly believe that complex problems can only be solved when the best minds from different disciplines come together and form a team.

We work together with scientific partners worldwide and carry out collaborative projects with research-oriented companies and hospitals, to accelerate the translation of research results into clinical applications and to tackle the growing issue represented by neurodegenerative diseases worldwide.

Biomedical Research Center of the Slovak Academy of Sciences

The challenges of human health and diseases are very complex and the Biomedical Research Center of the Slovak Academy of Sciences is able to look at them from different perspectives, as it comprises five areas of biomedical research: experimental endocrinology, experimental oncology, virology, neurobiology as well as clinical and translational research. The Biomedical Research Center is a multidisciplinary institution of basic and translational research. We focus on the study of human disease mechanisms and their interactions and on the development of new preventive, screening and diagnostic approaches that are not yet available in current medical practice in Slovakia. We aim to contribute to the explanation of the causes, mechanisms and consequences of metabolic, neurobiological, neuroendocrine, autoimmune, cardiovascular, oncological and infectious diseases and to develop new strategies for combating these diseases, that represent a great health, social and economic burden on our society.

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Research projects
– experimental oncology – study of environmental, genetic, epigenetic and (patho)physiological mechanisms of carcinogenesis and cancer progression,
research and development of new approaches to cancer prevention, diagnosis and therapy.
– experimental endocrinology – research in the fields of endocrinology, neuroendocrinology and psychiatry, cardiology, exercise physiology and integrative (patho)physiology of metabolic disorders, as well as genetics and DNA diagnostics of rare disorders with focus on direct translation into the clinical practice. – – virology – research on epidemiology, pathogenesis and immunology and of viral and rickettsial infections, research and development of new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches, development of analytical methods for practice.
-neurobiology – research of central nervous system focused on vascular and traumatic disorders, mechanisms of injury, neuroprotection, and new approaches to regeneration of nerve tissue.

S. Pastorekova: Role of the CA IX ectodomain in tumor growth and metastasis
B. Smolkova: Identification of biological markers for prevention and translational medicine in pancreatic cancer
J. Ukropec: Molecular mediators of the response to complex lifestyle intervention in patients with obesity: Regulation of metabolic flexibility in vitro and in vivo
B. Ukropcova: Ameliorating Effects of Aging by Physical Exercise: Molecular, Metabolic and Structural Adaptations, Multi-Organ Integrative Approach
B. Klempa: Zoonoses Emergence across Degraded and Restored Forest Ecosystems (ZOE).

Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery, University of Oxford

The Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery (Kavli INsD) is a groundbreaking interdisciplinary science institute focused on world-class nanoscience research. Established in April 2021 as the 20th institute funded by the esteemed Kavli Foundation, USA, we are proud to be the University of Oxford’s first institute spanning the life, medical, and physical sciences.

Led by the distinguished Professor Dame Carol Robinson, a renowned chemist specializing in mass spectrometry and the study of protein structures, Kavli INsD is committed to making significant contributions in critical areas such as antimicrobial resistance, brain and mental health, infectious diseases, and malaria. Additionally, we strive to develop cutting-edge instrumentation that brings the analytical power of the physical sciences into the realm of cellular exploration.

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At Kavli INsD, our exceptional team of 38 faculty members and over 450 researchers represents diverse backgrounds in structural biology, biochemistry, pathology, chemistry, physics, physiology, and engineering. United by our shared focus on the nanoscale—the scale of proteins, viruses, and DNA—we are at the forefront of unravelling the mysteries of the most fundamental unit of life: the cell.
Together, we are shaping the future of nanoscience, fostering an inclusive and collaborative working culture, and driving breakthrough discoveries that have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the world around us.
Because our institute covers two very important and highly topical subjects – research culture and interdisciplinarity we believe press coverage would be highly beneficial to publicize these messages.

Our institute also includes four current ERC Advanced, Starter and grantees (Professors Dame Carol Robinson and Molly Stevens, Professors Philipp Kukura and Andrew Baldwin. Importantly our research is also translational with both Refeyn and OMass therapeutics forming on the back of ERC Proof of concept funding.

For details please explore https://kavlinano.ox.ac.uk/research-themes.

Research Themes
1. Understanding biological function and regulation requires characterising biomolecules, and their structures and interactions. Developing new ways to study biomolecules is a major focus of our research, and the tools we develop underpin much of our work (e.g mass spectrometry, next-generation imaging, novel bioanalytic technologies, and biosensors and probes)

2. Advanced diagnostics & personalised medicine – our long-term goal is to democratise and personalise healthcare with ultrasensitive, cost-effective, user-friendly and mobile-connected diagnostic technologies.
Engineering & exploring the bio-material interface – we design biomaterials that influence the behaviour of cells at the interface of living and non-living matter by tweaking the surface chemistry and texture.
Bioelectronics & regenerative engineering – we have a growing portfolio of cutting-edge biomaterials designed to repair tissues, enhance regeneration and deliver drugs to targeted areas of the body.
Digital medicine & big data – we are harnessing the computational power of machine learning and artificial intelligence to enhance understanding of molecules, materials, and processes.

3. Infectious disease poses a huge unmet global medical need leading to ‘spillover’ events – where pathogens move from wildlife or livestock to people – become more common, increasing the frequency of pandemics. We therefore urgently need to strengthen our pandemic preparedness. We are working on SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses, Dengue, Zika, Malaria, Hepatitis B & C

3. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major global health threat. In AMR, microbes such as bacteria develop the ability to survive exposure to the antibiotic drugs that are used to treat and prevent infections. Through the rise of resistance, medical procedures become riskier and common infections untreatable. It has become clear that tackling AMR requires a diverse range of actions, which include developing new antibiotics as well as rapid diagnostics that require understanding the modes of action of existing antibiotics and the mechanisms that fuel resistance, to identify new targets for novel antibiotics and to devise ways to rapidly detect the presence of drug resistance.

4. Neurodegenerative diseases and motor neuron disease, represent an increasing healthcare burden for an ageing global population. Largely untreatable, these diseases are already a leading cause of disability and their prevalence is rising. Our research aims to understand the fundamental biological processes that underlie normal brain development and are responsible for neurodegeneration, and to inform the development of treatments.

5. Amidst a persistent lack of direct evidence linking biological mechanisms to depression symptoms we are charting differences at the molecular level of receptors and transporters at the blood-brain barrier, to also develop effective biomarkers for anhedonic depression to better inform therapeutic intervention.

Babraham Institute – Ageing research for lifelong health

The Babraham Institute is a centre for discovery research in human biology with a view to understanding how our bodies work and what changes with age and disease. As a pioneering fundamental life science institute, our overarching aims are to understand the human biology that underpins health. Our research provides the bedrock for interventions that promote health and tackle age-related decline, thereby maximising heath span – the numbers of years lived in good health.

Our 20 research groups, grouped by area of focus into three research programmes: epigenetics, signalling and immunology, possess expertise in defining the molecular and cellular details that determine cell identity, human development, the effect of diet on health through epigenetic mechanisms, how our immune systems develop and respond to threats, the effect of age on the function of the immune system, protein quality control, the biology of protein aggregation, cellular recycling and cellular fitness.

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Ongoing research in specific pioneering areas includes:

The research of the Institute is underpinned by eight cutting-edge scientific facilities. The equipment and the expertise of the facility teams enable our researchers to ‘think big’, taking new approaches to make discoveries and advance our knowledge of biology. We have a tradition of pioneering new research techniques that take science forward.

Our work provides the foundation for more applied, commercial bioscience. Our co-location with the 60 life science companies on the Babraham Research Campus provides the perfect environment for entrepreneurship, collaboration and innovation as we work to accelerate the application of our discoveries for societal benefit. Our partnerships with academic and commercial bioscientists allow better science to happy more efficiently on both sides. In addition to joining the Institute’s community, a journalist in residence would also have exposure to the campus community, exploring knowledge exchange at the interface of academic and commercial research.

The Institute has a long history of discovery research and our research is classed as internationally leading. Our 20 research groups, working across three themes, bring curiosity, bold scientific ambition and expertise to undertake pioneering discovery research. Our approach focuses on cellular and molecular biology working in several model systems (fruit flies, nematode worms, cell cultures, mice, human samples). This research is enabled by the Institute’s cutting-edge scientific facilities (bioinformatics, biological chemistry, biological support unit (small animal unit), flow cytometry, gene targeting, genomics, imaging, mass spectrometry) and achieved by innovation from our research teams who develop techniques to provide novel biological insights.

Our findings advance our understanding of human biology and generates the essential biological knowledge that provides the platform for lifestyle and healthcare interventions.

Scientific progress has driven incredible advances in recent centuries and life expectancies are higher than ever before. Yet improvement in healthy life span – the time when we’re still fit and active, often called health span – has been minimal. Almost 1 in 5 people in the UK are now over 65 years old and that proportion is rising. By studying how cells in our body specialise, regulate their genes, communicate and defend themselves against illness, we hope to gain insights into why we age, why some of us age faster than others and how we can stay healthy for longer.

The biology of ageing is generally not well understood, so we take a fundamental approach to understanding how our bodies change as we age. It’s not yet possible to directly intervene in the human ageing process. Instead, we use a combination of cell culture, animal models, organoids, and computational models to examine and understand the basic principles of biological ageing.

Many major illnesses including cancer, diabetes and heart disease become more common with age. Older people are also much more prone to contagious diseases such as flu. By understanding ageing, we can lay the foundations for ways to revitalise ageing systems in our bodies, which could greatly reduce the number of cases of diseases like these and many others.

University of Graz – Climate Change

Understanding the climate system and climate change, exploring changing climate risks and impacts, low carbon transition solutions and building climate resilience are the major aims of one field of excellence at the University of Graz. At the Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change scientists from geophysics and climate physics, meteorology, economics, transition research, geography and regional research deal with both the physically oriented and the socio-economic aspects of climate change and global change as well as the transition to a low-carbon world.

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They are part of the network Climate Change Graz, an association of more than 100 researchers who investigate which economic, production-related, social, political and legal changes are necessary for a profound and sustainable transformation. In addition to scientific excellence the goal is to raise awareness of the urgency and personal concern, especially among opinion leaders and multipliers. And, in a further step, to initiate the creation of new framework conditions that can lead to changes in the behaviour of organisations, companies and people.
There are four research groups at the Wegener Center tackling questions such as: How is global warming developing? How are individuals and society affected by climate change? How do we achieve the net-zero target?

The University of Graz is located in the south-east of Austria. Founded in 1585, it is the second oldest and – with almost 30,000 students and nearly 5000 employees – also the second largest university of the country. It has six faculties – Humanities, Catholic Theology, Natural Sciences, Law, Social and Economic Sciences as well as Environmental, Regional and Educational Sciences. Their key objective is to conduct research at the highest level in these areas. Journalists in residence will have the opportunity to gain insights in all of them.

University of Graz – Digital Humanities

The digital preservation of and digital research into our cultural heritage is the aim of the Department of Digital Humanities. In terms of content, the semantic and formal indexing and mediation of digital representations of cultural artifacts is the central research topic of the department. One of the most recent and most interesting projects is GlossIT, analysing glosses – annotations to medieval texts – in their function as first-hand testimonies for the close linguistic and cultural connections between Insular Celtic and Latin speakers. Glosses are fingerprints of the society in which texts were composed, copied, and read. Most important, they offer insights into the multilingual and multi-ethnic environment of medieval manuscript and text production. The project acquired an ERC Consolidator Grant in late 2023.

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Another project – funded by the ERC with an Advanced Grant – explores the interaction of human and artificial intelligence in a virtual research environment for medieval studies. Computers need lots of examples to “learn” – and they need people to interpret the suggestions they make. Man and machine collaborate in investigating more than 600,000 medieval and early modern legal documents on the web portal monasterium.net. In order to properly classify these stories, you need to know what people in the past wanted to record in documents, how they did it and what they used them for. Researchers investigate European trends and regional differences in the design and use of 14th and 15th century charters. What influence did pan-European political institutions such as the Roman Church have on regional documentary practice? How did local and regional notarisation practices react to the spread of Roman law among the legal thinkers of Europe? How do the two widespread authentication practices, by seal and by notarial signature, relate to each other? The observations made on the digital representations of the documents will be related to major European events such as the Western Schism (1378-1417) or the Great Plague (1348/49) and the ensuing economic crisis.

Cutting-edge historical research is also conducted at the Department of Classics. The project COLLAPSE is questioning our notion of authorship in ancient texts, since in antiquity texts were the universal commons of all those who drew on them. This problem forms the starting point for the research. Imperial Greek literature serves as a fertile ground to re-think anonymised text production. Contrary to the assumptions of romantic genius aesthetics, the project regards authorship as a collaborative cultural practice of the Pre-Modern World. It takes up current developments, such as the popular fanfiction narratives on digital platforms, considering these approaches to canonical texts as diachronic forms of co-authorship.


Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA)

The Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) is a PhD-granting research institution located in Klosterneuburg, 18 km from the center of Vienna, Austria. In the 15 years since the start of its operations, ISTA has grown to over 80 research groups in the life sciences, mathematics, computer science, physics, chemistry, system sciences, and related areas. ISTA has one the highest success rates in ERC grant applications and currently has 34 active ERC grants in diverse research areas (20 in the “Physical Sciences & Engineering” and 14 in the “Life Sciences” domains).
The Institute employs professors on a tenure-track model, post-doctoral researchers, and PhD students.

The Graduate School of ISTA offers fully funded PhD positions to highly qualified candidates with a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree. While dedicated to the principle of curiosity-driven research, ISTA aims to deliver scientific findings to society through technological transfer and science education. The President of the Institute is Martin Hetzer, a renowned molecular biologist, and former Senior Vice President at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California, USA.

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Active ERC grants

Physical sciences & engineering:

  • Randomness and structure in combinatorics – Kwan
  • Bridging Scales in Random Materials – Fischer
  • Random matrices beyond Wigner-Dyson-Mehta – Erdoes
  • Spectral rigidity and integrability for billiards and geodesic flows – Kaloshin
  • Cavity Quantum Electro Optics: Microwave photonics with nonclassical states – Fink
  • A quantum hybrid of atoms and milligram-scale pendulums: towards gravitational quantum mechanics – Hosten
  • Non-Ergodic Quantum Matter: Universality, Dynamics and Control – Serbyn
  • Orbital Chern Insulators in van der Waals Moiré Systems – Polshyn
  • Gaining leverage with spin liquids and superconductors – Modic
  • VULCAN: matter, powered from within – Palacci
  • Tribocharge: a multi-scale approach to an enduring problem in physics – Waitukaitis
  • Non-Equilibrium Protein Assembly: from Building Blocks to Biological Machines – Saric
  • ab initio PRediction Of MaterIal SynthEsis – Cheng
  • FastML: Efficient and Cost-Effective Distributed Machine Learning – Alistarh
  • Computational Discovery of Numerical Algorithms for Animation and Simulation of Natural Phenomena – Wojtan
  • The design and evaluation of modern fully dynamic data structures – Henzinger M.
  • Vigilant Algorithmic Monitoring of Software – Henzinger T.
  • Formal Methods for Stochastic Models: Algorithms and Applications – Chatterjee
  • Young galaxies as tracers and agents of cosmic reionization – Matthee
  • Organisation of CLoUdS, and implications for Tropical cyclones and for the Energetics of the tropics, in current and in a waRming climate – Muller

Life Sciences:

  • Design of Nucleic Acid-Templated Ordered Protein Assemblies – Praetorius
  • A molecular atlas of Actin filament IDentities in the cell motility machinery – Schur
  • Synthetic and structural biology of Rab GTPase networks – Loose
  • Structure and mechanism of respiratory chain molecular machines – Sazanov
  • Mechanisms and biological functions of H3K27me3 reprogramming in plant microspores – Feng
  • Design Principles of Branching Morphogenesis – Hannezo
  • Mechanisms of tissue size regulation in spinal cord development – Kicheva
  • 60-Hz light entrainment to unlock mental health conditions – Siegert
  • Action Selection in the Midbrain: Neuromodulation of Visuomotor Senses – Jösch
  • Development and Evolution of Tetrapod Motor Circuits – Sweeney
  • Toward an understanding of the brain interstitial system and the extracellular proteome in health and autism spectrum disorders – Novarino
  • Learning the shape of synaptic plasticity rules for neuronal architectures and function through machine learning – Vogels
  • Understanding the evolution of continuous genomes – Barton
  • Cyclic nucleotides as second messengers in plants – Friml