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.

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

Politecnico di Torino residency program involves ERC researchers in the following research areas:

Computational Electromagnetics (CEM): we investigate the scientific field at the origin of all new modeling and simulation tools to tackle the design challenges of emerging and future technologies in applied electromagnetics- ERC Project 321 From Cubic3 To2 Linear1 Complexity in Computational Electromagnetics.
The Grand Challenge of 321 project is to investigate and exploit a dynamic Fast Direct Solver for Maxwell Problems that would run in a purely linear complexity for an arbitrary number and configuration of degrees of freedom. It will thus solve a scientific problem that the CEM scientific community has been seeking for 20 years.
Host researcher: Francesco Paolo Andriulli

Regenerative Medicine for cardiac tissues: our research will allow direct reprogramming of cardiac cells using in vitro models of human fibrotic heart tissue, followed by in vivo studies – ERC project BIORECAR Direct cell reprogramming therapy in myocardial regeneration through an engineered multifunctional platform integrating biochemical instructive cues.
Through the BIORECAR project, it is expected to get new knowledge on still unexplored regenerative medicine tools that may lead to successful direct reprogramming of human Cardiac fibrotic tissues.
Host Researcher: Valeria Chiono

Nature inspired production of asymmetric materials: symmetry is a key structural feature in natural systems and allows for self-organization and unidirectionality of chemical transformations. We aim to produce materials bearing different functionalities on the two opposite sides – ERC Project JANUS-BI All-liquid phase JANUS BIdimensional materials for functional nano-architectures and assemblies.
The JANUS BI project will deliver fundamentally new abilities to engineer nanomaterials so as to provide “bottom-up” nanoscale-platforms where a tight control over the structural and functional properties is exerted, of major importance for the progress of human ability to mimic natural systems.
Host Researcher: Teresa Gatti

Nanoparticles for innovative therapies to fight cancer: We develop safe and biomimetic nanoparticles, able to travel in the blood stream upon injection and to find their own way to target cells, activated remotely and on-demand against cancer – ERC Project TrojaNanoHorse Hybrid immune-eluding nanocrystals as smart and active theranostic weapons against cancer.
The TrojaNanoHorse project pushes forward the boundaries of the nanomedicine field, proposing innovative tools for cancer treatment which overcome the conventional features of smart drug delivery systems.
Host Researcher: Valentina Cauda

Couple acoustic and aerodynamic flows: We work to model how an acoustic wave interacts with an acoustic absorbing surface in the presence of a flow to design novel noise reduction technologies useful in many fields of application from automotive to aerospace– ERC Project LINING Acoustic fLow InteractioN over sound absorbing surfaces: effects on ImpedaNce and drag.
The LINING project pushes the boundaries of our current knowledge by explaining the physical reasons behind unexpected results found in measurements by many labs around the world. Such knowledge can improve the current design approach and pave the way towards more complex geometries, i.e. meta-material, for which the impact of the flow is potentially more relevant than in current technologies.
Host Researcher: Francesco Avallone

Innovative diagnosis methods for cancer and viruses: We develop a novel and cutting-edge diagnostic platform to detect and quantify cancer and viral bio-markers in bodily fluids, making simpler, faster and more economical the diagnosis of many diseases – ERC Project ANFIBIO: Amplification-free Identification of Cancer and Viral Biomarkers via Plasmonic Nanoparticles and Liquid Biopsy.
ANFIBIO seeks to implement a breakthrough concept of DNA and RNA identification that takes inspiration from sequencing technologies and leverages direct SERS sensing and machine learning approaches to deliver a sensitive, accurate, and low-cost platform for the detection of biomarkers of clinical relevance.
Host Researcher: Laura Fabris

Physical principles for a better use of sun energy: We will enhance the capacity of solar energy conversion extending the width of wavelengths that are converted to the full spectral range delivered by the Sun – ERC Project PADEIA Plasmon induced hot electron extraction with doped semiconductors for infrared solAr energy.
PAIDEIA project answers fundamental questions in physics and materials processing of heterojunctions and addresses the grand challenge of secure, clean and efficient energy at the same time.
Host Researcher: Francesco Scotognella

The project will result in global map layers that will allow the identification of critical nutrient run-off sites and carry out the related planning. All the analysis will take place on a global scale, and the results will be tested on pilot sites in Europe and elsewhere. The project will be based on open-source software, so that the resulting data cube solution and machine learning models will be accessible and available for further development by all.

CSH researchers have expertise across a wide range of topics, from algorithms to zoonoses and many in between. CSH researchers share the common languages of physics, computation, statistics and applied mathematics and often specialize in one or more additional disciplines, such as sociology, economics, or medicine.
At CSH, researchers extract meaning from the vast amount of data representing our planet’s various dimensions: economics, migration, health, climate change, social values, urban development, and more. With this knowledge, they seek insights that are useful for both science and society, and they can make evidence-based statements about how complex systems will respond to change and propose realistic interventions to move them in a positive direction for society.

The research carried out at CRAG spans from basic research in plant and farm animal molecular biology, to applications of molecular approaches for breeding of species important for agriculture and food production in close collaboration with industry. Specific topics of frontier research include: genomics, plant development, plant responses to stress, plant synthetic biology, metabolic engineering, gene editing techniques, etc.

Some scientific highlights reflecting the research conducted at CRAG are listed below:

– CRAG researchers identified a new microRNA from rice which originated from a transposable element and that regulates blast resistance by DNA methylation. Moreover, they have demonstrated that the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis confers protection to the blast fungus and makes rice plants more productive. The AM symbiosis represents an alternative to the use of fertilizers and pesticides.

– The attractive colors of many flowers and fruits result from the accumulation of health-promoting carotenoid pigments in specialized cellular structures called chromoplasts. A CRAG´s teams found that chromoplasts can be artificially generated from leaf chloroplasts by using an enzyme that synthesizes the carotenoid precursor phytoene. This synthetic system allows to boost the carotenoid content of green vegetables and forage crops, hence improving their nutritional quality.

– Fruit ripening is a main target in crop breeding, having a major effect in fruit shelf life and fruit quality. Melon is an interesting model and the genetic dissection of the control of this trait may help to obtain long shelf life varieties and ultimately lead to a reduction in food loss and waste.

– CRAG researchers found that insertions of miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements (MITEs) are frequently associated with phenotypic variability of important agronomic traits in rice. Using MITE insertions in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) can uncover new genotype-to-phenotype associations and allow for discovering the genetic basis of important trait variability.

– The development of new plant varieties is a very slow process. CRAG researchers showed that ‘deep learning’ methods, inspired on how the human brain works, can help to improve prediction of new cultivars.

– Meat quality has an important genetic component. CRAG scientists have identified genomic regions and strong candidate genes associated with fatty acid composition in muscle and adipose tissue in pigs. These results are relevant for meat quality selection of commercial pig breeds.

Currently, we have the opportunity of welcoming over 20 ERCs on the site on very diverse disciplines : mathematics, archeology, astrophysics, seismology, cumputer science, biology. To support research Excellence, we created a specific program in partnership with the CNRS, Inria, the Observatoire de la Cote d’Azur, etc. called LEADEuRope. The program is dedicated to supporting the European dynamic of Excellence on the site.

Since BC3’s creation, we have sought to be a cutting-edge and motivating centre from which researchers can continue co-creating scientific knowledge, tools and methodologies on the causes and effects of climate change and contributing to solving the most pressing challenge modern humans have ever faced. Transdisciplinary research integrates knowledge through active collaboration across academic disciplines and with non-academic stakeholders.

Being a transdisciplinary researcher implies more than raising awareness through scientific evidence, it is a unique approach to engaging with different ways of knowing the world and generating new knowledge to address societal challenges. Transdisciplinarity moves us to understand the world in which we live and to find suitable and fair solutions. It brought us together to co-design and implement policies leading to sustainable development.