Berta Verd, Peter Brunet Fellow in Biological Sciences at Jesus College and an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology, is one of six Oxford academics to have been awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant to launch an ambitious research project.
The ERC – the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research – announced today the awarding of 494 major European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants to young scientists and scholars across Europe, including six Oxford University researchers. The funding – totalling nearly €780 million this year– is part of the Horizon Europe programme and will support researchers at the beginning of their careers to launch their own projects, form their own teams, and pursue their most promising ideas.
Associate Professor Berta Verd, Peter Brunet Fellow in Biological Sciences at Jesus College.
Using her ERC Starting Grant, Berta aims to explore how developmental processes have evolved to generate diversity in the number of vertebrae, a highly variable trait amongst vertebrates which ranges from as few as ten in some frogs to several hundred in snakes. She will address this question using a highly interdisciplinary approach in Lake Malawi cichlid fishes, an emergent model system in evolutionary developmental biology studies. The project will advance our fundamental understanding of how phenotypic diversity is generated, with potential far-reaching applications such as predicting how animals evolve in response to climate change or improving organoid design for applications in regenerative medicine.
Berta said, “I am very grateful to the many mentors and colleagues that have helped me over the years, but special mention goes out to my brave DPhil students Shannon Taylor, James Hammond, and Callum Bucklow, who joined me when I first opened my lab and whose work forms the basis of this proposal. I also thank my family, in particular my husband Greg and my parents, for their unwavering support.”
The application process for ERC Starting Grants is highly competitive: this year, around 14% of applications were successful, with 494 researchers selected out of 3,474 proposals.
Each of the Oxford researchers selected for a Starting Grant will receive €1.5 million for a period of five years.
Iliana Ivanova, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said: ‘The European Commission is proud to support the curiosity and passion of our early-career talent under our Horizon Europe programme. The new ERC Starting Grants winners aim to deepen our understanding of the world. Their creativity is vital to finding solutions to some of the most pressing societal challenges.’
Details of all six Oxford grant recipients can be found on the University website. Full details about the 2024 ERC Starting Grants can be found on the ERC website.