The European Research Council (ERC) awards Starting Grants each year to promising young researchers who have the potential to become leaders in their respective fields. The grants are given to researchers with ambitious research projects expected to make a significant impact.
Three out of 27 applications from UiO succeeded in fierce European competition.
The funded projects will investigate various subjects such as censorship of poetry, the introduction of Latin in Scandinavia, and a comprehensive global mapping of political elites in countries before and after democratisation.
Ragnhild Hennum, Rector of the University of Oslo, is very content with the awards.
¨C ERC provides a critically important competitive platform for groundbreaking basic research, enabling our reserachers to contribute to solving tomorrow?s challenges. It is also gratifying that we continue to succeed across a wide array of scientific diciplines, true to our identity as a comprehensive university.
¨C The ability of young talents at UiO to excel in the Champions League of research is always impressing and motivating for all uf us.
Here are the projects
Global Mapping of Political Elites
Jacob Nyrup from the Department of Political Science will study political elites in countries before and after democratisation. To facilitate this, Nyrup and his team will create a database of government members worldwide from 1789 to the present day.
¨C This enables us to investigate political elites from the dawn of democracy to the present, and to assess whether political elites become more representative, diverse and competent as a country transitions to democracy, Nyrup explains.
The project wil also explore whther changes in political elites lead to better policies, concidering factors such as redistribution and economic growth.
Read more: Jacob Nyrup secures funding to research political elites
Censorship of Poetry
?lvaro Sei?a from the Department of Literature, Area Studies, and European Languages will spend the next fire years researching how poets were censored during the Iberian dicatorships of Zalazar and Franco (1933-1978).
The project will be the first study to map all titles that were censored during this period, and examine the marks made by censors in books and documents, thereby ensuring their preservation for posterity.
Read more: ?lvaro Sei?a secures funding to research censorship of poetry
How did Latin spread in Medieval Scandinavia?
Alessandro Palumbo, Associate Professor in Medieval Studies, aims to explore the introduction of Latin and the Latin alphabet in Scandinavia.
When the Latin written tradition appeared in Scandinavia during the Middle Ages, it encountered a 900-year-old written tradition with inscriptions in runes in local vernacular languages. The project will explore how the spread of Latin and the Latin alphabet relates to the native rune script and its decline.
¨C We will also gain more insight into where, when, and why the local vernacular language started to be used again in inscriptions, but with Latin letters,¡± says Alessandro Palumbo.
Read more: Alessandro Palumbo secures funding to research Latin in Scandinavia
UiO ranked second in the Nordics
Researchers at UiO perform strongly in the competition for research funding from the ERC compared to the rest of the Nordics.
The University of Copenhagen is in the lead in the Nordic region with €43,7 million Euros in Starting Grants, while UiO ranks second with €28,8 million. Additionally, Copenhagen is at the helm of total ERC funding with €139 million for projects, compared to UiO`s €78,6 million, placing it second.
ERC Starting Grant results in 2025
- ERC Starting Grants are awarded to promising researchers who completed their PhD between two and seven years ago.
- The European Research Council (ERC) grants the funds, consisting of up to 1.5 million euros for research projects lasting up to five years.
- UiO submitted a total of 27 applications for this year's ERC Starting Grants.
- Norway was awarded seven ERC Starting Grants for 2025, of which UiO received three.
- UiO's allocation rate stands at 11,1%, compared to 12,2% for the whole of Europe.
- In total, UiO's awards in Horizon Europe amount to around 150 million euros, with ERC grants comprising approximately 78,1 million euros.