The Max Planck Society ranks fifth across Europe

• Eight Max Planck Society scientists have been awarded Advanced Grants from the European Research Council (ERC) in its latest funding cycle, each receiving up to €2.5 million for a period of five years to conduct their research projects.
• From the depths of the oceans and the interior of cells to the centre of the Sun: the funded projects explore the fundamental mechanisms of life, communication, and our universe.
• In a European comparison, the MPG shares fifth place among host institutions with the Belgian university KU Leuven.

Across Europe, 319 out of a total of 3,329 submitted proposals were approved. The United Kingdom leads with the highest number of successful host organisations, accounting for 62 grants. It is followed by Germany with 46 grants, Switzerland with 32, Spain with 29, and France with 26.

In the ranking of host institutions, the Max Planck Society shares fifth place with KU Leuven. The list is headed by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) with 16 grants, followed by the University of Oxford with 14 and ETH Zurich with 12 awards. The École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), and the Helmholtz Association received nine grants each.

Within the Max Planck Society, the Chemistry, Physics and Technology Section (CPTS) was particularly successful. Four of the eleven submitted proposals were approved, representing a success rate of 36 per cent. In the Biology and Medicine Section (BMS), three out of ten applications were successful (30 per cent). In the Human Sciences Section (GSHS), one out of six submitted proposals received funding.

The following eight Max Planck researchers will each be funded with an ERC Advanced Grant of up to €2.5 million over the next five years:

• Laurent Gizon, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen, will use newly discovered solar oscillations in his INSIDE project to reveal the Sun’s hidden magnetic field and investigate the inner workings of the solar dynamo.
• Eiichiro Komatsu, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, will investigate New Physics from the Polarized Light of the Cosmic Microwave Background (NewPhysCMB).
• Rupak Majumdar, Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Kaiserslautern for his project „Pascal: Formal Performance Analysis at Scale“. The project aims to develop new mathematical foundations and practical tools for analyzing and verifying the performance and resilience of large-scale distributed computer systems.
• Olga Shishkina, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-organisation in Göttingen, for her “CoSMiC” project (Controlling State Selection in Multistable Turbulent Convection).

• Thomas Boehm, Max Planck Institute for Biology in Tübingen, will investigate the unique immune systems of deep-sea anglerfish in his "ImmunoPlast" project to decipher the astonishing adaptability of vertebrate immune defences.
• Stephan Grill, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, has been awarded funding for his research within the ERC project "DNA Sequence-Dependent Structure Formation in the Cell Nucleus". Combining biology and physics, as well as theory and experiment, this project aims to develop a physical theory of genome organisation across multiple scales.
• Claudia Köhler, from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam, is leading the funded project GRAFT, which investigates how control signals from a plant’s roots can be used to selectively switch genes on or off in the reproductive organs without altering the genes themselves.

• Paula Rubio-Fernández, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen (NL), has received funding for the COMMON_GROUND project, which aims to develop and empirically test a new theory on how humans establish and maintain the shared understanding that makes successful communication possible in the first place.

 ERC Advanced Grants are among the EU's most prestigious funding schemes. Awarded through an extremely competitive selection process, they target established, top researchers with an outstanding scientific track record. The funding enables them to pursue ambitious, high-risk research projects over a period of several years.