Caetano Reis e Sousa, EU group leader
Portuguese scientist Caetano Reis e Sousa leads a lab looking at how the immune system works, to develop better vaccines and cancer therapies. He is a distinguished scientist who won the prestigious Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine in 2017 and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 2019. He was awarded a €2.5m ERC Advanced Grant in 2010 and another in 2018, and has hosted 10 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Fellows in his lab who have brought in an additional €2m of EU funds for research.
“European research continues to thrive thanks to the generous support of ERC grants, which promote fruitful collaborations across the continent. Working with international partners over the last decade, we’ve built up a wealth of knowledge about the mechanisms by which the immune system detects pathogen invasion, and how this process could be used to target cancer. This simply would not have been possible without the financial backing of the ERC. If the UK wants to continue to be a world-class scientific player after Brexit, we need to maintain access to Horizon funding. It is hard to imagine that any credible and ambitious alternative could be provided that would match its scale and success.”
Sharon Tooze, US group leader
Sharon Tooze is the head of a lab studying how our bodies stay healthy by breaking down and recycling worn-out or unhealthy cell parts. By understanding how this process works at a molecular level, her team hope to better understand human diseases including neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s. A world-leader in her field, Sharon was elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2018, the same year that she was awarded a €2.5m ERC advanced grant.
“ERC grants are unparalleled in their support of discovery science, taking a long-term view to help lay the foundations for the medicines of the future. There’s nothing else quite like them, and any one country would struggle to come up with something that’s as coveted and well-respected by researchers worldwide. The fierce competition for ERC grants undoubtedly boosts European research output across the board.”
Berta Terre Torras, EU postdoc
Berta Terre Torras is a developmental neuroscientist working to understand how the human brain develops. Humans have very large brains relative to our body size, so Berta is working to discover whether specific genes make our brains grow so big.
Berta was recently awarded EU funding through a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action fellowship. These prestigious awards cover salary, research and training costs, offering financial independence for the researcher and additional funding for the institute.
“The fellowship is fantastic, both for my science and my career,” says Berta. “The process gave me the opportunity to plan out my research project, and the fellowship provides everything I need to make it happen. As well as the research funding, it offers me the freedom to independently attend conferences and access training opportunities, to meet new people and develop my skills.”
“With the scheme's successful history, everyone knows about it and there is a strong community of past and present fellows. The value of the fellowship goes far beyond the money, it has a strong international reputation which gives a huge boost to my credibility and future career opportunities. It would take years, even decades, for any new programme to build anything like the same profile. If Marie Curie fellowships were not available in the UK, it would be a much less attractive place to do research – and the weather is bad enough!”
Bernard Siow, head of magnetic resonance imaging
Bernard Siow has been partly funded by EU Framework Programmes throughout his scientific career. “The level of collaboration on large European grants, funded by EU Framework Programmes, isn’t replicated in any other mechanism I have been part of. These grants involve the leading research groups in the field working together to solve big problems and advance science. The productive atmosphere in the meetings for these projects is unparalleled, creating an environment in which fellow researchers can be critical in a truly constructive way.”
Bernard’s research focuses on in the development of microstructure imaging techniques using diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI). This allows visualisation of structures 1000 times smaller than the resolution of conventional MRI, enabling a plethora of applications such as localisation and grading of tumours, understanding the progression of neurodegenerative diseases, and a better understanding of the learning and ageing processes.
“Perhaps my most enduring memory of being involved in an EU award is a meeting for the CONNECT (Consortium of Neuroimagers for the Noninvasive Exploration of Brain Connectivity and Tractography) programme, funded by an FP7 Collaborative Project award,” says Bernard. “As an early postdoc researcher, the meeting opened my eyes to how collaborative projects can drive forward and stimulate scientific discovery, particularly for difficult and contentious topics. I met leaders in the field and continue to exchange ideas and partner with them today.”
“The EU Framework Programmes have made research more efficient, effective and productive, accelerated scientific progress and fostered further collaboration. This means that the benefits of research impact society sooner. Missing out on the opportunity to be involved in such projects would be a great loss to me and my fellow researchers.”