12 Top Research Projects Secure European Millions

The Advanced Grants from the European Research Council (ERC) are some of the most prestigious research funding that scientists at a European university can receive. With this funding, the ERC supports ambitious research with the potential to expand the boundaries of knowledge. Each of the grants is endowed with around 2.5 million euros (2.3 million Swiss francs), plus additional funding for research infrastructure if necessary.

The grants are awarded to established top researchers as part of an extremely competitive selection process in which the selection criterion is scientific excellence. Accordingly, the grants are also seen as a personal distinction and an indicator of outstanding scientific achievements. Researchers who receive an ERC Advanced Grant are the equivalent of footballers playing in the Champions League final.

"Switzerland needs lasting access to European research programmes"

This year, 12 such grants are going to professors from ETH Zurich, representing an exceptional achievement for the university. Since the ERC Advanced Grants were introduced, it has only ever received this many grants in a single round once before: in 2013. In the current round of funding, a total of 31.5 million euros (29.2 million Swiss francs) is coming to ETH.

"The outstanding findings obtained by our researchers represent a huge success for ETH Zurich. They underline the exceptional quality of their work and the attractiveness of our research environment," says ETH President Joël Mesot. "To keep it that way, Switzerland needs lasting access to European research programmes."

The 12 successful projects:

Professor of architecture Tom Avermaete is researching how cities are designed and how they have evolved over time - and what we can learn from this for the urban planning of the future. In his ERC project, he is investigating how cooperatives, housing associations, and other collective institutions jointly plan, build and manage housing, cultural centres and other public facilities. To this end, his team is comparing examples from Sweden, France and Switzerland dating from the period between 1890 and 1990. The project aims to demonstrate the contribution collective initiatives have made to creating liveable cities - and what insights they can offer for current challenges such as affordable housing, social inclusion and sustainable urban development.

André Bardow is a professor of energy and process systems engineering. With his ERC project, he aims to fundamentally accelerate the development of sustainable chemical processes. The chemical industry faces the challenge of replacing fossil-based raw materials with recycled materials, biomass, or carbon dioxide. This transition is highly complex and has far-reaching effects on production and supply chains. Bardow is therefore developing a new approach that combines computer modelling, artificial intelligence, and automated experiments. The system is designed to discover and optimise new processes autonomously. As a first application, he and his team are focusing on the recycling of high-value plastics from mixed waste streams.

Yves Barral is a professor of molecular cell biology. In what is already his second ERC Advanced Grant project, he is investigating a surprising question: can individual cells learn? Many living organisms learn to ignore stimuli that prove irrelevant and instead focus their attention on new or important signals. This behaviour, known as habituation, is observed not only in animals but also in single-celled organisms such as yeast. Barral aims to discover how cells store such experiences and adapt their behaviour accordingly. To do so, he and his team are studying how yeast cells respond to different environmental stimuli and analysing the underlying processes at the molecular level. The findings are expected to provide new insights into how biological systems process information. In the long term, they could inspire new approaches in cancer research as well as more powerful and resource-efficient computing and artificial intelligence systems.

Srdjan Capkun is a professor of information security; his research focuses on system and network security, wireless security (specifically secure positioning) and trusted computing. In his ERC project, he aims to lay the scientific foundations for new, secure wide-area positioning systems. He is working on methods that are spoofing-resilient, interference-resilient and protect users' privacy. Unlike current satellite navigation systems such as GPS or Galileo, Capkun relies not only on signals from satellites, but also on terrestrial infrastructures, satellites in low Earth orbit and distributed positioning systems. This is intended to make the positioning of, for example, drones, autonomous vehicles and robots, more reliable and secure.

Today, physicians regard peripheral arterial disease (PAD) primarily as a circulatory disorder. However, many patients continue to experience muscle weakness even after their blood flow improves as a result of medical treatment. Katrien De Bock, a professor of exercise and health, has found preliminary evidence suggesting that changes in the muscles play a significant role in the disease. The aim of her project is to confirm this and to unravel the underlying molecular mechanisms. As part of the project, she will develop suitable mouse models for PAD and work with samples of human muscle tissue. If she identifies new molecular mechanisms, this could could enable the development of new therapeutic approaches.

Atac Imamoglu is a professor at the Institute of Quantum Electronics and conducts research into novel quantum materials made from atomically thin layers. He is investigating how the electronic and magnetic properties of these materials can be specifically controlled to generate new forms of superconductivity and magnetism. In what is already his third ERC Advanced project, he aims to demonstrate a new type of superconductivity in which electrons pair up and conduct electricity without loss - counterintuitively through their mutual repulsive interactions. To achieve this, Imamoglu combines various ideas and techniques, including a specially developed microscope that allows for unprecedented spatial resolution in optical imaging. In the long term, this research could pave the way for superconductors that function at significantly higher temperatures or even at room temperature.

Mobile and satellite communications use radio frequencies in the gigahertz range, whilst fibre-optic communications use frequencies of several dozen terahertz. In between lies a range that has so far been virtually impossible to utilise technically. Engineers refer to this as the terahertz gap. Jürg Leuthold, a professor of photonics and communications, aims to close this gap. The aim of his second ERC Advanced Project is to develop - initially through simulations and ultimately in practice - a new technology for wireless communication that utilises this frequency range. This technology is expected to enable significantly higher data transmission rates than current systems. As a first step, the project aims to achieve transmission distances of up to ten kilometers. In the future, the technology could even be used for communication between satellites and Earth.

Kaspar Locher is a professor of structural biology. With his ERC project, he is studying a fundamental biological process: the decoration of proteins with complex sugar structures, resulting in what are known as glycoproteins. They play a key role in communication between cells, organ development, and the functioning of the immune system. At the centre of the project is an enzyme that attaches the sugar structures to newly formed proteins. Locher wants to find out how this enzyme recognises and processes such a wide variety of different proteins. To do so, his team is comparing the enzymes found in humans with those of parasites, which have a simpler structure. The findings could enable new biotechnological methods for producing glycoproteins. They could also lead to new drugs that specifically inhibit the enzyme, for example to treat cancer or parasitic diseases.

During an immune response, T-cells proliferate rapidly. Within a few days, a single cell gives rise to thousands to millions of daughter cells: short-lived effector T-cells, which combat a current infection, and long-lived memory T-cells, which react rapidly in the event of a renewed infection. In her project, Annette Oxenius, a professor of infection immunology and ETH Zurich Vice President for Research, will investigate the mechanisms that control these different developmental pathways: Is a cell's subsequent development already determined before its activation? Or does it only emerge during the first cell divisions, when key molecules are distributed unevenly among the daughter cells? The findings could help to improve T-cell-based immunotherapies, precisely modulate the immune defence against infections, and develop vaccines that promote specific T-cell responses

Salvador Pané Vidal is a professor of robotics materials and researches intelligent nanomaterials for medical applications. In his ERC project, he is developing tiny, remotely controlled microrobots for use inside the body that can simultaneously generate electricity and heat. Such stimuli are already used today to promote healing, relieve pain, and treat tumours. However, existing approaches often require electrodes or implants and can only be targeted with limited precision. The microrobots developed by Pané Vidal are designed to operate without wires, batteries, or electrodes. Instead, they rely on specialised nanomaterials that respond to external magnetic fields and generate electrical signals and heat. This could enable more precise and less invasive therapies in hard-to-reach areas of the body. The team will initially explore the technology for regenerating nerve tissue after spinal cord injuries and for developing new treatment strategies for tumours.

Adrian Perrig is a network security professor. Together with his team and collaborators, he has developed the SCION Internet architecture, which is already being used by critical infrastructure providers in Switzerland, including those in the finance, healthcare and energy sectors. With his new ERC project, Perrig is pursuing the vision of highly optimised internet connectivity. The new system is designed to predict, on the basis of various metrics, the quality of the often hundreds of route options provided by the SCION network. In this way, applications can automatically select the best network route for their needs. The criteria vary: a voice call requires as little latency and jitter as possible, whilst a file transfer requires high throughput. As a result, this ERC project will make communication using the SCION network faster, more reliable, or more secure - depending on the application's needs.

Hans Jakob Wörner is a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences with a focus on electron movements in molecules. Because these movements occur extremely rapidly, measurements with correspondingly high temporal resolution are required. In his ERC project, he aims to investigate electron movements in chiral. These are molecules that relate to their mirror image in the same way as the right hand relates to the left. Most biomolecules and most medicines are chiral. To study the electron movements in such molecules in detail, Wörner requires laser pulses in the attosecond range (10-18 seconds) that are also chiral: circularly polarised laser pulses. The insights gained could, in the long term, open up new ways for more precise differentiation and production of chiral molecules, which is also crucial for drug development.

Additional project

Another project was submitted via the Institute for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Technology (INSAIT) in Sofia, Bulgaria, but is being carried out partly at ETH Zurich:

Bernhard Häupler is a senior faculty at INSAIT since 2024, leading the Algorithms and Theory group and a senior scientist at ETH Zurich. As a theoretical computer scientist, his research focuses on how communication and computations in large networks can be organised as efficiently as possible. In his ERC project, he is investigating highly scalable parallel algorithms. Such algorithms are crucial for analysing, operating and optimizing large networks in efficiently. Examples include transport, electricity and communication networks. Today's algorithms are running against a scalability barrier, as modern networks are growing faster than existing methods can efficiently handle. Häupler aims to overcome this challenge using new mathematical methods that simplify large networks and make them easier to process in parallel.