Strong As Team: MPG Among Europe's Top Three

Five ERC Synergy Grants for Max Planck scientists

To the point:

• Five Max Planck researchers are involved in Synergy projects in 2025, one of the most competitive funding schemes of the European Research Council (ERC).
• The participating Max Planck researchers contribute their expertise to projects on electrochemical processes, cloud dynamics, protein regulation, tissue organization, and mitochondrial communication.
• The five projects will receive a total of tens of millions in funding over six years.

In the current call of the European Research Council (ERC), researchers of the Max Planck Society have secured five Synergy Grants. This places Max Planck, together with the University of Cambridge, among the top three most successful research institutions in Europe.

In total, the ERC has selected 66 projects from 712 proposals. The 66 funded initiatives involve 239 researchers who will conduct their work at universities and research centres in 26 countries. Most teams are based in Germany (28), the United Kingdom (24), France (21) and the United States (21). This year's ranking of host institutions is led by the French Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) with 13 grants, followed by the Helmholtz Association with six grants.

The following international and interdisciplinary teams with Max Planck participation will each receive several million euros in funding over the next six years:

Chemistry, Physics & Technology

• Karsten Reuter, Fritz Haber Institute (FHI) of the Max Planck Society

  with David Écija (Fundación IMDEA Nanociencia), Jeppe Vang Lauritsen (Aarhus Universitet) and Jose Ramon Galan-Masacaros (Institut Català d'Investigació Química). The MAGNESIS project, funded with €12 million, investigates how magnetic fields can make electrochemical reactions more efficient - from atomic-scale processes to applications in fuel cells and electrolyzers.

• Eberhard Bodenschatz, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization

  with Anne Pier Siebesma (Technische Universiteit Delft), Bernhard Mehlig (Göteborgs Universitet) and Fabian Hoffmann (LMU Munich). TurPhyCloud explores the role of turbulence in stratocumulus clouds with the aim of improving weather and climate models. The project includes planned field studies in the Baltic Sea as well as new physical modelling approaches and is supported with €13.7 million.

Biology and Medicine

• Marina Rodnina, Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences

  with Judith Frydman (Stanford University) and Johannes Buchner (Technical University of Munich). The CHAPEROME project investigates how chaperones regulate protein translation and help cells remain functional under changing conditions. The project is funded with €10 million.

• Sara Wickström, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine

  with Ewa Paluch and Daniel St Johnson (both University of Cambridge). Funded with €8.5 million, the EPIRAP project examines the form and function of cells within tissues, combining stem cell biology, molecular genetics and cell biophysics.

• Kai Johnsson, Max Planck Institute for Medical Research

  with Suliana Manley (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) and Wanda Kukulski (University of Bern). The MitoContact project, supported with approximately €12 million, explores how mitochondria communicate with other cellular components and the role of membrane contact sites in these processes.

Background: ERC Synergy Grants

Synergy Grants of the European Research Council are awarded to teams of two to four researchers who jointly address questions that cannot be solved by individual investigators. They provide up to €14 million in funding over a period of six years. In this round, the ERC is allocating a total of €684 million.