Two new members of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council (ERC) have been appointed by the European Commission: Professors Kurt Mehlhorn and Nektarios Tavernarakis.
Kurt Mehlhorn is Professor of Computer Science at Saarland University and Director of the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken, Germany. Nektarios Tavernarakis is Professor of Molecular Systems Biology at the Medical School of the University of Crete and Director of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, at the Foundation for Research and Technology in Heraklion, Greece. Their mandate is for four years.
The ERC Scientific Council, composed of 22 distinguished scientists and scholars representing the European scientific community, is the governing body of the European Research Council. It is chaired by ERC President Professor Jean-Pierre Bourguignon and its main role is setting the ERC strategy and selecting the peer review evaluators.
The European Research Council, set up by the European Union in 2007, is the first European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. It offers three core grant schemes: Starting grants (up to €1.5 Million each), Consolidator grants (up to €2 Million each) and Advanced grants (up to €2.5 Million each). Every year, it selects and funds ambitious and creative researchers of any nationality and age, to run projects based in Europe. The ERC also strives to attract top researchers from anywhere in the world to come to Europe. To date, the ERC has funded some 6,500 top researchers at various stages of their careers. The ERC has a budget of over €13 billion for the years 2014 to 2020 and is part of the EU research and innovation programme Horizon 2020.
