Seven researchers at the University of Cambridge have been awarded Synergy Grants from the European Research Council to lead five new collaborative projects that will tackle some of science’s toughest puzzles.
ERC Synergy Grants bring together research expertise, skills and resources across institutions to tackle ambitious research problems that no single group could address alone.
These highly competitive grants foster collaboration between outstanding researchers, enabling them to push forward the boundaries of scientific discovery.
The funding is part of the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme. In total the ERC has awarded €684 million to sixty-six research teams, bringing together 239 scientists. The projects cover diverse topics across many disciplines.
The Cambridge recipients of 2025 ERC Synergy Grants are:
Professor Jeremy Baumberg, Department of Physics for ‘DNA for Reconfigurable Nano-Opto-Mechanical Systems’ (DNA4RENOMS), in collaboration with the Universities of Heidelberg and Munich. Using the ability to knit strands of DNA into rigid structures, and combining these with polymer ‘muscles’ that can be triggered by light, the team aims to construct nanomachinery with a wide range of applications including sensors and low energy computing.
Professor Ewa Paluch, Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, and Professor Daniel St Johnston, Gurdon Institute and Department of Genetics for ‘Robustness and plasticity of epithelial architectures’ (EpiRaP), in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, Münster. Every human cell has a distinctive shape tightly linked to its function, and cells often become misshapen in disease. This project investigates how cells build, maintain, and remodel their shapes, focusing on epithelia - the protective layers lining our organs, aiming to reveal how biology and physics come together to shape cells and tissues.
Professor Enrico Crema, Department of Archaeology for ‘Investigating alternative trajectories for human demographic growth in temperate northern Holocene societies’ (FORAGER), in collaboration with the Universities of York, Montana, USA and Lund, Sweden. The team aims to find out why and how some prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies experienced population growth comparable to that of early farming societies, and the consequences of these population booms. They will compare archaeological evidence from Japan, the Pacific Northwest Coast and the Atlantic Northeast Coast in North America, and the Baltic region in Europe.
Professor Richard Durbin and Dr Felipe Karam Teixeira, Department of Genetics for ‘GENomes Evolve in a Landscape of TEs’ (GENELT), in collaboration with the Gregor Mendel Institute, Vienna. This team will study transposable elements (TEs) - pieces of DNA that can copy themselves around the genome - to advance understanding of how the genomes of multicellular eukaryotes and their transposable elements co-evolve.
Professor Sadaf Farooqi, Institute of Metabolic Science for ‘The biology of innate behaviour’ (INSTINCT), in collaboration with the University of South Florida and University College London. The team’s study of this fundamental research question has significant potential to impact conditions that harm human health, such as obesity and anxiety.
Only about one in ten proposals were selected for funding by the ERC, with the successful projects receiving on average €10.3 million each. The projects will be carried out at universities and research centres in 26 countries across Europe and beyond – with 24 grantees based in the United Kingdom.
Professor Sir John Aston, Cambridge’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, said: “Many congratulations to our Cambridge colleagues on these prestigious ERC funding awards, which will enable them to collaborate with outstanding researchers at other institutions to address complex scientific problems. We're fortunate at Cambridge to have so many world-leading researchers across a range of disciplines, and I look forward to seeing the outcomes of their work.”
Ekaterina Zaharieva, European Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation, said: “Europe’s frontier research has never been so international. This global collaboration strengthens European science, gives our researchers access to world-class expertise and infrastructure, and brings leading scientists from around the world closer to Europe.”
President of the European Research Council, Professor Maria Leptin, said: “Collaboration is at the heart of the ERC Synergy Grants. In our latest round, teams of researchers will join forces to address the most complex scientific problems together - this time, they are more international than ever. The competition was fierce, with many outstanding proposals left unfunded. With more funds, the ERC could fully capitalise on this wealth of first-class science. Such scientific endeavours are what Europe needs to be at the real forefront.”