The most recent call for proposals for the Starting Grants offered by the European Research Council (ERC) saw a successful submission by Junior Professor Manuel Krannich from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT): Funds amounting to EUR 1.5 million enable the mathematician to realize his project MaFC. The basic research project focusing on manifolds and functor calculus links multiple fields of pure mathematics. With his work, Krannich unveils surprising relationships between symmetries of high-dimensional manifolds and laws of algebra.
In the competition for the Starting Grants offered by the European Research Council (ERC), Junior Professor Manuel Krannich, Group Head at KIT’s Institute for Algebra and Geometry (IAG), was successful with his project entitled “Manifolds and Functor Calculus” (MaFC). The project is set to run for five years and will be funded with EUR 1.5 million in total. “This success is a great honor for me and a wonderful confirmation of my work,” says the mathematician.
Researcher Adopts Problem-Oriented Approach
Krannich is specialized in algebraic and geometric topology. He investigates spaces with properties that remain constant even in case of continuous deformations. The focus of his research lies on manifolds. These are topological spaces that seem to be flat from a local point of view, but have a more complicated shape when seen globally – comparable to a representation of the globe’s surface by many overlapping maps. The MaFC project deals with manifolds and functor calculus and unveils new relationships between symmetries of high-dimensional manifolds and laws of algebra. “I adopt a problem-oriented approach and I’m often working on new methods that I find to approach my research subject,” explains Krannich. In doing so, he already got familiar with various methods of algebra, geometry, topology, and related fields and combined them in a surprising way.
Project between Manifold Theory and High-level Algebra
Manuel Krannich studied mathematics at KIT, earning a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree. Afterwards, he wrote his doctoral thesis at the University of Copenhagen about characteristic classes of bundles of manifolds. He then worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge and the University of Münster. In 2022, he took up a junior (tenure track) professorship at KIT’s Department of Mathematics, heading the Algebraic and Geometric Topology working group at the IAG. “I’m looking forward to realising my interdisciplinary research project at KIT between manifold theory and higher algebra,” says Krannich.
2025 ERC Starting Grants
Starting Grants are an initiative by the European Research Council to promote outstanding young researchers at the beginning of an independent career. Scientists of any discipline who have earned their doctorate two to seven years before may apply. The ERC is funding every selected project for a period of five years with an amount of up to EUR 1.5 million. In the 2025 round of calls, the ERC awarded Starting Grants to altogether 478 scientists who are doing research in 25 European countries, 99 of them in Germany. The overall funding volume of the 2025 ERC Starting Grants amounts to EUR 761 million. 3928 applications had been submitted so that the approval rate is about 12,2%.
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