Two researchers in Ireland have been awarded prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grants. Both awardees are from University College Dublin (UCD) and each will receive €2.5 million for their groundbreaking research projects.

Advanced Grants are the most competitive of the ERC Awards, supporting senior researchers to pursue ambitious projects that could lead to major scientific breakthroughs. The UCD awardees are among 281 leading researchers across Europe to receive grants worth a total of €721 million.

Professor of Information and Communication Studies at UCD, Kylie Jarrett, will lead the LivePlatforms project exploring the rapidly growing ecosystem of livelihoods generated through digital platforms. Associate Professor in Applied and Computational Mathematics at UCD, Barry Wardell, will develop models to accurately detect and analyse Gravitational Waves through his EMRIWaveforms project.

Professor Maria Leptin, President of the European Research Council, said: ‘Congratulations to the new grant winners! Much of this pioneering research will contribute to solving some of the most pressing challenges we face - social, economic and environmental, etc.’

The Advanced grants are part of the EU’s Horizon Europe programme and this competition attracted a total of 2,534 proposals. Prof Leptin added: ‘Yet again, many scientists - around 260 - with ground-breaking ideas were rated as excellent, but remained unfunded due to a lack of funds at the ERC. We hope that more funding will be available in the future to support even more creative researchers in pursuing their scientific curiosity.’

Ekaterina Zaharieva, European Commissioner for Startups, Research, and Innovation, said: ‘These ERC grants are our commitment to making Europe the world’s hub for excellent research. By supporting projects that have the potential to redefine whole fields, we are not just investing in science but in the future prosperity and resilience of our continent. In the next competition rounds, scientists moving to Europe will receive even greater support in setting up their labs and research teams here. This is part of our “Choose Europe for Science” initiative, designed to attract and retain the world’s top scientists.”

UCD has now secured 35 ERC frontier grants under the Horizon Europe Programme - totalling €73 million, this constitutes over 40% of the national ERC total for the programme.

Professor Kate Robson Brown,Vice-President for Research, Innovation and Impact at University College Dublin said, "Congratulations to Professor Jarrett and Associate Professor Wardell on receiving these highly coveted grants.

“We are very proud of the outstanding success of UCD’s research leaders in this prestigious and highly competitive funding scheme, winning the only two ERC Advanced Grants for Ireland in this round. They will contribute valuable new knowledge within their fields and we look forward to following the progress of their important research.”

The 281 new Advanced Grant recipients are based at universities and research centres in 23 EU Member States and associated countries. Estimates show that the grants will create approximately 2,700 jobs.

The Irish Awards

Associate Professor Barry Wardell, UCD School of Mathematics & Statistics, leads the EMRIWaveforms (Waveforms for Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals) project.

The breakthrough detection of Gravitational Waves was celebrated with the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. Gravitational Waves are ripples in the fabric of space-time emitted during powerful astronomical events. Detection and analysis of these waves could revolutionise our understanding of the universe.

The EMRIWaveforms team will work with the European Space Agency’s Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) - the first mission to probe the entire history of the universe using Gravitational Waves - to find and decode these important signals.

Associate Professor Wardell explained, “Gravitational waves have opened a completely new way of exploring the universe—but we’ve only just scratched the surface. With the upcoming LISA mission from the European Space Agency, we’ll be able to ‘hear’ signals from some of the most extreme events in the cosmos, including black holes the size of our Sun spiraling into supermassive black holes millions of times larger.

“These signals, known as EMRIs (Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals), are rich in information but incredibly hard to detect without precise models to guide the search. That’s where my project EMRIWaveforms comes in. Thanks to the support of the European Research Council, my team will develop the first accurate models of these signals, helping LISA unlock discoveries that are currently out of reach. This research is key to making sure we don’t miss some of the universe’s most fascinating secrets.”

Professor Kylie Jarrett, UCD School of Information & Communication Studies, leads the LivePlatforms (Livelihoods in the Platform Economy Ecosystem) project.

Generating incomes through digital platforms takes many forms, from Deliveroo food delivery riders or freelance data workers hired through Upwork, to online creators like YouTubers and influencers, and resellers trading on Etsy or Vinted. A 2022 survey of over 1,700 Irish workers found that 31.4% had engaged in digitally mediated work, highlighting the increasing significance of this work to the economy.

The LivePlatforms project will comprehensively examine this rapidly growing ecosystem in Ireland for the first time, with a view to development of fair, secure, and decent work for the sector.

Professor Jarrett says, “LivePlatforms is about understanding how people generate livelihoods in the platform economy in Ireland, seeking to identify the various actors that make that possible - and also those that might make it more difficult.

“From delivery riders to influencers, work mediated by digital platforms takes many varied forms and is increasingly important to the economy. It is therefore vital we build up a more holistic picture of the ecosystem of which it is composed. The support of the ERC will allow us to build this picture at a large scale, generating important insight into the Irish context while also developing a model for researching platform work at a national scale that can be applied elsewhere.”

For more information on the ERC Advanced Grants and a full list of awarded projects, visit the ERC website.