The Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) has been awarded two prestigious Consolidator Grants from the European Research Council (ERC), one of the most competitive calls in the EU Framework Programme. The selected projects —ROCINANTE, focused on researching and developing disruptive space-propulsion technologies, and EXKIN, dedicated to studying social mobility and the persistence of inequality— will receive nearly €4 million in total funding over the next five years.
Unraveling the physics behind the space thrusters of the future
The ROCINANTE project (Taming nonlinear oscillations and turbulence for optimal design and operation of space plasma thrusters), funded with €2 million from the ERC, aims to tackle one of the major challenges in space propulsion: understanding and controlling specific plasma fluctuations inside electrodeless plasma thrusters (EPTs). These devices could revolutionize space travel because they significantly simplify the propulsion system and can operate with virtually any type of propellant, making them especially appealing for long-duration missions that may require in-flight refueling using resources found, for instance, on Mars.
However, current EPTs show relatively low efficiency, largely due to plasma oscillations and turbulence that cause energy losses and damage engine walls. “This is one of the blind spots preventing us from designing truly versatile and efficient thrusters,” explains Mario Merino, principal investigator of the project in UC3M’s Department of Aerospace Engineering. ROCINANTE seeks to understand these phenomena by analyzing plasma fluctuations from multiple angles: obtaining direct experimental measurements, developing a fast and accurate computational model of plasma dynamics, studying how different types of oscillations interact, and exploring —for the first time— the possibility of actively controlling them to mitigate their harmful effects.
To do this, the team will build a specially designed ECR (electron cyclotron resonance) plasma source, equipped with advanced sensors and actuators capable of “listening to” and “seeing” plasma oscillations in great detail, but also altering them. They will also develop an innovative computer simulator —a next-generation particle-in-cell code— to realistically reproduce these phenomena much faster than current tools allow. Through these experiments, simulations, and new data-analysis techniques, ROCINANTE could transform our understanding of plasma dynamics in these devices and pave the way for space thrusters that are far more efficient, durable, and reliable, while opening new research avenues in active fluctuation control.
A new framework for understanding social mobility
The second project selected in this call, EXKIN (Mobility, Sorting and Inequality with Extended Kinship Data), will examine the persistence of socioeconomic inequalities across generations. Its goal is to develop a unified conceptual and empirical framework capable of integrating different measures of intergenerational mobility, from traditional parent-child correlations to multigenerational or surname-based approaches. It will also analyze the transmission of social status across different time horizons.
The research will use administrative records and population databases to reconstruct extensive kinship networks, incorporating links between siblings and spouses. The richness of these structures will provide far more “empirical moments” than previous studies and allow the team to rigorously test predictions derived from the new theoretical framework. Key issues to be addressed include the role of assortative mating, the transmission of skills, and the long-term stability of inequality.
“The project’s findings aim to deepen our understanding of how family environments shape individuals’ life and economic trajectories and to provide tools that support better public-policy design to reduce persistent inequalities,” notes Jan Leonard Stuhler, the project’s principal investigator from UC3M’s Department of Economics.
These research grants highlight UC3M’s strong commitment to excellence in research. To date, the University has secured 21 ERC projects since the program’s creation (8 Starting Grants, 9 Consolidator Grants, and 4 Proof of Concept Grants), with total funding exceeding €28 million.