ERC - European Research Council

06/30/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 06/30/2026 08:07

Member of the ERC Scientific Council re-appointed

Prof. Lorente is Associate Dean for Research & Innovation at the College of Engineering at Villanova University, USA, where she is also College of Engineering Chair Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Furthermore, she is Professor (Exceptional Class) at the National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA), University of Toulouse, France. Read her full biography.

The ERC Scientific Council is composed of 22 distinguished scientists and scholars representing the European scientific community. Their main role is to set the ERC strategy and to select the peer review evaluators. The ERC and the Scientific Council are chaired by the ERC President, Maria Leptin.

About the ERC

The ERC, set up by the European Union in 2007, is the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. It funds creative researchers of any nationality and age, to run projects based across Europe. The ERC offers four core grant schemes: Starting Grants, Consolidator Grants, Advanced Grants and Synergy Grants. With its additional Proof of Concept Grant scheme, the ERC helps grantees to bridge the gap between their pioneering research and early phases of its commercialisation. A new ERC Plus Grants scheme is open for applications since June 2026. The ERC is led by an independent governing body, the Scientific Council. Maria Leptin has been the President of the ERC since November 2021. The overall ERC budget from 2021 to 2027 is more than €16 billion, as part of the Horizon Europe programme, which is under the responsibility of Ekaterina Zaharieva, European Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation.

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