Three KTH researchers win major European research grants
Professors Axel Brandenburg, Björn Ottersten och Johan Håstad of KTH are three of the seven Swedish researchers who, in the face of stiff competition, have been awarded research grants of around 20 million SEK from the newly-established European Research Council (ERC).
The three KTH projects:
Professor Björn Ottersten, KTH, "Agile MIMO Systems for Communications, Biomedicine, and Defence"
Professor Johan Håstad, KTH, "Approximation of NP-hard optimization problems"
Professor Axel Brandenburg, KTH, "Astrophysical Dynamos"
This type of financing is termed Advanced Grants and is aimed at supporting excellent and innovative research implemented or led by established researchers at the cutting edge. These successes have been announced in the field Physical Sciences & Engineering - of approximately one thousand applications, only 105 European researchers received such grants. Later awards within the fields Social Sciences & Humanities and Life Sciences & Medicine will be announced.
The aim of the ERC is to support the best researchers in Europe. The long-term goal is to improve the level of scientific excellence in Europe and increase its profile on a global level.
The other four successful Swedish researchers are: Professor Lars Hultman, Linköping University, Professor Anne L'Huillier, Lund University, Professor Villy Sundström, Lund University for the project "Visualizing Molecular Change" and Bengt Nordén, Chalmers for "Supramolecular motive power" (Sumo).
Previously grants have also been awarded by ERC within the category Starting Independent Researcher Grants, aimed at eminent researchers. Johan Hoffman, at the KTH School of Computer Sciences and Communication, was one of the successful applicants and won a grant for his project "New Adaptive Computational Methods for Fluid-Structure Interaction using a Unified Continuum Formulation with Applications in Biology, Medicine and Industry".
Olle Blomqvist