ERC Starting 2026 : The New CNRS Awardees
The European Research Council (ERC) has just announced the recipients of the “Starting” grants, which provide significant funding for projects led by young researchers. This year, the CNRS is the host institution for 19 grants.
In 2026, the European Research Council (ERC) selected 421 projects to receive “Starting” grants, totaling 705 million euros from the Horizon Europe framework program. For this edition, the Council received a record number of 4,807 applications.
This funding intends to support exploratory research projects for a maximum duration of 5 years, with a budget of 1.5 million euros. It is aimed at scientists who earned their Ph.D. between 2 and 7 years ago. “Starting” grants are the first European funding program available to early-career researchers, preceding the “Consolidator” grants (up to 2 million euros, for researchers with 7 to 12 years of postdoctoral experience) and “Advanced” grants (up to 2.5 million euros, for established researchers).
Among the 19 projects selected, 7 different research disciplines are represented: 7 in Biological Sciences, 3 in Physics, 1 in Chemistry, 1 in Earth sciences and Astronomy, 1 in Mathematical Sciences, 3 in Ecology and Environment, 1 in Nuclear and Particle Physics, and 2 in Humanities and Social Sciences.
List of 2026 Awardees :
Sophie Bagur, associate research professor at the joint research unit of Brain plasticity (CNRS/École supérieure de physique et de chimie de la ville de Paris – Université Paris Sciences et Lettres) for the VIBRA project « Visceral–Brain interactions in the regulation of risk‐taking and anxiety »
Rémy Beugnon, postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CNRS/EPHE-PSL/IRD/Université Montpellier) at the BioMiCaD project « Linking Biodiversity, Microclimate, and Carbon Dynamics to understand forest potential under climate change »
Alexandra Colin, associate research professor at the Laboratory of Cell and Plant Physiology (CNRS/CEA/INRAE/Université Grenoble Alpes) for the SHARETHEPOOL project « Resource sharing in cells: the case of competitive actin structures »
Maxime Durand, associate research professor at the joint research unit of Ecology, Society and Evolution (CNRS/AgroparisTech-Paris Saclay/Université Paris-Saclay) for the SHIFT project « Sunlight Heterogeneity and Impacts on Forest Trajectories »
Quentin Ficheux, associate research professor at the Institute NEEL (CNRS/Université Grenoble Alpes) for the TURQUOISE project « Towards fault tolerant quantum computation with noise-biased qubits»
Laurent Formery, researcher at the joint research unit of Integrative biology of marine organisms (CNRS/Sorbonne Université) for the ECHINODEV project « Deciphering the plasticity of conserved developmental programs in pentaradial echinoderms »
Nicola Galvanetto, researcher at the Institute of Structural Biology (CNRS/CEA/Université Grenoble Alpes) for the Interfaces project « Single-molecule dynamics of aggregation at biomolecular condensate interfaces »
Clément Ghiazza, associate research professor at the Lavoisier Institute in Versailles (CNRS/Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin) for the AZTEK project « AZines/AZoles Transformations: Enantioselectivity and fundamental Knowledge »
Elzbieta Gradauskaite, associate research professor at the Albert Fert Laboratory (CNRS/THALES) for the MULTIPLEX project « Realization of multiferroic metals in perovskite-based layered oxides »
Sergio Jimenez-Manchon, postdoctoral fellow at the joint research unit of Archaeology of Mediterranean Societies (CNRS/Ministère de la culture/Université Montpellier Paul Valéry) for the MOOVING project « Unravelling resilience in early cattle management across the Mediterranean (7th-3rd millennia BCE). Adaptive strategies to climatic, socioeconomic and environmental dynamics »
Lara Krüger, associate research professor at the unit of Cell biology and cancer (CNRS/Institut Curie) for the POLYFATE project « How polarized lysosome partitioning drives fate diversification in stem cell division »
Louis-Alexandre Lalanne, associate research professor at the Laboratory of Physics of the Two Infinities - Irène Joliot-Curie (CNRS/Université Paris-Saclay) for the UNION project « UNderstanding the sIze Of the Nucleus »
Pieter Lammers, researcher at the Probability, Statistics and Modelling Laboratory (CNRS/Sorbonne Université/Université Paris Cité) for the GeStruct project « Geometric Structure of Lattice Spin O(N) models »
Fabrice Langrognet, associate research professor at the joint research unit of International Migration, Spaces and Societies (CNRS/Université de Poitiers) for the AIRDEP project « A History of Air Deportation and Refoulement from 1945 to 2001 »
Maxime Maheu, researcher, will join the Paris-Saclay Institute of Neuroscience – NeuroPSI (CNRS/Université Paris-Saclay) for the NEURO-W8 project « Neuro-computational mechanisms of evidence weighting across species »
Niloufar Nilforoushan, associate research professor at the Laboratory for Materials and Quantum Phenomena (CNRS/Université Paris Cité) for the REPHASE project « Resonant control of Emergent PHASEs in van der Waals materials »
Nicolas Scepi, postdoctoral fellow at the Grenoble Institute of Planetology and Astrophysics (CNRS/Université de Grenoble Alpes) for the STORM project « Simulating Transient and clumpy Outflows in Radiative and Magnetized disk around black holes »
Ségolène Vandevelde, will join the Laboratory for Dynamic Environments and Mountain Territories (EDYTEM) (CNRS/Université de Savoie Mont Blanc) as a associate research professor for the TARS project « Traces of Anthropogenic fires in speleothems: Revealing timings of occupation in sites with Symbolic use »
Maxence Vincent, associate research professor at the Bacterial Chemistry Laboratory (CNRS/Aix-Marseille Université) for the MIMOSA project « Microfluidic Investigation of Myeloid-derived Oxidants in Salmonella Adaptation »