Professorial Fellow receives prestigious ERC Starting Grant
Rachel Bernhard, Professorial Fellow at Nuffield, is among eleven researchers at the University of Oxford who have been selected to receive prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants, each worth €1.5 million for a period of up to five years.
Rachel’s grant will be used to fund her research into her COMPLEXPOL project, ‘Walls and Wicked Problems: The Role of Complexity in Politics.’
The project will explore how complexity shapes politics, from simple slogans like “build the wall” to the challenges of solving climate change.
Rachel said: “By developing new theories, data, and methods, the project will reveal why some problems are reduced to simple narratives while others remain stubborn “wicked problems.”
In the latest round of starting grants from the ERC, a total of 478 early-career researchers have been selected to receive funding to help them launch their own projects, build research teams and pursue their most promising ideas.
President of the European Research Council Professor Maria Leptin said:
“All these bright minds and the plethora of brilliant ideas that they will go after really inspire me, and so does their scientific creativity. It also gives hope that Europe empowers them and backs them.
“Yet, we could do more! Only 12% of all proposals in this competition are being funded, even if many more are excellent. More investment in this type of science is needed for Europe to reach its full potential.”
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 across Europe.
For the full list of award recipients, you can visit the website of the University of Oxford. Further information about the 2025 ERC Starting Grants can be found on the ERC website.