9.7 million euros for projects of the University of Coimbra to boost four research areas in Portugal

The University of Coimbra (UC) has just secured 9.7 million euros from the European Commission to fund four training and research projects in various scientific areas: biomaterials, music, obesity, and gene therapy. The UC leads four of the eight projects to be funded in Portugal in this ERA Chair call, out of a total of 38 projects approved across Europe.

The funding will help strengthen several research areas at the UC for five years. The projects are funded by Horizon Europe through ERA Chair Actions, a European Commission initiative aimed at helping universities and research institutions attract and retain top researchers. This funding mechanism also supports the creation of new research teams and promotes excellence in research to address societal challenges. All ERA Chairs are led by an ERA Chair Holder, an outstanding researcher who will oversee the overall implementation of the project.

The ERA Chair OBICODE: Biocultural Transmissions of Obesity across Generations in the Digital Era will be coordinated at the UC by Cristina Padez, Professor at the Department of Life Sciences of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology (DCV/FCTUC) and coordinator of the Research Centre for Anthropology and Health (CIAS). Funded with €2.5 million, OBICODE’s ERA Chair Holder is Professor Stanley Ulijaszek from the University of Oxford, an internationally renowned expert in anthropology, particularly in the fields of obesity and malnutrition. The project aims to strengthen research in Anthropology at the UC by developing and testing a model to study the social origins of obesity across generations influenced by the digital ecosystem, and then translating findings into policy and intervention message.

BIOBASED2UC: Exploring novel bio-based materials and their applications in conservation and restoration with a new interdisciplinary team, will receive €2.2 million. This ERA Chair is coordinated at the UC by José Gamelas, a researcher at the Chemical Engineering and Renewable Resources for Sustainability (CERES) centre of the Department of Chemical Engineering - Faculty of Sciences and Technology (DEQ/FCTUC). Professor Mohamed Naceur Belgacem, a world-renowned scientist for his pioneering research in the field of biopolymers, holds the ERA Chair.

The main objective of BIOBASED2UC is to establish a robust research area focused on the development of sustainable bio-based materials and their application in the conservation and restoration of historic cellulosic objects, thereby contributing to the preservation of society’s historical and cultural heritage.

José Oliveira Martins, Professor at the Department of History, European Studies, Archaeology and Arts (FLUC) and Scientific Coordinator of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies (CEIS20), will coordinate MusicAnalytica: Interdisciplining Music Studies through the Reconfiguration of Theoretical and Analytical Knowledge at the UC, funded with €2.5 million. Yale University Professor Richard Cohn, a renowned expert in music theory, is the ERA Chair holder of MusicAnalytica, which has as its central mission to strengthen research in music at the UC, based on an innovative framework for understanding the cultural and creative heritage of music, and to promote a radical restructuring of music studies across fields such as music analysis and musicology, music computation and mathematics, cognition, musical performance and anthropology.

Coordinated at the UC by Luís Pereira de Almeida, Professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy (FFUC) and President of the Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (CNC-UC), the ERA Chair GCure - From Gene to Cure will receive €2.5 million. Professor Jude Samulski of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, a pioneering figure in gene therapy, is the ERA Chair holder. GCure is a strategic initiative aimed at increasing UC's capacity and visibility in the field of gene therapy, which involves developing medicines using genetic material (DNA or RNA) to treat or prevent disease. The project is also expected to contribute to significant advances in health and well-being.

The Rector of the University of Coimbra, Amílcar Falcão, claims that "the award of almost 10 million euros of funding in a single Call - with the UC leading 50% of the national projects and 10% of the European projects approved - confirms the UC's continuous investment in obtaining competitive funding and the quality of our research. In this specific case, these factors will allow us to create new research groups and foster the development of highly relevant areas, contributing to the training of a new generation of young researchers".

It should be noted that the four new ERA Chairs join four others already established at the UC in previous years: CogBooster and EXCELScIOR, in 2022; DYNABrain, as an associate, in 2020; and ERAatUC, in 2015.