Philosophers Win Large ERC Consolidator Grants (updated)


The European Research Council (ERC) has announced the winners of its sizable “Consolidator Grants”, and several philosophers are among them.

The grants “are awarded to outstanding researchers of any nationality and age, with at least seven and up to twelve years of experience after PhD, and a scientific track record showing great promise”.

Philosophers winning the grants are:

  • Thomas Douglas,University of Oxford, Protecting Minds: The Right to Mental Integrity and The Ethics of Arational Influence (€1,960,264 / $2,235,944)
  • Tarja Knuuttila, University of Vienna, Possible Life: The Philosophical Significance of Extending Biology (€1,999,566 / $2,267,577)
  • Adina Preda, University of Limerick, Rights and Egalitarianism (€1,319,355 / $1,500,824)
  • Alena Rettová, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Philosophy and Genre: Creating a Textual Basis for African Philosophy (€1,997,762 / $2,272,338)
  • Robert Williams, University of Leeds, GRoup thinking: new fOUNDationS (€1,997,959/$2,266,755)

The ERC made 291 awards this round, providing €573 million (approximately $650 million) of funding. You can see the full list of award winners here, and data about the awards here.

(Note: this post has been updated; I had initially neglected to include Professor Williams’ grant.)

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

4 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Jack Woods
Jack Woods
5 years ago

And Robbie Williams from Leeds!

Catarina Dutilh Novaes
Catarina Dutilh Novaes
5 years ago

Not on philosophy, but potentially of interest to philosophers too, is the ERC project of Raquel Fernandez (ILLC Amsterdam), ‘Distributed dynamic representations for dialogue management’: http://www.illc.uva.nl/NewsandEvents/ILLC-News-Events/#item10368

L. Hunsucker
L. Hunsucker
5 years ago

Hmmm. Three of these five are working in the same country, i.e. in the UK. Interesting enough in itself. But equally interesting questions are whether these researchers themselves may see this support later discontinued, and whether other researchers in the same country will soon find that they are no longer even eligible for such grants: after the Brexit — especially if it’s a “hard Brexit”, as now seems increasingly likely. Such could quite possibly turn out to be the case. That is: already after 29 March 2019 (in the case of a hard Brexit), or otherwise after 31 December 2020 (when the potential transition period expires, unless that period receives the maximum of one short extension).
Yes, the rules governing these grants state that the researchers themselves may be of of any nationality, that’s true, but they also stipulate that those researchers’ “Host Institutions” *must* be located “in one of the EU Member States or associated countries”. See e.g. :
https://erc.europa.eu/funding/consolidator-grants
and
https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/docs/h2020-funding-guide/grants/applying-for-funding/find-partners_en.htm