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Esteemed researchers and scholars to join the ERC Scientific Council Five new members have been appointed to serve until 2027 on the European Research Council, the Scientific Council The European Commission has today appointed five eminent scientists and scholars as new members of the governing body of the European Research Council (ERC), the Scientific Council. They are appointed for an initial period of four years and will replace members, whose second term of office expired or will expire. The new members will take office on 1 January 2023. The new members are Professor Harriet Bulkeley, Durham University, Professor of Geography whose research focussed on environmental governance and the politics of climate change, energy and sustainable cities. Professor Thomas Henzinger, Institute of Science and Technology, ISTA, Austria, Professor of Computer and Communication Sciences, researcher, and Founding President of ISTA. Professor Leszek Kaczmarek, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Professor of Neurobiology who researched the brain-mind connection. Professor Luke O’Neill, Trinity College, Dublin, Professor of Biochemistry, founder of the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI), and leading immunologist. Professor Björn Ottersten, University of Luxembourg, Professor and Founding Director of Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust. His research is focused on security, trust, reliable wireless communications, and statistical signal processing. Mariya Gabriel, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said: “The ERC Scientific Council is composed of outstanding European scientists and scholars who oversee Europe’s premier frontier research funding organisation. To name just one recent example of its success - three of this year’s Nobel Prize laureates have received substantial funding for their research from the European Research Council. Today, I am delighted to give a warm welcome to the five new members who bring to the ERC Scientific Council exceptional scientific expertise, which will complement that of the sitting members. I also want to thank the eminent members whose second term of office expired or will expire at the end of this year for their important contribution to the ERC Scientific Council’s work.” Professor Maria Leptin, President of the ERC, said: “We very much look forward to working with the new members who come from diverse backgrounds in science and scholarship. This breadth is essential as the ERC’s independent governing body represents the entire scientific community in Europe. With these appointments, the quality and continuity of the Scientific Council is upheld, thanks to the work of the identification committee that was tasked with finding these new members.” By the same Commission Decision, the term of office of five current members of the ERC Scientific Council is renewed: Professor Geneviève Almouzni, Professor Ben Feringa, Professor Mercedes Garcia-Arenal, Professor Eystein Jansen, and Professor Jesper Qualmann Svejstrup
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The new members have been selected by an independent Identification Committee, composed of six distinguished scientists appointed by the European Commission and chaired by Prof. Carl-Henrik Heldin. The selection process involved consultations with the scientific community. The ERC Scientific Council, composed of 22 distinguished researchers representing the European scientific community, is the independent governing body of the ERC. Its main role is setting the ERC strategy and selecting the peer review evaluators. It is chaired by ERC President Maria Leptin since November 2021.
Introducing the new members
Harriet Bulkeley gained her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1999 where she subsequently held a Junior Research Fellowship and Leverhulme Research Fellowship before joining Durham University in 2003 where she was appointed as full professor in 2010. Since 2018 she has held a joint appointment with Utrecht University. Her research focuses on the politics and practices of environmental governance, with particular focus on climate change. Her first book (with Michele Betsill) pioneered the field of cities and climate change and her research continues to examine the role of cities and other non-state actors in governing climate change. She has also written extensively on the politics of energy transitions, smart cities, urban sustainability, biodiversity and nature-based solutions, publishing 15 books and edited collections and over 70 papers. She has been included in the Highly Cited Researchers list of the top 1% of researchers internationally four times since 2016. Alongside her academic research, Prof. Bulkeley works closely to enable the translation of research for policy and has provided expert advice and undertaken commissioned research for the UK Government, European Commission, NGOs, UN-Habitat, the OECD and the World Bank. In 2014, she was awarded the King Carl XVI Gustaf’s Professorship in Environmental Science and a Visiting Professorship at Lund University, Sweden and in 2018 was granted the Back Award by the Royal Geographical Society in recognition of the policy impact of her work on climate change. In 2019, she was elected as a Fellow of the UK Academy of the Social Sciences and as a Fellow of the British Academy. She has served as a member of ERC Advance Grants Panel SH2 and in 2020/21 was Chair of the SH7 panel. Prof. Bulkeley most recently worked with EU Research with her Research Innovation Action NATURVATION which appeared in the Autumn 2020 edition. Tom Henzinger is Professor at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), where he was the founding president from 2009 until 2022. He holds a Dipl.-Ing. degree in Computer Science from Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria, an M.S. degree in Computer and
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