ERC ´Starting Grants for the University of Bonn
In her ERC Starting Grant project, “PiCo—Towards constraining the Pillars of our Cosmological model using combined probes”, Assistant Professor Andrina Nicola from the Argelander Institute for Astronomy at the University of Bonn will be exploring two fundamental questions of modern physics: What mechanism gave rise to the primordial fluctuations seeding all the structures seen in the Universe today? And what is the cause of the Universe’s late-time accelerated expansion? To answer these questions, she combines different cosmological probes such as galaxy clustering, weak gravitational lensing and galaxy clusters. Her research group will then apply their newly developed analysis methods to data from the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time and the Simons Observatory. “With our work, we aim to shed light on two fundamental pillars of our cosmological model, dark energy and inflation,” said Assistant Professor Andrina Nicola, who is also a member of the Matter Transdisciplinary Research Area (TRA) at the University of Bonn.
Andrina Nicola studied physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, where she also obtained her PhD. She then worked as a postdoc at Princeton University in the US before moving to Washington University in St. Louis as a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor. She has been an Assistant Professor at the University of Bonn’s Argelander Institute for Astronomy since May 2023.
Media contact:
Assistant Professor Andrina Nicola
Argelander Institute for Astronomy
University of Bonn
Email: anicola@uni-bonn.de
Visual computing has the potential to be used in a broad range of different areas, from medical image analysis to autonomous driving. “The field of visual computing is making more and more use of machine learning methods,” explains Professor Florian Bernard from the Institute for Computer Science II—Visual Computing. “These approaches have already helped solve several problems over the past few years, such as the synthesis of photorealistic images and the automated creation of statistical shape models of 3D organs. However, a major drawback is that progress has mainly been achieved by increasing the amount of resources used, such as energy, data or hardware.”
Armed with his ERC Starting Grant worth some €1.6 million, Bernard now intends to tackle this problem in his project entitled “Harmonising Observations and Underlying Principles for Visual Data Association,” or “Harmony” for short. Together with his working group, he is studying intelligent visual computing algorithms that combine machine learning techniques with human knowledge. Specifically, “Harmony” aims to understand commonalities in visual data, such as images, videos and 3D models. “I’d like to build upon what we already know about fundamental principles, such as physics or geometry, and combine it in an appropriate way with the collective knowledge that is implicitly present in large collections of visual data,” says Professor Bernard, who is also a member of the Modelling Transdisciplinary Research Area at the University of Bonn. “Combining these will help machine learning systems to avoid learning things that we already know from scratch.”
The grant will allow the computer scientist to broaden his research: “We’ll be able to look at more areas with exciting unanswered research questions while also linking existing and new strands of research more closely together.”
Professor Florian Bernard studied computer science at Trier University of Applied Sciences and went on to do his doctorate at the University of Luxembourg. He then worked as a postdoc there and at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics before joining the Technical University of Munich as a visiting professor in 2020. The following year, he came to the University of Bonn as an assistant professor in the Institute for Computer Science II—Visual Computing, being made professor in 2023.
Media contact:
Professor Florian Bernard
Institute for Computer Science II—Visual Computing
University of Bonn
Phone +49 228 73-60607
Email: fb@uni-bonn.de
Our world is becoming more and more complex, risks increasingly difficult to assess. Therefore, it is often not possible to accurately predict the ultimate impact of important decisions. Yet they must be made—especially when it comes to climate change, global finances, or public health.
Professor Sarah Auster from the Institute for Microeconomics at the University of Bonn is studying how uncertainty influences the acquisition, processing and strategic dissemination of information in her project, entitled “Information Economics with Fundamental Uncertainty: Robustness, Commitment, and Strategic Incentives (INFORM).”
“Whereas the traditional approach of information economics is primarily based on scenarios with clearly defined risks, I’m focusing on complex learning situations,” Professor Auster explains, “such as clinical trials of new medical treatments and A/B testing in digital markets, a method for optimizing electronic platforms.” In addition, the project will analyze how strategic incentives to share information change when potential recipients have only a partial picture of the possible sources of information to which other parties have access.
Sarah Auster is set to receive an ERC Starting Grant worth €1.5 million in funding for INFORM over the next five years, giving her “the freedom to concentrate squarely on research.”
Professor Sarah Auster studied economics to Diplom level in Würzburg before completing a doctorate in the same subject at the European University Institute in Florence. She then worked as an Assistant Professor at the Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi in Milan and the University of Mannheim and as an Associate Professor at the University of Bonn before taking up her current post as Professor at its Institute for Microeconomics in 2024. Auster is also a member of the ECONtribute Cluster of Excellence at the Universities of Bonn and Cologne and of “Economic Perspectives on Societal Challenges,” a Collaborative Research Center set up by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and based at the Universities of Bonn and Mannheim.
Media contact:
Professor Sarah Auster
Institute for Microeconomics
University of Bonn
Phone +49 228 73-60310
Email: sauster@uni-bonn.de
Which personal attributes are important for a good life? Which individual preferences and abilities promote positive living conditions? Economist Dr. Tomáš Jagelka is investigating these questions in his "FELICITAS" project, which is funded by the ERC with 1.5 million euros. He will investigate which personal characteristics are important in order to be successful in different areas of life.
On the one hand, "FELICITAS" focuses on the family: how do people value having a partner, being married, having children? This is particularly interesting against the backdrop of falling birth rates in the EU. For example, the project will help to understand people’s fertility preferences and the resources needed to affect their decision to have children.
On the other hand, Dr. Tomáš Jagelka is investigating the value that people attribute to a stable social network. This may enable us to quantify the costs of social isolation, a problem brought to the spotlight during the Covid pandemic.
Another point: ageing societies in the EU. "I want to understand how much income people would be willing to give up in order to be able to extend their lives. What life conditions do people prefer as they age and how much would they be willing to pay to avoid diseases such as cancer or Alzheimer’s?" These results could be used to adapt healthcare policy and medical research priorities accordingly.
"The ERC grant gives me the means to collect experimental data, set up my own research team, and devote as much time as possible to research," says Dr. Jagelka. It also gives him the opportunity to disseminate his newly acquired knowledge at conferences and workshops and to work personally with co-authors at various institutions.
Dr. Tomáš Jagelka studied economics at the undergraduate level at Dartmouth College, USA, before completing his master's degree in economics and political science at École Polytechnique, Sciences Po and ENSAE, France. His PhD, obtained in 2019 from École Polytechnique at the Université Paris-Saclay, was recognized by the French Economic Association as the Best PhD in economics in France that year. Since then, he has been working as a PostDoc at the Institute for Applied Microeconomics at the University of Bonn and is also a member of the ECONtribute Cluster of Excellence at the Universities of Bonn and Cologne.
Media contact:
Dr. Tomáš Jagelka
Institute for Applied Microeconomics
University of Bonn
Phone +49 228 73-9480
Email: tjagelka@uni-bonn.de
Oceans are crucial for regulating global temperatures, climate and storing large quantities of carbon dioxide. At the same time, they are an important economic sector. According to the “Trade and Environment Review 2023” by UN Trade & Development (UNCTAD), the ocean economy is worth between three and six trillion US dollars. However, losses due to mismanagement, overfishing and pollution are having serious consequences for the more than three billion people whose food and income depend on the sea.
Rapid growth in the ocean economy is happening in nearly all economic sectors including tourism, shipping, offshore energy, aquaculture and deep-sea mining. Unfortunately, this rapid growth has created inequitable distribution of risk and benefits. To address this, the UN passed a new High Seas Treaty in 2023 (where “high seas” refers to ocean areas beyond national jurisdiction, which make up approximately 50 percent of the ocean surface), which declares that these ocean areas are to be governed under shared rights models.
“So far, however, our knowledge of how to govern shared rights models effectively at larger scales is not as well developed as it is on local levels or smaller scales ,” says Dr. Stefan Partelow from the Center for Life Ethics at the University of Bonn. “We need to learn from existing approaches at local and regional levels, and find ways to transfer the principles and practices of successful risk and benefit sharing to global governance processes.” In his ERC project, which is to receive some €1.5 million in funding, Partelow will develop a new science of scaling – or amplification – that can identify collaborative governance approaches to share risks and benefits in the ocean economy more equitably. “My project will also demonstrate that interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research together with society can play a key role in developing a sustainable and socially just ocean economy.”
Stefan Partelow studied Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science at UC Santa Barbara in the US and Lund University in Sweden before completing a doctorate at the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) in Bremen. His research explores how to make governing environmental commons more effective. Stefan Partelow has headed the Governance and Transformations group at the Center for Life Ethics at the University of Bonn since 2023 and is a member of the University´s Individuals, Institutions and Societies, and Sustainable Futures Transdisciplinary Research Areas (TRA).
Media contact:
Dr. Stefan Partelow
Center for Life Ethics
University of Bonn
Phone: +49 228 73 66210
Email: stefan.partelow@uni-bonn.de
Professor Markus Hausmann from the Mathematical Institute at the University of Bonn is a mathematician whose research covers algebraic topology and its interaction with algebraic geometry, representation theory and tensor triangular geometry. He is engaging in basic mathematical research with his project, entitled “Bordism of symmetries: From global groups to derived orbifolds” (BorSym), in which he will use algebraic methods to study the symmetry of spaces. As he explains: “The project studies connections between group actions on geometric objects, the algebra of equivariant formal groups and bordism rings of orbifolds. From this interplay we hope to obtain new insights into long-standing open problems on symmetries."
The ERC will be giving BorSym close to €1.5 million in funding over the next five years. Markus Hausmann plans to use the money “to assemble a big team of postdocs and doctoral students so that we can address the unanswered questions together. I wouldn’t be able to do anything like this without the grant.”
Professor Markus Hausmann studied mathematics at the University of Bonn, staying on to complete a doctorate in the same subject in 2016. He then moved to work as a postdoc at the University of Copenhagen before taking up positions as an Akademischer Rat auf Zeit (a lecturer with temporary civil servant status) at the University of Bonn and as an associate professor at the University of Stockholm. In July 2023, Markus Hausmann returned to his alma mater, where he now researches and teaches in his current role as Professor of Mathematics as well as being a member of the University’s Hausdorff Center for Mathematics Cluster of Excellence.
Media contact:
Professor Markus Hausmann
Mathematical Institute
University of Bonn
Email: hausmann@math.uni-bonn.de
Plastic waste is polluting our rivers, oceans and our land. There is hardly any soil left in the world that does not contain plastic residues. The majority of studies in this area focusing on microplastics—particles measuring between one micrometer and five millimeters in size and as such, smaller than an ant. However, with colloidal and nanoplastics even smaller plastic particles exist; with sizes below 1,000 or 100 nanometers, they are smaller than human cells. In her ERC Starting Grant project ‘NanoSoil: Nano- and colloidal plastics in soil: input, plant uptake and risk assessment’, Dr. Melanie Braun from the Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation (INRES) at the University of Bonn will spend the next five years investigating nanoplastics in the soil-plant system. Asked to explain her motivation, she said: “We suspect that nanoplastics in particular exert a range of harms, including on human health”. Dr. Braun is also a member of the PhenoRob Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bonn.
Although it has been possible to detect plastic particles of less than 1,000 nanometer in size in soils, it has not yet been possible to quantify them. Melanie Braun and her team are planning to subject existing analytical methods to further development in order to achieve this. Dr. Braun is preparing to deploy these methods to detect colloidal and nanoplastics in European agricultural soils and investigate the main routes by which nanoplastics and in particular, biodegradable plastics, enter the soil. Her team will also investigate how much of the plastic is taken up by various crops to determine whether our food is contaminated.
“The ERC Starting Grant will enable me to combine my two research foci into nanoparticles and plastics,” says a delighted Melanie Braun. “The grant gives me the opportunity to work for five years on a highly interesting but also very complex topic and to build up my own team.”
Dr. Melanie Braun studied geography at the University of Cologne before starting as a research assistant at the Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation (INRES) at the University of Bonn, where she also completed her doctorate and subsequently worked as a research associate. In 2016, she received an Annemarie Schimmel Fellowship from the University of Bonn, in 2022, she was awarded the Klaus Toepfer Research Prize of the Transdisciplinary Research Area (TRA) "Sustainable Futures" at the University of Bonn. Dr. Braun has worked as an Akademische Rätin (lecturer with civil servant status) at INRES since 2021.
Media contact:
Dr. Melanie Braun
Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation (INRES)
University of Bonn
Phone: +49 228 73-2194
Email: melanie.braun@uni-bonn.de
