Ireland’s AMBER centre boosts haul of ERC concept awards to 34
27 Jan 2025

Two researchers for Ireland’s centre for advanced materials and bioengineering centre AMBER have secured European Research Council (ERC) Proof of Concept Awards for their projects.
Professor Valeria Nicolosi’s (pictured) materials science project ‘E-Wood’ will transform wood waste into high value sustainable electromagnetic interference shielding materials for modern technology.
Professor Fergal O’Brien’s bioengineering project ‘DEEPSTIM’ is a digitally enabled electroconductive patient specific stimulation implant for spinal cord injury.
The awards bring the total number of ERC awards to 34 since AMBER’s foundation 12 years ago – with Nicolosi and O’Brien accounting for seven and four respectively. The total value of all the awards to AMBER is c€40 million to date.
The two latest awards are each valued at €150,000.
ERC Proof of Concept Grants are designed to aid exploration of the commercial and social innovation potential of existing ERC funded research and available only for proposals drawn from principle investigators’ earlier Council-funded research.