The European Research Council (ERC) has announced today the awarding of its Starting Grants to 325 early-career researchers throughout Europe. The funding, worth in total €485 million and up to €1.5 million per grant, will enable them to set up their own research teams and pursue ground-breaking ideas.The new grantees will work on a wide range of topics, such as improving effectiveness of chemotherapy in cancer treatment, developing new sustainable ways of producing hydrogen fuel, and exploring citizenship law to better manage migration and uphold human rights. The funded research covers all disciplines: physical sciences and engineering, life sciences, and social science and humanities.
The grants are awarded under the 'excellent science' pillar of Horizon 2020, the EU's research and innovation programme.
See examples of funded research.
Project: Global Citizenship Law: International Migration and Constitutional Identity (GlobalCitizenshipLaw)
Researcher: Liav Orgad
Host institution: European University Institute, Italy
ERC funding: €2 million over 5 years
Citizenships of the world Migration poses unprecedented dilemmas for countries and challenges the concepts of the nation-state, self-determination, and citizenship. It also lays bare the inadequacy of the current international legal system to govern the new global reality. Professor Liav Orgad, with a project based at the European University Institute, intends to confront the dominant view that citizenship allocation should remain a matter of strictly domestic jurisdiction. Prof. Orgad makes the case for the establishment of International Citizenship Law (ICIL). This new subfield of international law could set common legal standards for countries to establish naturalization requirements. In doing so, ICIL will follow a jus nexi principle of membership: demonstrating a genuine link to the country and fulfilling certain conditions according to a functional points-based system would open an alternative path to citizenship. Prof. Orgad's research will make the very first step in the development of an ICIL regime and advance the idea that ICIL would ensure a better protection of human rights, while better serving the interest of states. This could be especially beneficial in Europe, where the lack of a consistent EU nationality law complicates already existing frictions.