Four researchers from the Bordeaux campus awarded an ERC grant of €10M

A first for Bordeaux's scientific community - four researchers from three laboratories on the Bordeaux campus have been awarded a single ERC (European Research Council) Synergy grant. Worth €10 million over a 6-year period, this prestigious grant underlines the strong interaction between the fields of neuroscience and photonics in Bordeaux.

  • 04/12/2020

Laurent Groc, Director of Research (CNRS) with IINS*, Erwan Bézard, Director of Research (Inserm) with IMN**, Laurent Cognet, Director of Research (CNRS) with LP2N***, and Valentin Nägerl, Professor at the University of Bordeaux with IINS* have been awarded a prestigious ERC Synergy grant 2020. ERC Synergy grants are characterized by the fact that they unite two to four scientists with a view to pooling expertise and resources for the benefit of a major, cutting-edge multidisciplinary scientific project. Since the program was established in 2012 it is only the fifth grant awarded solely to French scientists.

The ambitious and innovative ENSEMBLE ("Together") project is based on the development of new high-resolution microscopy approaches that benefit a new conceptual framework of cerebral communication. The objective of the project is to understand the brain function by deciphering how its extracellular environment controls communication between cells in a physiological context and in neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders.

A clear collective step forward in understanding the brain function