Tel Aviv University Leads Europe in Prestigious ERC Grants for 2026

Tel Aviv University has achieved a significant distinction, topping the list of European institutions in securing prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants for 2026. This grant is awarded to promising early-career researchers to advance groundbreaking studies across various scientific fields.

Five researchers from Tel Aviv University will lead cutting-edge projects. Dr. Ran Finkelstein from the School of Physics and Astronomy is developing a novel quantum processor using trapped atoms. Dr. Sharon Fleischer is creating an innovative 'heart on a chip' model with an active biological clock to study cardiac diseases. Dr. Amit Vinograd will investigate how the brain generates and shapes emotional states, while Dr. Michael Chapman will integrate pure mathematics with quantum information theory to address open problems.

In computer science and artificial intelligence, Dr. Orr Zamir will examine the runtime of algorithms for complex problems. His research aims to precisely understand the time required to solve computationally difficult problems. While classical complexity theory distinguishes between efficiently solvable and computationally hard problems, Zamir's work seeks to refine this understanding by exploring how algorithms for hard problems can be accelerated, the structure of their hardest cases, and whether the difficulty of seemingly easy computational problems is equivalent to that of hard ones.