Picture by Gerd Altman
Publish Date: 26.04.2022
Category: Researchers in focus , ERC & MSCA, Our contribution to sustainable development goals
Sustainable development goals: 4 Quality education (Indicators)
“The project entitled HOLOMORPHIC PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL RELATIONS – HPDR will allow me to focus on research in the next five years and form an international group of researchers, which will be an important thematic extension of the existing group for complex analysis and geometry at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana and the Institute of Mathematics, Physics and Mechanics” says Prof Forstnerič and adds: “This is the first ERC grant in the field of mathematics in Slovenia. It represents a major recognition of my work, and by extension of the work of my research group. I am convinced that it will provide a stimulus to those younger colleagues in my Department who are doing first rate research in mathematics to increase their efforts for obtaining financing from ERC.«
More about that in video: Franc Forstnerič: A statement on the occasion of receiving ERC-Advanced Grant
When the European Research Council - ERC announced the winners of ERC projects for established researchers for 2021, it was a special day for the University of Ljubljana and its Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, as it received two ERC projects on the same day. The winners of the prestigious funding are professors at the FMF - astrophysicist, Prof Dr Maruša Bradač and mathematician, academician Prof Dr Franc Forstnerič.
In Europe and undoubtedly in the world, the ERC grants are the most prestigious scientific research funding that can be received by an individual researcher. It is not only a top success of researchers, but also an outstanding achievement of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of the University of Ljubljana – in particular for the exceptional high-quality research environment it offers to researchers and their groups.
“This year’s recipients of ERC Advanced Grants are established researchers of the Faculty, and what makes us particularly happy is that they come from the areas of physics and mathematics, the first time in Slovenia,” said the dean of the Faculty, Prof Dr Tomaž Košir and continued: “scientific excellence, which is the only criterion of the ERC, is of course a great encouragement for the faculty and confirmation that we have top researchers and that we manage to maintain appropriate conditions for ambitions for quality pedagogical work to coexist with international research excellence - both of which we want to pass on to young people. My sincere congratulations to both award researchers. This are the seventh and eighth project of our Faculty members, i.e., the third and fourth ERC project led entirely at the Faculty, and this puts us on the map of the best faculties in Europe.”
The Rector of the University of Ljubljana, Prof Dr Gregor Majdič congratulated the researchers on this exceptional success and said: “I am proud that Slovenian science is drawing a map of breakthrough successes in Europe, and I am especially pleased that the University of Ljubljana is so successful in this area. Since 2007 when the European Research Council started to award ERC projects, the researchers from the University of Ljubljana were granted eight of these prestigious projects. Sincere congratulations to the esteemed colleague academician Prof Dr Franc Forstnerič for the first Slovenian ERC project in mathematics, and the astrophysicist Prof Dr Maruša Bradač for the project in space research. Maruša Bradač is already the fourth female researcher from our university who managed to obtain a prestigious ERC grant and the second recipient of such a project from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana. Namely, in 2011 the first Slovenian ERC grant was acquired by a female researcher in the field of meteorology, Prof Dr Nedjeljka Žagar. This shows that in Slovenian science women are extraordinarily successful and strongly come forward also in natural and technical sciences”.
On picture Prof Dr Franc Forstnerič, photo by Peter Irman