€100,000 in, €1.5m out: two UCY researchers land ERC Starting Grants worth €3m

Two researchers at the University of Cyprus have each secured a European Research Council Starting Grant worth €1.5 million, bringing €3 million in competitive European funding to the island for cancer research. Dr Myrofora Panayi and Dr Maria Kalli will each run five-year projects under the awards.

The Research and Innovation Foundation highlighted the arithmetic behind the result: a national investment of €100,000 per researcher generated €1.5 million in European funding, a leverage effect of fifteen times the original outlay. That national support came through the THALIA 2021-2027 Programme, co-funded by the Republic of Cyprus and the European Regional Development Fund.

ERC Starting Grants are among the most competitive research awards in Europe, aimed at early-career researchers building their own independent teams. The RIF said the double win "confirms the quality and international competitiveness of Cyprus' research ecosystem".

The result lands in the middle of a live argument about how much Cyprus should be spending on research. The island put €213.6 million into R&D in 2023 — 0.68 per cent of GDP against an EU average of 2.26 per cent — and a recent analysis called for a target of 5 per cent of GDP by 2032. Cases like this one are the argument for seed-stage national funding as a multiplier rather than a cost line.

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