UofG philosophy professor awarded prestigious ERC Advanced Grants
Published: 17 June 2025
Five UofG academics including Arts & Humanities Professor J Adam Carter have been awarded prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grants – the most that the University has ever been awarded in one round.
Five UofG academics - including one from Arts & Humanities - have been awarded prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grants – the most that the University has ever been awarded in one round.
Professor Adam Carter (College of Arts & Humanities) has been awarded his funded for his KNOW-HOW research project. The other four successful UofG academics are Professor Steve Brewster (College of Science & Engineering); Professor Ruth Dukes and Professor Fergus McNeill (College of Social Sciences); and Professor Simon Hanslmayr (College of Medical, Veterinary & Life Sciences), were all successful in the 2024 round of the competition, which is one of the most competitive funding schemes in the EU.
The funding, worth in total €721 million, will go to 281 leading researchers across Europe.
The Advanced Grant competition gives senior researchers the opportunity to pursue ambitious, curiosity-driven projects that could lead to major scientific breakthroughs. The new grants are part of the EU’s Horizon Europe programme.
Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli, Principal and Vice-Chancellor at the University of Glasgow, said: “I am delighted to hear that all five colleagues who applied to the ERC Advanced Grants programme were successful. This is testament to the excellent quality of research being conducted across our four Colleges at Glasgow. I wish them and their teams every success.
“I’m very glad to see such a high level of ambition and interest in European funding, and I hope this encourages researchers from across all disciplines and at all career stages to consider applying to Horizon Europe over the coming years.”
Ekaterina Zaharieva, European Commissioner for Startups, Research, and Innovation, said: “These ERC grants are our commitment to making Europe the world’s hub for excellent research. By supporting projects that have the potential to redefine whole fields, we are not just investing in science but in the future prosperity and resilience of our continent. In the next competition rounds, scientists moving to Europe will receive even greater support in setting up their labs and research teams here. This is part of our “Choose Europe for Science” initiative, designed to attract and retain the world’s top scientists.”
Professor Adam Carter - KNOW-HOW
Knowing what is true is valuable, but practical knowledge - knowledge of how to do things - is equally critical. Having such ‘know-how’ enables us to succeed in action and achieve our goals. Currently, little consensus exists about the nature of know-how and what is involved in exercising it. These barriers hinder our ability to recognise and utilise know-how effectively.
‘KNOW-HOW: A new framework for theoretical and practical control across intelligence domains’, aims to make a major advance here by developing a comprehensive framework for understanding know-how and its place in a wider web of concepts we rely on to understand and describe intelligent behaviour. The project will put our understanding of know-how on a new footing, impacting academic research across disciplines.
Professor Carter, of the School of Humanities | Sgoil nan Daonnachdan, said: "I am absolutely thrilled and deeply honoured to receive this Advanced Grant from the European Research Council. This funding provides me with a transformative opportunity to tackle in a sustained way a cluster of fundamental questions about what it takes to manifest knowledge and other intelligence states in action. I’m ready to get to work to launch, through this ERC KNOW-HOW grant, a truly ambitious and intellectually exciting research programme.”
First published: 17 June 2025