Professor Ülo Niinemets has been awarded an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council

The European Research Council awarded a total of €721 million in funding to 281 leading researchers across Europe in this grant round. The ERC Advanced Grants competition is one of the most prestigious and competitive funding schemes in the European Union. It provides experienced researchers the opportunity to pursue ambitious and exciting projects that can lead to significant scientific breakthroughs. The new grants are part of the European Union’s Horizon program.

Professor Ülo Niinemets’ project, titled “Enhanced productivity of resurrection photosynthetic organisms in a CO₂-richer future: tipping the global carbon and oxidant balance,” aims to improve understanding of the role mosses and lichens play in the Earth’s carbon balance both now and in the future, as atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels increase.

Niinemets explained that plants have so far absorbed a large portion of anthropogenic CO₂, but there are already signs that carbon uptake by most plants is approaching saturation. “When this happens, the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere will increase uncontrollably,” he noted. Compared to other photosynthetic organisms, mosses and lichens are furthest from the CO₂ saturation point of photosynthesis. They play a significant role in the carbon balance of many ecosystems but are underrepresented in global carbon uptake estimates.

“My goal with this project is to test the hypothesis that mosses and lichens will become the balancing factor in the future global carbon cycle. Their productivity will continue to increase with rising CO₂ concentrations even when other photosynthetic organisms can no longer curb CO₂ increases,” explained Ülo Niinemets about the aim of his research.

Niinemets will implement this project together with his research group and several collaborators. “The project activities will take place worldwide – we will study mosses and lichens on different continents.”

This year’s ERC Advanced Grant recipients work at universities and research centers in twenty-three European Union member and associated countries, mainly in the United Kingdom (56 grants), Germany (35), Italy (25), the Netherlands (24), and France (23). 

It is estimated that approximately 2,700 jobs will be created within the teams supported by these grants. Ülo Niinemets said that this grant will allow him to modernize his laboratory and create opportunities for several young researchers to make breakthroughs in top-level science. “In addition to the current members of the research group, three postdoctoral fellows and five doctoral students will join the team. This support once again demonstrates that Estonian ecology, including the Estonian University of Life Sciences, is at the very forefront of global science,” said Professor Niinemets. The grant amount is €2.5 million.

Professor Maria Leptin, President of the European Research Council, who visited Estonia last week, stated that a large portion of the groundbreaking research funded will help address some of today’s most pressing challenges – social, economic, and environmental alike.

The work of the new grant recipients covers a wide range of topics, from developing and researching a preventive vaccine for hereditary breast cancer and studying how diet and exercise affect aging brain cells, to creating and refining artificial intelligence-powered digital twins that replicate human thinking and social skills, as well as exploring the hidden oceans of Jupiter’s and Saturn’s moons. This competition received 2,534 proposals, which were evaluated by internationally recognized scientists. Nearly nineteen percent of the proposals were selected for funding. See the full list of grant recipients on the ERC websitelink opens in new page.

In addition to Professor Ülo Niinemets, Professor Leho Tedersoo from the University of Tartu also received an ERC Advanced Grant this year. Both are members of the Centre of Excellence AgroCropFuture led by the Estonian University of Life Sciences. Ülo Niinemets is the only Estonian scientist to have been awarded this grant twice. According to Research.com, Niinemets is also the most influential Estonian scientistlink opens in new page: his scientific work ranks him 18th globally among researchers in plant science and agronomy.