The European Research Council (ERC) has announced the Principal Investigators selected in the ERC Consolidator Grants 2025 call, which awards a total of 728 million euro to 349 outstanding researchers across Europe.

Among the winners of this highly competitive selection is Piero Poli, associate professor at the Department of Geosciences at the University of Padua. With his project SODA, Poli will use advanced deep learning methods to analyze the vast amount of seismic data available, aiming to detect, characterize, and classify deep earthquakes.

With a budget of nearly 2 million euro, Professor Poli will be able to continue his research, confirming his position among the leading international seismologists working to shed light on deep earthquakes, one of the most complex and least understood phenomena in modern geophysics.

The University of Padua also stands out thanks to Alessia Russo, full professor at the Department of Economics and Management “Marco Fanno” and winner of another ERC Consolidator Grant, further strengthening the university’s presence among Europe’s centers of excellence in scientific research.

Among the proposals selected for funding, spread across 25 countries, the highest number of grants goes to the United Kingdom, followed by Germany and the Netherlands, while Italy ranks seventh. Seventeen projects were funded at institutions in Italy, and 37 PIs are of Italian nationality (second in Europe only to Germany), while the funded PIs in total come from 44 different countries.

This significant achievement confirms the positive trend of the University of Padua, which counts on faculty of outstanding international caliber, capable of excelling in the most competitive European calls. The ERC Consolidator Grant scheme supports highly innovative and visionary research projects in any field of knowledge, funding scientists during the phase of consolidating their career and their research group.