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ERC Starting Grant 2025 - "Diverse Sounds" project funded at Aix-Marseille!

Call for projects
MER
Project life
September 04, 2025

The European Research Council (ERC) has announced the award of 478 Starting Grants to promising young researchers across Europe. With total funding of 761 million euros, these grants aim to support scientific excellence in all disciplines.

Congratulations to Olga Kepinska (LPL) from the Aix-Marseille site, for the funding of her Diverse Sounds project !!!

Entitled "Diverse Sounds: How Prenatal Language Experience Shapes Fetal Brain Development and Later Language Learning.

Using state-of-the-art brain imaging techniques (MRI and EEG), Olga Kepinska and her team will follow children from the prenatal period (from 25 weeks gestation) until they are 6 months old.

The project will also exploit the diversity of languages and sounds through multilingualism, offering a unique framework for exploring the mechanisms of neural plasticity at a very early stage.

Beyond the expected theoretical advances, the results of DiverseSounds could have concrete implications for:

  • language therapy practices,
  • prevention and early detection of developmental disorders,as
  • well as public health policies related to parenting and education.

Thanks to this ERC Starting Grant, Olga Kepinska will have the resources she needs to build up her team, develop an innovative methodology and open up new perspectives on the role of sound in the earliest stages of life.

Congratulations to the winners and to all the teams involved!

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Mission Europe pour la Recherche (MER) supports the University's researchers in preparing and setting up European projects, in particular the ERC calls (Starting, Consolidator, Advanced, Synergy).

👉 Upcoming deadlines:

  • ERC Starting Grant: October 14, 2025
  • ERC Synergy Grant : November 05, 2025
  • ERC Consolidator Grant: January 13, 2026
  • ERC Advanced Grant : August 27, 2026

The MER is at your disposal to provide information, advice and support at every stage of the application process.

For further information on ERC calls for proposals, please contact your unit coordinator or the detection unit !