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RSS SubscribeTuesday 5th October 2010
Nobel Prize in Physics goes to European Research Council grantee
by ERC
The European Research Council (ERC) announces that one of its grantees, Professor Konstantin Novoselov, has today been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics “for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene”. Professor Novoselov was awarded the ERC Starting Grant in 2007 for his project on the same material.
Aged 36, Professor Novoselov, Russian and UK citizen, is one of the youngest Nobel Prize winners. He received both an ERC grant and now, together with his colleague Prof. Andre Geim, the Nobel Prize for his studies of “Graphene”, a one-atom-thick crystal with unusual quantum conductive properties. It is tipped for a number of future applications in electronics and photonics.
This prestigious award demonstrates once more the trust and support the ERC gives to young top researchers and is also a recognition of the type of work funded by the ERC, focussed on research at the frontier of knowledge. After the news was announced by the Nobel Committee today, the European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, said “I am thrilled that the Nobel Prize for physics has gone to the holder of a European Research Council grant. My warmest congratulations to Professor Novoselov and to his colleague Professor. Andre Geim. Europe can be proud of them and of their work. This is a first for the European Research Council, and I hope more Nobel Prizes will follow as a result of this valuable European investment in the best scientists and in their innovative research in Europe.”
ERC President Professor Helga Nowotny and ERC Executive Agency Director, Jack Metthey, wrote to this new Nobel Laureate: “On behalf of the European Research Council, we warmly congratulate you on the award of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics and we are proud of the support the Starting Grant Scheme provides to you. Today’s announcement is truly exceptional in its recognition of the achievements of a scientist early in his career and a clear signal of the outstanding quality of the emerging generation of European scientists. It is also a good example of how funding frontier research supports work with enormous potential for applications.”
