Three ERC Starting Grants for the Ruhr Innovation Lab

The European Research Council (ERC) has announced that the projects led by Dr. André K. Eckhardt, Dr. Jeannette Oholi, and Dr. Christian Preuß will each receive an ERC Starting Grant of approximately 1.5 million euros for a period of five years. Dr. Oholi and Dr. Preuß will conduct research at TU Dortmund University, the former on literature and the culture of memory, and the latter on radiation processes in particle physics. Dr. Eckhardt will conduct research at Ruhr University Bochum on the origin of reactive phosphorus compounds. In this round, approximately 4,800 researchers from across Europe applied for a Starting Grant. The funding rate was 8.8 percent.

³¹PIRATE

In his ³¹PIRATE project, Dr. André K. Eckhardt will investigate whether reactive phosphorus compounds—which were necessary for the first steps in the origin of life on Earth—could have formed in space. To do this, he will recreate interstellar ice particles in the laboratory and expose them to high-energy radiation similar to that found in space. Using a combination of EPR spectroscopy and phosphorus nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy—unique worldwide—he aims to directly observe the resulting short-lived compounds for the first time and track them into aqueous solutions. The project combines astrochemistry and prebiotic chemistry and aims to clarify what role phosphorus from space might have played in the formation of the first biologically relevant molecules. Dr. Eckhardt has also secured an additional grant of 500,000 euros from the European Research Council for measuring instruments.

Curriculum Vitae: Dr. André K. Eckhardt
Dr. André K. Eckhardt studied chemistry at Justus Liebig University in Giessen, where he earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 2019. As part of his doctoral studies, he conducted research at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in the U.S. and at the University of Coimbra in Portugal, among other institutions. He then served as a Feodor Lynen postdoc at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the U.S. In 2022, he returned to Germany on a Humboldt Return Fellowship and has been conducting research at Ruhr University Bochum ever since: until 2022 as a Liebig Fellow and, since 2024, as the leader of an Emmy Noether Junior Research Group.

SITESOFMEMORY

In her project SITESOFMEMORY, Dr. Jeannette Oholi will explore the contribution literature can make to the culture of memory in a pluralistic society. The project focuses on literature by racialized authors—that is, authors categorized based on physical or cultural characteristics—from the 20th and 21st centuries. Dr. Oholi builds upon existing research on memory in literary and cultural studies, but supplements it with anti-racism as a vision for a more just society. She is interested in the plurality and polyphony of memories, which the project aims to bring to light by examining literary texts in relation to one another. In this way, memories that have not previously been part of German memory culture will be made visible.

Curriculum Vitae: Dr. Jeannette Oholi
Dr. Jeannette Oholi is a scholar of literature and cultural studies. She studied German, African Studies, and Media Studies at the University of Bayreuth and earned her Ph.D. in 2023 from Justus Liebig University Giessen with a dissertation titled “Afropean Aesthetics.” She then spent two years conducting research as a Mellon Postdoc Fellow in the Department of German Studies at Dartmouth College in the U.S. She is currently a research associate at the Chair of General Cultural Studies at the University of the Bundeswehr Munich. Upon the start of her ERC Starting Grant, she plans to join TU Dortmund University, where she has already served as a lecturer for two semesters.

PROMETHEUS

In his PROMETHEUS project, Dr. Christian Preuß will investigate how subatomic radiation processes in strong interactions can be described more precisely. Reactions between elementary particles—such as those that occur at particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva—are predicted using simulation programs. However, for an increasing number of measurements at particle accelerators, the accuracy of current theoretical predictions is no longer sufficient. The goal of PROMETHEUS is therefore to refine these predictions. To achieve this, the radiation processes will be divided into a semi-classical radiation pattern and quantum mechanical corrections, thereby improving the precision of existing models.

Curriculum Vitae: Dr. Christian Preuß
Dr. Christian Preuß studied physics at the University of Göttingen and earned his Ph.D. in theoretical particle physics in 2021 from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He then spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich and two years as a research assistant and visiting professor at the University of Wuppertal. After working as a research assistant at the University of Göttingen, he has been a research assistant at RWTH Aachen University since March 2026. He will join TU Dortmund University to begin his ERC Starting Grant.

About the ERC Starting Grant
Through its Starting Grants, the European Research Council supports outstanding early-career researchers who earned their Ph.D. between two and seven years ago. The program offers them the opportunity to advance their research careers independently. Applicants for an ERC Starting Grant must have already demonstrated their potential for scientific independence and maturity.