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Aalto university has been awarded €6.3 million from the European Research Council to support pioneering work across a range of high-impact fields. The three projects are:

• REBOUND:
  •  Designing algorithms to reduce filter bubbles in social media lead by Professor Aristides Gionis from the Department of Computer Science
• QUAMAP:
  • Developing new mathematical methods for currently unsolvable problems led by Professor Kari Astala from the Department of Mathematics
• ATOP:
  • Creating novel photonic devices by stacking together atomically-thin materials led by Professor Zhipei Sun from the Department of Electronics and Nanoengineering

ERC Advanced Grants are designed to support researchers exploring high-risk and groundbreaking areas of research. Aalto University strives to identify and solve grand societal challenges, a goal that the three projects receiving ERC support aim to achieve.

‘I am very pleased and honoured to be awarded the prestigious ERC Advanced Grant. The expected outcomes will result in significant advances in fundamental physics and breakthrough technologies to enable highly-integrated, wideband and high-efficient photonic systems. I am really looking forward to starting this ambitious project,’ says Professor Sun, about his project on atomically thin photonics devices.

‘By engaging with a range of stakeholders we hope to be able to improve deliberation online,’ says Professor Gionis about his research into polarisation in online media communities. ‘We aim to develop methods that can be applied to any topic, even topics coming from different domains, e.g., politics, current events, or social debates.’

Professor Astala describes his work as 'developing mathematics and tools for analysing different mathematical models, particularly those arising in statistical physics and materials sciences. Diverse phenomena in properties of materials, fluid mechanics, medical scanning and even invisibility cloaking will be susceptible to the methods of analysis developed in this project.'