Marine geochemist Mustafa Yücel is developing ways to trace life-supporting metals in Earth’s deep-sea ecosystems, with methods that may also inform the study of oceans elsewhere in the Solar System. DeepTrace succeeded on its first submission – but only after five earlier ERC applications taught him to rethink novelty, risk and persistence.

A small lead seal can open a remarkably detailed window onto the people who governed Byzantium. Dr. Olga Karagiorgou’s five-year ERC project will use these objects, alongside literary evidence and digital methods, to reconstruct the careers and networks of state functionaries and to turn a dispersed heritage into a platform for collaboration, access and cultural diplomacy.

The initial welcome given to Ukrainians across Central and Eastern Europe challenged familiar accounts of the region’s attitudes towards migrants. Sociologist Inta Mieriņa’s ERC Consolidator Grant project, WICE, asks what brings groups together – and her route to funding shows the value of comparison, critical scrutiny and persistence.

Criminologist Mojca Plesničar is examining how judges’ decisions are shaped not only by law and case facts, but also by the systems and professional environments around them. Her route to an ERC Starting Grant began with rejection, then a decision to enlarge the question rather than retreat from it.

At Babeș-Bolyai University in Romania, prof. Alida Timar studies how quartz can preserve information about time. Her two ERC proposals grew from results that first looked like problems – and from the conviction that ambitious science matters more than discouraging statistics.