European Research Council Starting Grant

So that was the starting ground.

For the consolidator, it was much more deeply thinking about it because I knew that it will be right after the starting grant and it's not very usual to be funded two times consecutively.

Yes.

And that also came from a negative result because while I was doing...

Starting Grant, I noticed that there are some problems in another dating method.

So first I started with luminescence and then I noticed something is not perfect in DSR.

And then I kept thinking... how that can be fixed and I couldn't actually fix it.

from a waiting list, if I'm not mistaken, but still on your first try, which is very impressive.

Absolutely.

And I think also what worked to my advantage was that I used to work as a postdoc at an ERC Starting Grant, uh, at the University of Warsaw about 10 years ago.

So that gave me an idea about how this grant could look like, right? That, for example, that I could have an advisory board.

That I could have a small team, right? That I could...

Tobias, let's switch to a different topic.

You have now successfully recently secured an ERC starting grant.

Congratulations.

At what point did you realize that you had developed a research question that was truly your own and what advice would you give to someone preparing their first major independent grant application?