Torsten Persson, a Distinguished Professor at the Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University, has been appointed as member for an initial period of four years.
By the same Commission Decision, the term of office of two current members of the ERC Scientific Council, Professors Gerd Gigerenzer and Milena Žic Fuchs has been renewed for two years as of 1 January 2024.
The ERC Scientific Council has elected Gerd Gigerenzer to replace Professor Eveline Crone as ERC Vice President for the Social Sciences and Humanities domain, as, after having served the ERC since 2017, her mandate will end on 31 December 2023. Gerd Gigerenzer has been a member since 2020 and is Director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy at the University of Potsdam and Director emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin.
Iliana Ivanova, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said:
“I welcome Torsten Persson to the Scientific Council of the European Research Council and congratulate Gerd Gigerenzer and Milena Žic Fuchs for the renewal of their term. I also thank the outgoing Vice-President Eveline Crone for her important contribution to the ERC work. The eminent scientists and scholars on the ERC’s governing body contribute to the Council’s pivotal role in supporting Europe’s excellent frontier research that in turn often spurs innovation.”
Professor Maria Leptin, President of the ERC, said:
"We very much look forward to welcoming the new ERC Scientific Council member and to continue the good work with the two members whose mandates have been renewed. Thanks go to the identification committee that continues to ensure continuity and quality across disciplines of our independent governing body. We are grateful to Eveline Crone, who has shown such great commitment to the ERC and who will be replaced by current member Gerd Gigerenzer as ERC Vice-President.”
The ERC Scientific Council is composed of 22 distinguished scientists and scholars representing the European scientific community. Their main role is to set the ERC strategy and to select the peer review evaluators.
The ERC is chaired by the ERC President - currently Professor Maria Leptin - and has three Vice Presidents, who are equally the Vice Chairs of the ERC Scientific Council. They represent the three ERC domains.
The new member has been selected by an independent Identification Committee, composed of six distinguished scientists appointed by the European Commission and chaired by Prof. Carl-Henrik Heldin. The selection process involved consultations with the scientific community.
Biography - Torsten Persson
Prof. Persson’s research spans different areas of economics and its intersections with other social sciences. He is most well-known for his articles and books on political economics. Persson’s current research in this field focuses on two sets of issues. In a set of theoretical papers, he models the two-way interactions between the cultural evolution of different values and political institutions in shaping different aspects of public policies. In a set of empirical papers, he uses rich register data for the entire Swedish population to study which people are selected to be politicians, and how political leaders use their power.
He has been engaged in practical policymaking, especially during crises. Thus, Persson was a member of the Economics Commission, which was tasked with recommending ways out of Sweden’s deep economic crisis in the 1990s. In 2020-22, He was a member of the Swedish Corona Commission – since then, he leads a broad multidisciplinary programmes on the evolution and consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prof. Persson chaired one of the first ERC Starting Grants evaluation panels in 2007-10. His research has been financed by two Advanced ERC Grants in the past.
He was elected President of the world-wide Econometric Society in 2008, and President of the European Economic Association in 2003. Persson is a member of six Academies and has won a number of scientific distinctions and prizes, including the 1997 Yrjö Jahnsson Medal (to “the best young economist in Europe”), the 2018 Distinguished CES Fellowship, and the 2022 BBVA Frontiers of Science Award.
Gerd Gigerenzer | ERC (europa.eu)
Milena Žic Fuchs | ERC (europa.eu)
About the ERC
The ERC, set up by the European Union in 2007, is the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. It funds creative researchers of any nationality and age, to run projects based across Europe. The ERC offers four main grant schemes: Starting Grants, Consolidator Grants, Advanced Grants and Synergy Grants.
The ERC is led by an independent governing body, the Scientific Council. Since November 2021, Maria Leptin is the President of the ERC. The overall ERC budget from 2021 to 2027 is more than €16 billion, as part of the Horizon Europe programme, under the responsibility of European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Iliana Ivanova.
