Associate Professor Xenofontas Dimitropoulos, Affiliated Researcher to ICS-FORTH, ERC Starting Grant holder, and his team, the INSPIRE research group, were awarded their second ERC Proof of Concept grant for the RAVEN project. The ERC Proof of Concept Grants aim to maximize the value of the excellent research already supported by ERC, by funding further work (i.e., activities which were not scheduled to be funded by the original ERC frontier research grant) in order to explore the innovation potential of ideas arising from these projects. Proof of Concept Grants are therefore on offer only to Principal Investigators whose proposals draw substantially on their ERC funded research.

George A. Garinis, Researcher at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology of the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH) and Professor of Genetics at the Department of Biology, University of Crete, is one of just 62 scientists from across Europe that recently secured funding from the innovation-supporting Proof of Concept Programme of the European Research Council (ERC).

“ORamaVR”, a start-up of FORTH, was awarded the First Prize in the category “Technology with the Best Societal Impact”, in the Augmented World Expo 2019 (AWE 2019), one of the world’s largest exhibitions in virtual and augmented reality, held in Santa Clara, California on 28-31 May 2019(https://www.awexr.com/usa-2019). ORamaVR was awarded for their innovative software developed for the experiential training of surgeons in virtual reality. It is worth noting that it was the first time that a Greek start-up company participated in this exhibition.

Significant distinction was achieved by PhD Candidates and members of the Biophotonics and Molecular Imaging Group of IESL, Michalis Orfanakis, Physicist and teacher of the General Lyceum of Makry Gialos and Gymnasium of Koutsouras Ierapetra and Mikis Mylonakis, Physicist, at the 10th Panhellenic Science Education STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematic) competition “Science on Stage Greece 2018”.

Dimitris Vlassopoulos, Professor of the Department of Materials Science and Technology of the Unversity of Crete and Affiliated Faculty Members of the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL) of the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), has been elected to receive the Bingham Medal of the Society of Rheology of the USA for 2019

Piscataway, New Jersey, USA, January 2019: Dimitrios I. Fotiadis, Professor, from Ioannina, Greece has been named an IEEE Fellow. He is being recognized for contributions to modelling and machine learning in biomedical data processing.

Dr. Panayiota Poirazi, a Research Director at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology of FORTH, is the recipient of the prestigious Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel International Research Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The official award ceremony will take place in Bamberg, Germany 28-31 March 2019.

Dimitrios G. Katehakis, Dr. Angelina Kouroubali and Ioannis Karatzanis, members of the Institute of Computer Science (ICS) of the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH) are the winners of the International Slide Wiki open courseware competition for the creation of the original educational course entitled "Interoperability in eHealth".

Dr. Yuliana Boycheva has earned a European Research Council Consolidator Grant (H2020-ERC-COG-2018) with the project RICONTRANS: Visual Culture, Piety and Propaganda: Transfer and Reception of Russian Religious Art in the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean (16th-early 20th).

Spiros H. Anastasiadis, Professor of the Department of Chemistry of the University of Crete and Director of the Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL) of the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), has been elected the Mary Shepard B. Upson Visiting Professor in Engineering at Cornell University for the 2018-2019 Academic Year. Prof. Anastasiadis was elected by the School of Engineering after being nominated by the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and approved by the Board of Trustees of the University.