09.04.20 – EPFL Emeritus Professor János Pach is one of the 185 winners of the ERC’s annual Advanced Grant competition. He is now at the Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest.

János Pach won an advanced grant of 2 million euros for a period of 5 years. His research project is entitled: From Geometry to Combinatorics and Back: Escaping the Curse of Dimensionality.

Janos Pach’s research is focused in the areas of discrete and computational geometry and combinatorics. He made numerous breakthroughs in discrete geometry, including the theory of epsilon-nets, convexity, and geometric Ramsey-theory. Pach is one of the founders of the theory of topological and geometric graphs. His research on geometric intersection patterns, semi-algebraic graphs and hypergraphs made several contributions in extremal combinatorics and opened new horizons.

The ERC Advanced Grants are given each year to established, leading principal investigators to fund long-term funding for “ground-breaking, high-risk” research projects in any field.

ERC competitions are open to researchers of any nationality and, in this round, scientists and scholars of 26 nationalities received funding. Following this call, 1881 applicants submitted their proposals in all fields of research. Female researchers submitted 19% of proposals and nearly 21% of grants were awarded to women.