briq Research Director Florian Zimmermann has received a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC), which provides funding of roughly 1.3 million euros over five years for his project on “The Role of Memory for Economic Belief Formation.”
The ERC-supported project draws on memory research. It is based on the assumption that when forming opinions and expectations, people frequently consult their memory about relevant prior knowledge and experiences. Belief-based decisions are not only relevant for individual economic outcomes but may also have important effects on the economy as a whole.
The ERC Starting Grants 2020, worth in total €677 million, are meant to help early-career scientists and scholars to build their own teams and conduct pioneering research across all disciplines. The grants are part of the EU’s Research and Innovation programme, Horizon 2020. The success rate for this year’s grant proposals was about 13%.
Florian’s collaborators in this project include briq affiliate Benjamin Enke (Harvard University) and Frederik Schwerter (University of Cologne), with whom he recently co-authored a paper on “Associative Memory and Belief Formation.”