ERC Advanced Grants for three researchers from Utrecht

Avalanches of sand and water flow through submarine canyons to the ocean floor. They connect the continents to vulnerable deep sea ecosystems. This pathway introduces pollution, such as microplastics, in the deep sea. The sand also buries plant remains that have been mixed with the sediment by rivers, which extracts carbon from the atmosphere.  It is not possible to calculate how much plastics and plant remains are buried in this way because too much is unknown about the transport processes when these materials are mixed with sediment. New experiments and new theory enable such calculations for the first time. 

Our novel, scaled-down laboratory experiments will reveal the physical mechanisms of transport and burial of microplastics and particulate organic carbon in currents down submarine canyons. These mechanisms will be built into a computer model. Monitoring data from submarine canyons obtained in our European network of collaborators will validate this new model. 

DEEP-FLUX will allow the international submarine canyon research community to supplement observational sea-going research with quantifications of carbon burial and microplastics pollution in deep-sea hotspots. Such work will ultimately allow this missing carbon sequestration pathway to be included in global carbon budget studies, and form a scientific basis for policies to protect and manage deep-sea environments. 

In a world increasingly shaped by unilateralism, anti-environmentalism and resistance to international cooperation, are universal agreements involving all countries still the only way to advance planetary stewardship and justice? Frank Biermann’s new ERC project PLURIPOL challenges this long-standing assumption by exploring an alternative approach: plurilateral agreements among smaller coalitions of like-minded countries. The project will investigate the potential of such plurilateral agreements to address pressing global sustainability challenges.  

Through an extensive institutional analysis of emerging plurilateral governance, Biermann and his team seek to generate new insights into how international cooperation can be reimagined in an increasingly fragmented geopolitical landscape. Given the uncertainty and unpredictability of the current political context, the project has been designed in a flexible and resilient manner, with a strong emphasis on co-creation and collaboration with civil society stakeholders. 

This is the second time Biermann has received an ERC Advanced Grant. In 2018, he was awarded this prestigious European grant for his research on the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations in 2015.