ERC Funding gained for Climate Risk management project
This year, the competition for European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grants was fiercer than ever. Researchers submitted 3,121 proposals, a 35% jump from last year, leaving just over 11% of applicants successful. The new grantees, representing 44 nationalities, will pursue cutting-edge research in 25 countries across Europe and beyond. Against this highly competitive backdrop, nine principal investigators and their research groups at the University of Zurich (UZH) secured funding, achieving an impressive success rate of 22%. One grant went to CCS-member Prof. Debjani Bhattacharyya. Her project explores why market-based tools – such as carbon trading, weather derivatives, parametric insurance, and catastrophe bonds – have become central to managing climate risk. Examining insurance archives from the eighteenth century onward, it analyzes how financial institutions shaped meteorological knowledge, risk measurement tools, underwriting policies and enforcement mechanisms. The research aims to explain how the business of risk management influenced evolving conceptions of climate and why market mechanisms, rather than regulation, dominate current climate-risk governance.