The ERAB e-Newsletter – Issue 5

Record number of grants received

When the deadline for applications for 2011 closed on Monday 11th April ERAB had received a record 50 applications. This is the most applications ERAB has received since it was founded in 2003.

The applications will now be independently peer reviewed before a decision is made on which can be funded. The process takes several months to complete and the decisions will be made in the autumn, in time for contracts to be signed and the projects commenced early in the new year.

Many of the applications came from the UK but there were also 8 from Italy, and 5 from both Spain and the Netherlands as well as applications from 8 other countries with Greece and Belarus featuring for the first time. The majority of applicants had heard about ERAB funding from a colleague or via ERAB either as a past applicant, the website, the newsletter or an acknowledgement in a published paper. The split between biomedical and psychosocial subjects was 31 / 19.

New Members of the ERAB Advisory Board

ERAB is pleased to welcome two new members to the ERAB Advisory Board. The Advisory Board has a membership of seven experts in different areas of alcohol research all with a proven international independent scientific reputation. Their role is to examine the applications, suggest peer reviewers and recommend to the Board of Directors which applications should be funded.

Professor Pekka Sulkunen is the Professor of Sociology at the University of Helsinki in Finland. He replaced Dr. Kari Poikolainen who retired after the IMAG conference last year. His research interests include addictions, public sector research, power and social theory.

Professor Ramon Estruch is Senior Consultant in the Internal Medicine Department of the Barcelona Hospital Clinic and Associate Professor in the School of Medicine at Barcelona University. His main research interests include the effects of alcohol consumption on the heart, liver, brain and the immune system.

For more information please visit the ERAB website.