Heritage scientist Antonina Chaban (The Cnr-National Institute of Optics/ Cnr-Istituto Nazionale di Ottica, CNR-INO, Florence, Italy) won an ERC Starting Grant for her project HeRiDe: “Advancing HeRitage science procedures for Depth-resolved condition risk assessment of wall paintings” and will start it on 1 February 2026.
Antonina Chaban is a researcher in heritage science, with experience in the development and application of imaging and spectroscopic methods applied to cultural heritage objects. Furthermore, she is a member of the European Commission led sub-group of experts on safeguarding cultural heritage in Ukraine and one of editors of “Current Topics of Heritage Science” online lecture series.
Antonina graduated as an architect the Odessa State Academy of Civil Engineering and Architecture (Odesa, Ukraine) in 2008. She received her Master degree in Science for the Conservation-Restoration of Cultural Heritage from the University of Bologna, Italy, in 2015 and gained her PhD in Cultural Heritage from the Università degli Studi di Padova in 2018.
- Press-Release (in Italian) “ERC Starting Grants 2025: premiato progetto del Cnr-Ino per la conservazione degli affreschi”
- Find all ERC Starting Grants 2025 here
- Project summary (Cordis database)
The ERC Starting Grants program provides funding for research projects with a maximum budget of €1.5 million over a period of up to five years. This prestigious award is designed to support exceptional researchers at the beginning of their careers to launch their own projects, build research teams, and pursue their most promising ideas. In this round the success rate was approximately 12,2%.
Some other news on ERC awardees of Ukrainian origin can be found here