Simon Olsson, WASP Fellow and Associate Professor at Chalmers University of Technology, has been awarded a highly competitive ERC Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). The grant, worth up to €2 million over five years, supports mid-career researchers seeking to strengthen their scientific independence and pursue ambitious, high-risk projects at the frontiers of knowledge.
“I am deeply honored to be recognized by senior peers in my field who reviewed the grant and served on the committee,” Simon says. “This award gives my group and I the dedicated time and resources to pursue several ambitious research goals.”
Simon works broadly in AI for Science, with a focus on chemistry and physics, including translational applications in healthcare and materials. His ERC-funded project tackles one of the most pressing computational challenges in science: molecular dynamics simulations.
“Molecular dynamics is an important computational tool in the sciences and in many industries across health and materials applications, however, it is extremely computationally intensive,” he explains. “I propose to develop a replacement for classic molecular dynamics simulations through a GenAI surrogate. In this way, we hope to improve simulation throughput and allow, for instance, physics-based protein engineering.”
The project aims to reduce the need for extensive experimental campaigns in areas such as vaccine design. More broadly, the methodology is intended to be general, opening new possibilities for scientific inquiry which are currently not possible.
Simon is excited to welcome junior scientists to join his lab.
“I would be happy to hear from junior researchers who are interested in helping us push these ideas forward.”
More about ERC Consolidator Grant: https://erc.europa.eu/apply-grant/consolidator-grant
Published: December 9th, 2025
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