Lund University has matched its record year, with six researchers receiving the prestigious ERC Starting Grant. Among them is Axel Henningsson, who earned his PhD at the Division of Solid Mechanics in 2023 and is now returning home to the division.

The ERC Starting Grant is aimed at researchers early in their careers and is awarded on scientific excellence alone. Recipients are selected through peer review in intense Europe-wide competition. In total, the European Research Council is distributing €705 million to 421 researchers across Europe this round, with each recipient receiving up to €1.5 million over five years.

Axel Henningsson, currently a postdoc at DTU in Denmark, receives the ERC Starting Grant for the project RAM, Resolution Adaptive 3D Microstructure and Strain Movies.

The interview below is translated from the original Swedish-language article, "Sex forskare från Lund får ERC Starting Grant", published by Jonas Andersson on 3 September 2026.

Congratulations! Can you tell us about your project?

— The project is about understanding how ductile fracture arises and develops inside metals. Using high-energy X-rays from synchrotron facilities, we will develop new methods that can track the material's internal microstructure in three dimensions while it is under load. The aim is to produce time-resolved 3D images, almost like movies, that show at once how the crystal grains deform, how stresses and strains develop, and how microscopic voids form and grow until fracture occurs.

What do you hope to achieve?

— This project will make it possible to directly observe the mechanisms governing how metals deform and fracture. Today's models are partly built on assumptions that are hard to verify experimentally. By measuring the internal fields and microstructural changes that the models actually describe, we can test these assumptions and develop more reliable models of material fracture. In the longer term, this contributes to safer and more material-efficient structures. The experimental methods developed in the project will also be useful in other kinds of materials research.

What does the ERC Starting Grant mean to you?

— For me, the grant is both a great recognition and a fantastic opportunity to build up an independent research environment at Lund University. It gives me the resources and the long-term horizon to gather a research group around an ambitious idea that would have been difficult to carry out within a smaller project. I am of course very happy, but I also feel a great responsibility and a strong motivation to make good use of the opportunity.