Unimore awarded a €2 million ERC Consolidator Grant for a groundbreaking project on reading processes
Understanding more profoundly how the human brain reads is the goal of READy, the research project led by Prof. Sendy Caffarra of Unimore’s Department of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences, which has received two million euros through the ERC Consolidator Grant, a competitive scheme awarded by the European Research Council (ERC) to excellent researchers. In Italy, 17 projects will be funded through this call in 2025.
READy adopts an innovative approach that combines neuroscientific methodologies previously used in isolation. By integrating the study of the brain’s structure with the analysis of its functional dynamics, the project aims to reconstruct a more complete and unified model of the neural circuitry involved in reading.
The expected results will provide a significant contribution both to basic research and to educational and clinical contexts: from the early identification of at-risk readers to the development of more effective rehabilitative interventions for reading disorders.
“I am deeply honoured to have been awarded the ERC Consolidator Grant for the READy project,” says Prof. Caffarra “This recognition marks an important milestone in my research journey and an extraordinary opportunity to open up new frontiers in the understanding of reading processes. READy will allow us to bring together scientific communities that rarely interact — those studying the brain’s structure and those investigating its functional dynamics — to build a more integrated and comprehensive view of how our brain reads. I am grateful to my team, my collaborators, the Department and the University for their support. I am thrilled to embark on this endeavour with the aim of advancing scientific knowledge and improving educational and clinical outcomes for future generations.”
Professor Sendy Caffarra is a lecturer in Psychology at Unimore’s Department of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences and a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University. After more than ten years abroad between Spain and the United States, she returned to Italy thanks to the Rita Levi Montalcini programme. Throughout her career, she has received several prestigious international awards, including the Leonardo Da Vinci Award in Life Sciences and the Marie Curie Global Fellowship.
Categorie: International - english, Notizie_eng
Articolo pubblicato da: Ufficio Stampa Unimore - ufficiostampa@unimore.it il 05/01/2026