Antoine Goujon receives ERC grant

Winner of the Marc-Julia prize last April, Antoine Goujon, a teacher-researcher at Moltech Anjou, has just been awarded a prestigious grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for his PhotoFreeze project.
Interview.

Antoine GoujonAntoine Goujon receives a 1.5 million euro European grant

Antoine Goujon has been awarded a European grant of 1.5 million euros. Each year, the European Research Council (ERC) funds research projects under Horizon Europe according to their scientific excellence in three categories: Starting (between 2 and 7 years after the thesis), Consolidator (between 8 and 12 years) and Advanced (established researchers).

For the first category, nearly 2,700 researchers in Europe applied, with only 400 successful applicants this year, including Antoine Goujon, Senior Lecturer at the University of Angers since September 2019. Selected as a Rising Star by the Pays de la Loire Region in 2021 - a scheme that, among other things, supports young researchers on their way to the ERC - he will benefit from a five-year, €1.5 million grant. "It's a strange and euphoric feeling at the same time," confesses the man who received the good news at the end of July. At this stage of my career, it's the biggest funding I could possibly get. Only 13 chemists in Europe have been awarded this, including two from France.

"It's very rare for a UA researcher to land an ERC grant," confirms Philippe Simoneau, UA Vice-President for Research. "The vast majority of French winners are researchers from national research organizations (CNRS, Inrae, etc.), and most ERC fellowship-holders are based in larger universities, even if they sometimes join them only after winning the fellowship. This represents a major visibility boost for our institution, which is recognized in the field of organic chemistry, as well as for Antoine, who will be forging collaborations all over the world." 

International collaborations

As part of the PhotoFreeze project, Antoine Goujon and his team will focus on synthesising conjugated molecules using a light-locked dynamic covalent methodology. "Simply put, we're using light to control the environment in which a wide variety of complex molecules with very different functions can be produced more rapidly. We use dynamic bonds to enable a mixture of compounds to spontaneously self-arrange into a complex target. Then light is used to irreversibly lock these dynamic bonds, enabling us to isolate and study our resulting target in just one step. This strategy combines the advantages of a classical synthesis with highly robust bonds traditionally carried out step by step, and of dynamic covalent chemistry, which enables large, complex objects to self-assemble in a single reaction."

The optical and electronic properties of the molecules will then be studied using the skills developed in organic electronics at the Moltech Anjou research laboratory and future collaborations with international laboratories. Ultimately, the ambition is to synthesize a new generation of n-type organic semiconductors, for applications in organic electronics (light-emitting diodes, transistors). "These electron-poor derivatives are under-represented, which is holding back the development of organic electronics. The methodology developed in this project should enable us to rapidly obtain a wide range of new n-type molecules with structures and properties impossible to achieve otherwise."

The PhotoFreeze project will start in January 2024. It will be expanded in the coming weeks with the arrival of a technician and a teacher-researcher for the project's duration, in addition to three PhD students, and three postdoctoral contracts over the five years. The funding obtained will also enable the purchase of equipment (photoreactor, microwave synthesis apparatus, recycling steric exclusion chromatograph).