INL Researcher Bruno Romeira Wins Prestigious ERC Advanced Grant

An ERC grant is a stamp of scientific excellence that most researchers strive for but only a few achieve. It is with great pride that the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory (INL) announces that one of its Principal Investigators, Bruno Romeira, has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant for his project “LightSensorAI: Brain-inspired Light Sensory AI Computing Using Nanophotonic Sensory Spiking 3D Neuron Chips”.

Awarded by the European Research Council, the ERC Advanced Grant supports established Principal Investigators in pursuing high-risk, high-gain research, providing a stipend of €2.5 million over five years. Eligibility rests chiefly on scientific excellence: Principal Investigators from any field may apply, provided they can demonstrate a strong leadership profile and a significant track record of achievement. This makes for an extremely competitive process, where in 2024, for example, 2,534 proposals were submitted for the ERC Advanced Grant, and only 281 were selected.

Despite the demanding nature of the application process, Bruno Romeira’s path to this point has been an impressive one. Now a Principal Investigator within Nieder’s research group, Romeira began his career as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Microwave Photonics Laboratory at the University of Ottawa, before being awarded a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship at Eindhoven University of Technology. In 2017, supported by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND fellowship, he joined INL.

Working at the intersection of semiconductor nanophotonics, nonlinear dynamics and neuromorphic photonics, Romeira has continued to achieve significant milestones, including coordinating the €3.9 million European FET-Open project ChipAI and being named in The Photonics100 2026.

The path to a successful ERC application was, for Romeira, both challenging and rewarding. As he explains: ” The journey has been demanding but extremely valuable. Each application challenged me to sharpen my scientific vision, communicate ambitious ideas more clearly, and respond constructively to critical feedback.”

That persistence has now paid off, with “LightSensorAI” securing him the grant. The project will investigate a new generation of artificial neurons made from III–V semiconductor nanopillars. These nanoscale devices will be designed to detect light, emit light, generate complex neuron-like spikes and store information within a single material platform.

By combining sensing, memory and computation within individual nanopillars, the project aims to move beyond conventional artificial neurons, which typically perform only one or a few predefined functions, paving the way for sensing and computing to be integrated within a compact, three-dimensional chip architecture.

If successful, this approach could represent an important step towards the development of brain-inspired hardware capable of processing sensory information directly where it is generated. This capability could be particularly relevant for edge-computing applications that bring intelligence to remote devices and sensors in areas associated with Industry 5.0, reducing the need to transmit large volumes of data to energy-intensive data centres.

As Romeira’s host institution, INL takes great pride in this recognition, which also underlines the laboratory’s ambition to nurture and support high-level talent capable of pushing the frontiers of science.

Find the press release here.