ERC

ERC Ambassador

Lecturer PhD Mihaela Constantinescu 

Mihaela Constantinescu is lecturer at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, Romania, and executive director of the Research Centre in Applied Ethics (CCEA). Her research includes virtue ethics, business ethics, Human-Robot Interaction, and AI ethics, with a focus on the normative interplay between the concepts of moral responsibility and moral agency in relation to individuals, organizations, and AI systems. Mihaela is the winner of an ERC Starting grant for the project avataResponsibility – “Avatar agency. Moral responsibility at the intersection of individual, collective, and artificial social entities in emergent avatar communities”, implemented between 2024-2028. Starting 2025 she also leads the Romanian team of the European consortium working on the ERANET Chanse/Hera grant over "Norms of Assertion in Linguistic Human-AI Interaction" (NIHAI - talkingtobots). Before moving to academia, Mihaela has worked for over 15 years as a communications consultant in the private, governmental and NGO fields.

In her role as an Ambassador for the ERC to Romania, Mihaela aims to:

• Promote the importance of frontier research funding to national policymakers, media, and local communities. 

• Share insights about ERC funding opportunities and champion the mission of the ERC. 

• Support the ERC National Contact Point of Romania and AERG efforts through events, workshops, and outreach initiatives. 

The "Ambassadors for the ERC" network is a joint initiative of the European Research Council (ERC) and the Association of ERC Grantees (AERG). This collaborative effort unites ERC grantees to advocate for fundamental research and reinforce the ERC’s vision, particularly ahead of the next Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (FP10). The network includes grantees from across EU Member States and Horizon Europe Associated Countries and is intended to complement the work of ERC NCPs by adding a voice at the national level. Ambassadors will advocate for frontier research through talks, conferences, and media engagement, often in collaboration with NCPs and the AERG. 

The Association of ERC Grantees (AERG) is a non-profit international organisation based in Brussels and constituted by current and previous holders of a grant from the European Research Council. Its core goals are to connect ERC Grantees, to communicate the results of their work to the general public, to policy makers and to relevant stakeholders, and to advocate for the importance of fundamental research in knowledge-based societies. To develop these missions, the Association (1) contributes to debates about the societal and economic benefits of bottom-up, excellence-driven science funding, (2) organises events to communicate core results of public interest, and (3) engages in activities promoting quality applications, with a specific focus on encouraging diversity.