Objective It is now firmly established that most of the matter in the Universe is in the form of the mysterious dark matter,contributing more than 80% to the total amount of matter. However, despite tremendous theoretical andexperimental efforts over the past few decades, dark matter remains elusive and one of the great unknownsuntil today. To identify the nature of dark matter is evidently of fundamental importance and one of thetop priorities in science today. The quest for dark matter is inherently multi disciplinary with strong rootsin particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology, providing profound connections between these differentdisciplines.This project aims at exploring new avenues towards solving the dark matter puzzle, with a particular focus ona few select groundbreaking topics. These are centered around (i) theoretical dark matter model building, (ii)the study of new collider signatures, (iii) developing new techniques for the comparison and interpretation ofdirect detection experiments and (iv) identifying astrophysical probes which constrain or give evidence fordark matter self-interactions.Given the impressive increase in sensitivity of upcoming dark matter experiments as well as the upcominghigh energy run of the Large Hadron Collider, there is no doubt that the era of data has begun for darkmatter searches and that we can expect putative signals rather than exclusion limits for the near future. It istherefore extremely important to bring together different fields and exploit the complementarity of differentsearch strategies to maximise the amount of information gained from a successful detection. This inherentlymulti disciplinary approach is at the heart of the current project, which can rely on a well established networkof collaborators and will bring together excellent young physicists with different backgrounds to form a smallbut well structured research group which will significantly advance dark matter phenomenology in Europe. Fields of science natural sciencesphysical sciencestheoretical physicsparticle physicsparticle acceleratornatural sciencesphysical sciencestheoretical physicsparticle physicsfermionsnatural sciencesphysical sciencesastronomyastrophysicsdark matternatural sciencesphysical sciencesastronomyphysical cosmologynatural sciencesphysical sciencestheoretical physicsparticle physicsphotons Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Topic(s) ERC-StG-2014 - ERC Starting Grant Call for proposal ERC-2014-STG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC-STG - Starting Grant Host institution DEUTSCHES ELEKTRONEN-SYNCHROTRON DESY Net EU contribution € 1 214 250,00 Address NOTKESTRASSE 85 22607 Hamburg Germany See on map Region Hamburg Hamburg Hamburg Activity type Research Organisations Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 214 250,00 Beneficiaries (1) Sort alphabetically Sort by Net EU contribution Expand all Collapse all DEUTSCHES ELEKTRONEN-SYNCHROTRON DESY Germany Net EU contribution € 1 214 250,00 Address NOTKESTRASSE 85 22607 Hamburg See on map Region Hamburg Hamburg Hamburg Activity type Research Organisations Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 214 250,00