Utrecht University researchers get their projects major funded
Eight projects involving researchers from Utrecht University and UMC Utrecht receive funding from the National Roadmap for Large-scale Research Infrastructure programme. The Dutch Research Council (DRC, in Dutch NWO) is awarding a total of 140 million euros to set up or improve large-scale research infrastructure (LSRI) over the next 10 years.
It involves a variety of applications.The grant thus facilitates new developments, innovation and solving major societal issues.
About the DRC-LSRI projects
GW LISA/ET: Shivers from the deep Universe: a national infrastructure for gravitational wave research
The LISA gravitational wave observatory is an ambitious large ESA mission for the mid-2030s. It will revolutionize the understanding of how supermassive black holes grow and how the first inhomogeneities in the Universe’s structures came about after the big bang. The Netherlands provides key contributions to this interferometer: the ‘eyes’ that detect the laser signals that have the gravitational waves imprinted on them, and the ‘glasses’ that will point the laser beams to the right spot in the sky where the opposite spacecrafts are.
FACULTY OF SCIENCE’S CHRIS VAN DEN BROECK
NL-BioImaging-AM: An advanced multi-center microscopy infrastructure for the Netherlands
Recent advances in microscopy have strongly enhanced the ability to identify and manipulate processes in living cells, organoids, and small animal models. To ensure that all scientists in the Netherlands benefit from these developments, NL-BioImaging-AM will develop and integrate state-of-the-art microscopy technologies and services. This will not only enable obtaining new insights into the building blocks of life, but also support addressing societal challenges, such as life-threatening diseases, including cancer and metabolic, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative disorders.
FAULTY OF SCIENCE’S LUKAS KAPITEIN
EPOS-eNLarge: Bridging scales and borders for sustainability in Earth sciences
More intensive use of the subsurface, for example for geothermal energy or underground storage, is crucial for achieving (inter)national greenhouse gas emission targets. The 10-year research project EPOS-eNLarge aims at the efficient and safe use of the Dutch underground. To this end, it receives 17.9 million euros from DRC’s National Roadmap for Large-Scale Research Infrastructure programme.
NEWS BY FACULTY OF GEOSCIENCES
Δ-ENIGMA: Integrated infrastructure for observation, experiments, and modelling of the river-to-coast system – Establishing a supersite for sustainable deltas by Danubius-NL consortium
Deltas and coastal plains are attractive places to live: fertile, flat and accessible from the sea. However, these areas are also vulnerable to climate change and sea level rise. To better predict how deltas develop, thorough knowledge of biogeomorphology – how organisms, currents, waves and water and sand runoff combine to form the delta landscape – is needed. Project Δ-ENIGMA, which focuses on this formation of the delta landscape, is one of the projects that will be funded from the DRC-LSRI call. The project will last 10 years and will receive 16 million euros for this purpose.
NEWS BY FACULTY OF GEOSCIENCES
LTER-LIFE: An e-infrastructure for Digital Twins of ecosystems
The planet is changing rapidly. To understand and predict how ecosystems respond to these changes, ecology must become a predictive science. Project LTER-LIFE is developing a virtual research environment that makes this possible, building on recent developments in data science. It allows ecologists to link long-term data on plants, animals and the environment, share methods for data analysis, modelling and simulation, and build complete digital ecosystems. This helps better understand and predict how ecosystems respond to different scenarios and actions.
WEBSITE NIOO-KNAW
SSHOC-NL: Social Science and Humanities Open Cloud for the Netherlands
DRC awarded 15 national knowledge partners, including Utrecht University, a grant totalling 15.2 million euros. With this grant, researchers will collaborate in the Social Science and Humanities Open Cloud for the Netherlands (SSHOC-NL) project. SSHOC-NL allows researchers within social sciences and humanities to securely and ethically connect and analyse a large amount of data.
NEWS BY FACULTIES OF SOCIAL AND BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
DYNAMIC: The Dutch National 14 Tesla MRI Initiative in Medical Science
A consortium of seven partners, led by Radboud University’s Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour and in which UMC Utrecht is also closely involved, receives a DRC Roadmap grant of 19 million euros. This will be used to build in Nijmegen the world’s first MRI scanner with a magnetic strength of 14 Tesla, suitable for research with humans.