Nine prestigious grants for the Netherlands

The European Research Council (ERC) has announced the first results for the Advanced Grant competition. Nine of the 105 winners are employed at a Dutch institution. Four of the winners are former Spinoza Prize winners and three of the winners work at an NWO Institute.

All 105 winners [http://erc.europa.eu/pdf/AdG1_ListPE_2008-07-31final.pdf] are from the area of Physical Sciences and Engineering. In the near future, more winners will follow from the areas Social Sciences and Humanities, Life Sciences and Medicine, and Interdisciplinary Applications, respectively.

The ERC Advanced Grants are European grants for groundbreaking research. A total of 997 researchers submitted an application in the area of Physical Sciences and Engineering. Of these, 105 eventually won a grant. Most of the winners reside in the United Kingdom (19) and France (13). With 9 awards, the Netherlands shares third place with Italy and Switzerland.

Winning researchers employed by a Dutch Institute:

1. Heino Falcke, Radboud University Nijmegen Personal page – Press release
2. Ben Feringa, University of Groningen (Spinoza 2004) Personal page – Press release
3. Marijn Franx, Leiden University Personal page
4. Leo Kouwenhoven, Delft University of Technology (Spinoza 2007) Personal page – Press release
5. Michel Orrit, Leiden University Personal page – Press release
6. Jaap Schouten, Eindhoven University of Technology Personal page
7. Jaap Sinninghe Damste, NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (Spinoza 2004) Personal page
8. Andrew Tanenbaum, VU University Amsterdam Personal page
9. Albert van den Berg, University of Twente Personal page
Dutch winners who are carrying out ERC research at a foreign institution:
1. Daan Frenkel, University of Cambridge (Spinoza 2000, employed by AMOLF) Personal page
2. Jos Lelieveld, Cyprus research and Educational Foundation (SRON board) Personal page
3. Guust Nolet, Université the Nice Sophia-Antipolis Personal page
4. Wilfred van Gunsteren, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich Personal page
National contact point
The ERC Advanced Grant is one of the two types grant within the programme ERC Ideas. The other is the Starting Investigator Grant. NWO (www.nwo.nl/erc) and SenterNovem (www.senternovem.nl/eglideas) are the national contact points for Dutch applications for an ERC grant. NWO and SenterNovem assist researchers with their applications. NWO previously published an overview of the Dutch winners of a Starting Investigator Grant. The new application round for Starting Investigator Grants is currently open.