NWO propels scientific infrastructure with €20M in investment

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has announced the seven project winners of its Grant Large awards for innovation within the Dutch scientific infrastructure. In all, the council is doling out a total of 20 million euros, with each of the recipient projects being awarded between 1.5 and 4.8 million euros, aimed at helping them acquire high-value equipment, data collections and software. The seven awarded projects come from across the scientific domains, including natural sciences, social sciences and humanities and medical science.

One of the winners is Gertjan Koster of the University of Twente and the Mesa+ Institute, who was awarded 2.2 million euros for his project “Laboratory for energy metals.” For this project, researchers will use a specialized, in-house developed three-color X-ray system to peer at various depths within batteries to learn about the chemical and electronic processes taking place. With this information, researchers hope to gain new insights that can be used to develop next-gen batteries and new catalysts for producing green hydrogen.

The “Cameras for Cherenkov telescope array” project, headed by University of Amsterdam’s Jacco Vink, was awarded 1.5 million euros for its part in the international consortium tasked with building the large new telescope in Northern Chile. With this grant support, researchers are looking to build highly specialized cameras for the future Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), which can better detect gamma radiation and gain new insights into black holes, neutron stars and gravitational waves. Vink will be assisted by astronomers and physicists from the UvA, in collaboration with the University of Groningen.