University of Groningen in two of the six Gravitation grants for groundbreaking research

Top scientists from the University of Groningen and the UMCG are participating in two of the six awarded programs in the context of the prestigious NWO Gravity Program for groundbreaking fundamental research, which involves more than 100 million euros.

The projects that involve UG are:

Hybrid Intelligence (HI): augmenting human intellect
Main applicant : Prof. dr. F.A.H. van Harmelen (VU Amsterdam).
Co-applicants: Prof. dr. M. de Rijke (UvA), Prof. dr. C.M.J. Jonker (TUD), Prof. dr. M. Welling (UvA), Prof. dr. L.C. Verbrugge (RUG), Prof. P.Th.J.M. Vossen (VU).
Amount awarded : 19.0 million euros
Hybrid Intelligence (HI) combines human and artificial intelligence. Six Dutch universities will develop theories and methods for intelligent systems that cooperate with humans, that adapt to dynamic circumstances and that can explain their actions. Ethical and legal values, such as transparency, accountability and trust, will be taken into account during the design of such HI systems. We will demonstrate applications of HI systems in healthcare, education and science to show the potential of artificial intelligence to amplify human intelligence instead of replacing it.

Exposome-NL
Main applicant : Prof. dr. ir. R.C.H. Vermeulen (Utrecht University).
Co-applicants : Prof. dr. M.-P. Kwan (UU), Prof. dr. T. Hankemeier (UL), Prof. dr. A.P. Zhernakova (RUG), Prof. dr. ir. J.W.J. Beulens (VU), Prof. dr. D.E. Grobbee (UU).
Amount awarded : 17.4 million euros
Where you live and work, what you eat and drink, how often you exercise, and other choices that you make in your (daily) life influence your health. Whether or not you develop certain chronic diseases is in fact conditional upon these factors for seventy percent. The combination of these factors is called the exposome. We still know little about that exposome and therefore about the development of chronic diseases. In the Exposome-NL project, we will apply innovative techniques to investigate which factors of the exposome are important for health and how these work.

Gravitation
By means of Gravitation, the government encourages research by groups of leading scientists in the Netherlands to be among the global top. Researchers must carry out innovative and influential research in their field. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science has asked the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research to carry out the selection procedure for this funding programme.