Vici grants for three UG researchers

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded three Vici grants, worth €1.5 million each, to three UG researchers. Prof. Jan-Willem Romeijn, Prof. Steven Hoekstra, Prof. Karina Caputi can use this money to develop an innovative line of research and to set up their own research groups for a period of five years.

Jan-Willem Romeijn

The research for which Prof. Romeijn has been awarded € 1.5 million is entitled 'Gold rush in the data mine.' Psychiatry and psychology make increasing use of data science methods. This project investigates these methods by using insights from the philosophy of science. The research is innovative in that it combines a mathematical understanding of the methods with knowledge of a scientific context in which these methods are applied, namely psychopathology. The applications of these methods are thereby illuminated, so that they become more reliable and more accountable in the clinic and the lab. The result is a practice-oriented and formally precise epistemology of data science methods that supports a better use of data science methods in the sciences.

Steven Hoekstra

Prof. Hoekstra's research carries the title 'Searching for missing antimatter with trapped molecules.' By performing a precision measurement on a cloud of molecules, captured and held by electric fields, we can test the Standard Model of particle physics. This is needed because it fails to explain how we (and all the matter around us) have emerged from the Big Bang.
Read this recent article: Trapping molecules to find new physics

Karina Caputi

The research project of Prof. Caputi has been named 'The First Steps of Galaxies.' For many years astronomers have studied galaxies, but their formation and growth after the Big Bang remain largely unknown. This Project will investigate the first steps of galaxy evolution as it has never been possible before, with the largest space telescope ever built: the James Webb Space Telescope.

About Vici

Vici is one of the largest personal academic grants awarded in the Netherlands and is aimed at experienced researchers who are free to put their own research projects forward for funding. Alongside the Veni and Vidi grants, the Vici grant is part of the NWO Talent Programme (formerly known as the Innovational Research Incentives Scheme). Vici grants are intended for highly experienced researchers who have successfully proved that they are able to develop their own innovative lines of research, and who also act as coaches for younger researchers. The funding offers researchers the opportunity to create their own research groups, often leading to a structural professorial post.

A total of 22 leading scientists from the Domain Science (ENW) and Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) receive Vici funding. Earlier the awards of Applied and Engineering Sciences (AES) and Health and Research Development (ZonMw) were announced, where Prof. Marcel van Vugt and Prof. Gerard Koppelman received a Vici-financing. Read more about their research projects.