Many Vici scholarships go to women, and VU gets one

The Vici grant of up to 1.5 million euros is intended for “advanced” scientists who can work with their research group for five years. For example, they conduct research into new batteries free of trace metals, the source of allergies in children, the major cultural shifts of the Middle Ages and the origins of the first life on Earth.

francis Handoko De Man, Principal Investigator At Amsterdam UMC, site of VUmc, she will receive a Vici grant for her research into lung disease and pulmonary arterial hypertension. This disease causes a narrowing or blockage of the pulmonary artery, which can eventually lead to heart failure. Handoko-de Man will investigate the role the immune system plays in this.

Artificial intelligence is very popular

A lot of money is also being allocated to AI research: one grant winner wants to use his computing power to gain “groundbreaking insights” into mathematics and physics; The other wants to use it to investigate how our brain makes predictions. A third wants to use artificial intelligence to conduct more reliable literature studies in science.

Two Vici grants will be awarded to scientists at the Leiden Observatory conducting research on “mysterious supermassive black holes” and the stellar winds that whip up the atmospheres of exoplanets.

Women are more successful than men

NWO received 337 for this Vici round Pre-registrations inside. 110 researchers were allowed to write an expanded application, and 11% eventually received a grant. Last year, 13% of applications were approved.

Women scholars are well represented this year with twenty Vici Scholarships. Men applied more, but were less successful: 8 percent of them received a grant, compared to 14 percent of women.

Positive discrimination

Three professors recently found that women have a greater chance of receiving recently promoted Phinney Scholarships than men over the years. It seems that the NWO has gone far in eliminating the deprivation of women's rights. advertiser All three. They could not prove this to the Vichy grant.