• H2020
• Excellent Science
• European Research Council

Two researchers from Radboud University and one from Radboud University Medical Center are to receive Starting Grants of €1.5m from the European Research Council (ERC).

In addition, astrophysicist Heino Falcke, also of Radboud University in the Netherlands, will receive an ERC Proof of Concept Grant.

With his ERC Starting Grant, neuroscientist Floris de Lange aims to investigate how context influences visual perception. He will examine the influence of both spatial and temporal context on cortical processing of individual elements. He will also investigate the link between context and perceptual atypicalities in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to test the hypothesis that ASD is marked by deficient processing of contextual information.

Meanwhile, computer scientist Alexandra Silva will use her funding to design new abstractions for programming of networks at the Programming Principles, Logic and Verification Group of University College London; she worked at Radboud from 2011 to September 2015. In an ever-connected world, increasingly complex network systems play a crucial role in many daily tasks, which asks for fast networks with a high performance that are secure and easily controllable. Recent years saw the growth of a new software ecosystem that advocates a clean and open interface between networking devices and the software that controls them.

With his ERC Starting Grant, chemist Martijn Verdoes will set up a chemical, immunological platform aiming to develop new molecules that will counteract the immunosuppression in tumours. He will also work on the development of multifunctional anticancer vaccines in order to fight tumours from several immunological approaches at the same time.

In addition, astrophysicist Heino Falcke will receive an ERC Proof of Concept grant of €150,000 as a special endowment for his ERC project on LOFAR, a revolutionary radio telescope that consists of thousands of radio antennas scattered across the Netherlands and the rest of Europe. The antennas are more sensitive than any individual antenna and by combining vast quantities of data, LOFAR is better able to determine the distance and direction of a particular source.

The algorithms and techniques developed in this project can also be used to improve localisation services on earth, like GPS systems in cars, planes or ships. With this Proof of Concept Grant, Falcke and his colleagues from the Radboud Radio Lab can investigate these possibilities by exploring both the technical challenges and the commercial potential.