• H2020
• Excellent Science
• Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions

A university in the Netherlands has received multiple grants under Horizon 2020’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) objective during the framework programme’s first year.

Radboud University won funding for two projects under the MSCA ‘Innovative Training Networks’ scheme and sees the university co-operate with international companies to train PhD students.

The ‘Reliability of product environmental footprints’, or RELIEF, project, is receiving total funding worth €1.2m and sees the university work with Unilever and six other international research institutes and companies to train five PhD students. The project seeks to increase the reliability of lifecycle assessment (LCA) and focuses on raw materials. LCA is a commonly used procedure to determine the total environmental impact of a product, from extraction of raw materials to production, transportation, use and finally disposal.

Furthermore, the ‘Pulsed valves: fast forward’, or ‘PUFF’, project sees the training of three PhD students and collaboration with a company named Photek, based in the UK. The project is receiving total funding worth €750,000, and aims to develop the special type of valve for more precise detection methods of the concentrations of chemical substances present in small quantities of gas. It is hoped that such advancements can then be brought to market.