Horizon 2020

The EU funding programme Horizon 2020 aims to safeguard the international competitive abilities of Europe. The subsidy is seen as a resource to stimulate economic growth and to create jobs. By connecting research with innovation, Horizon 2020 is achieving its goal by emphasizing excellent science, industrial leadership, and the tackling of societal challenges. Horizon 2020 is the largest EU research and innovation programme ever, with almost €80 billion awarded over a period of seven years (2014-2020).

The UG and Horizon 2020

At the UG, several researchers carry out their projects with grants from Horizon 2020. Prof. Martien Kas for example is coordinator of the PRISM2 project that, partly on the basis of Horizon 2020 funds, is researching the biological causes of Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, and depressive disorders. A total of 14 research institutes and companies are working ogether on the PRISM2 project, which is building on the success of the previous PRISM project. The aim of this research is to identify quantitative biological characteristics that occur in all three medical conditions. This would offer the possibility to develop focused treatments, regardless of the traditional diagnosis. The ability to grasp the biological causes of psychological disorders before clinical onset has long been a ‘holy grail’ for neuroscientists, as this offers the possibility of early diagnosis and focused treatment.

Kas: ‘The new PRISM2 project aims to determine how reproducible and accurate our first findings are, particularly in the cases of schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease, and we will study the generalizability of the findings to a third case, namely depressive disorder. The final goal is to translate our findings into practical diagnosis and treatment.’