Awards and Grants

At the UG Ceremony of Merits on July 4, Ana Lazar was awarded the GUF 100 Prize, making her the best student of the Faculty of Science and Engineering 2024-2025.

During the RUG Ventures Innovation Day, Prof. Erik Heeres of the Faculty of Science and Engineering (RUG) was awarded the Impact Innovator Excellence Award.

Prof. David Lentink is a partner in the NaviSense project awarded 54.7 million euros by the German government to research the mechanisms animals use to navigate and how these mechanisms can inspire technology.

With the ‘Lipidomics Team’, Prof. Adri Minnaard has been named winner of the Chemistry Biology Interface Horizon Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC).

Researchers at the Faculty of Science and Engineering (RUG) have received Comenius Teaching Fellow grants from the National Educational Research Organization (NRO).

The European Research Council has awarded ERC Advanced grants to Prof. Inga Kamp, Prof. Wouter Roos and Prof. Syuzanna Harutyunyan.

The University of the North team 'Lord of the Roads', in which students from educational institutions Noorderpoort, Hanzehogeschool and the University of Groningen collaborated, came second in the RDW Self Driving Challenge (SDC). The team competed in the open category.

Dr. Vassilis Kyriakou has received a EUR 400,000 grant of the NWO to develop an innovative electrochemical reactor for sustainable ammonia production.

For her pioneering research in the field of galactic archaeology, Else Starkenburg has been awarded the Pastoor Schmeitis Prize.

The new facility will be housed and developed at the UG's Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials (ZIAM).

On 25 April 2025, Arnold Driessen (Horst, the Netherlands, 1958) received a Royal Decoration. Driessen is Professor of Molecular Microbiology and chair of the Molecular Microbiology research department of the Faculty of Science and Engineering at the University of Groningen.

The University of Groningen will receive nearly 1.5 million euros in funding from the Province of Groningen to assist entrepreneurial academic researchers in developing innovative ideas into a startup.

For her pioneering research on molecular systems, Nathalie Katsonis receives the Ammodo Science Award for fundamental research 2025.

Three ENW-M grants from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).

Prof. Marleen Kamperman and Marijke Leliveld received EUR 100,000 from the Gratama Foundation for their research project aimed at producing organic textiles for sustainable fashion.

Prof. Tamalika Banerjee’s startup IMChip and Prof. Erik Frijlink and Dr. Luke van der Koog’s startup MimeCure have made it into the top 10 of the national Academic Startup Competition.

Professor Ming Cao receives an ‘AiNed’ Growth Fund grant of EUR 2.4 million for research that will contribute to faster adoption of AI at SMEs in the technical industry in the Netherlands.

Prof. Dr. Muhsin Harakeh has won the 2024 Lise Meitner Prize of the European Physical Society (EPS).

Prof. Maria Antoinietta Loi of the Faculty of Science and Engineering (University of Groningen) is appointed as Fellow of the Materials Research Society (MRS). 

Dr. Elisabeth Wilhelm is partner in a consortium receiving a EUR 1.2 million ERDF-subsidy to develop an app to guide diabetes patients to a drug-free life.

Six European researchers will start at the Faculty of Science and Engineering (UG) with a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Professor of Migratory Bird Ecology Theunis Piersma has been named a Knight of the National Order of Mauritania.

Syuzanna Harutyunyan and Geert van den Bogaart of the Faculty of Science and Engineering have been awarded an ERC Proof of Concept Grant.

Andra Cristiana Minculescu and Prof. Francesco Picchioni are the winners of this year's FSE Impact Award.

Dr. Antonija Grubišić-Čabo, Dr. Robbert Havekes and Prof. Jan Komdeur receive an NWO M1 grant

Four researchers from the Faculty of Science and Engineering (UG) receive NWO grants of 3 million euros for their research projects.

Together with international partners Professor Adri Minnaard is awarded 9.2 million US dollars from a programme run by the US National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NAID).

Together with partners, Dr. Anatoli Mokhov has received 3 million euros to reduce gas emissions and avoid harmful flaring.

Professor Bart Besselink is a partner in a consortium receiving 2 million euros from the National Growth Fund program 'NXTGEN Highteck'to develop a new design method for mechatronic systems.

The Ubbo Emmius Fund (UEF) of the University of Groningen has awarded the Groningen Cognitive Systems and Materials Center and the Health Technology Research and Innovation Cluster a total of 26.9 million euros.

Researchers Bart Besselink, Else Starkenburg and Jagoda Slawinska have been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant.

Professor Hannah Dugdale has won the NWO Science Athena Award 2024.

On Monday November 25, ten students of the Faculty of Science and Engineering received a KHMW Young Talent Incentive Award.

Michele Cucuzzella and Ming Cao are partners in the research programme ‘Behavioural Insights for Climate Policy’

Funding has been awarded to two more research projects at the University of Groningen under the National Science Agenda's Research along Routes by Consortia (NWA-ORC). Meerburg, Dimastrogiovanni, and Roest have received €500,000 for researching emergence in cosmology. Klemens Eriksson is partner in the NO-REGRETS project, which will study the ecological and economic impacts of scaling up offshore wind farms in the North Sea.

Researchers of the Faculty of Science and Engineering have been awarded two large NWO grants for global biodiversity restoration and research into the origin of life.

Professor Bert Poolman, together with Prof. Petra Schwille, receives an ERC Synergy grant of five million euros for synthetic cell research.

Professor Ben Feringa from the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry (University of Groningen) has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a Vidi grant of up to €800,000 to Laura Baams, M.J. Bonder, Ranko Gacesa, Kristina Haslinger, Julian Koellermeier, Cyril Moers, Adrià Rofes, and Judith E.C. Verweijen. With this grant, the researchers can develop their own innovative five-year research plans and can establish their own research groups.

Professor Davide Grossi has been awarded a EUR 3.3 million Horizon Europe grant to improve online participation platforms.

The EU has awarded a major grant to a consortium of researchers from the Universities of Groningen and Leiden to research the origin and nature of life.

Prof. Marc van der Maarel and Prof. Geert van den Bogaart will receive a Biotech Booster grant of EUR 200,000 from the National Growth Fund Program.

Two UG researches, both working at the Faculty of Science and Engineering, have been awarded an ERC Starting Grant: Jingxiu Xie and Gosia Wlodarczyk-Biegun. The European Research Council's (ERC) Starting Grants consist of €1.5 million each, for a period of five years. The grants are meant for outstanding researchers with the aim of stimulating cutting-edge research in Europe.

Professors Tamalika Banerjee Bart Kooi will receive a EUR 750,000 grant for research contributing to the development of energy-efficient computer hardware.

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a Veni grant of up to €320,000 each to ten researchers of the University of Groningen and the UMCG. The Veni grants are designed for outstanding researchers who have recently gained a PhD.

For research on making plastics circular, Professors Patrizio Raffa and Katja Loos together receive about 1.2 million euros from the National Growth Fund programme Circular Plastics NL.