Two ERC Advanced Grants for UG scientists

Professor of Demography and Space Clara Mulder and Associate Professor of Systems Chemistry Sijbren Otto have each been awarded a EUR 2.5 million ERC Advanced Grant by the European Research Council. Mulder will look into family ties, from a view of internal migration, immobility and labour-market. The objective of Otto’s project is building fully synthetic chemical systems, that may be instrumental in making life in the lab.

ERC-project Clara Mulder

Internal migration (long-distance moves within national borders) is generally assumed to be beneficial to individuals and households. This FamilyTies project has been designed to make a decisive contribution to a much more comprehensive explanation of internal migration and its labour-market outcomes than current, mainly economic, explanations have achieved thus far. It introduces a novel perspective on internal migration and immobility, which focuses on the role of family outside the household in deciding on whether and where to relocate, and which takes into account contemporary family complexity: the family ties perspective. The aim is to identify the role of family ties in internal migration, immobility and labour-market outcomes.

ERC-project Sijbren Otto

Can we synthesize life de-novo in the lab? This is one of the Grand Challenges of contemporary Science. Overall objective of this project is to set important steps in turning chemistry into biology by building fully synthetic chemical systems that contain and integrate some of the essential elements of life: replication, metabolism and compartmentalization. Functional coupling of any of life’s essential elements has not been achieved, at least not without making use of biomolecules. The aim is to achieve such coupling and develop fully chemical systems to become increasingly life-like.