NWO subsidy for Ben Feringa's Origins Center

The Origins Center project led by Nobel Prize laureate Ben Feringa will receive an NWO subsidy, as one of the eight tracks of the Dutch National Research Agenda (NWA). The eight tracks can each receive up to EUR 2.5 million support. Researchers of the University of Groningen contribute to six of the eight projects.

The Origins Center is a national initiative involving leading researchers from seventeen universities and institutions that perform multidisciplinary research on the origins, the functioning and the future of life in a changing environment, on scales ranging from the molecular to the planetary. The Center implements a large and important part of the Dutch Research Agenda. The Board of the NWO, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, assessed the Origins Center’s proposal as ‘Excellent’.

NWA Start Impulse

In September 2016, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science announced an investment of EUR 30 million in the National Research Agenda. The larger part of this money, EUR 20 million, will go to Start Impulse , which will be implemented by NWO. The funds are intended for research on themes previously identified by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science:

• education and young people in a resilient society
• digitization as a driver of innovation
• scientific knowledge as a source of innovative power

Symposium with Ben Feringa

The Origins Center will be inaugurated during the Fundamentals of life in the universe symposium, which will be held at the Energy Academy on the Zernike Campus of the University of Groningen on 31 August and 1 September 2017. The symposium has been organized with support from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and will host a large number of renowned speakers , including Ben Feringa, Lee Cronin, Giovanna Tinetti and Bob Lineweaver.

For more information on the symposium, please contact: origins rug.nl .

More information

Please contact: Jan-Willem Mantel, National Coordinator Origins Center. Phone: 06 470 43 710

• List of applications granted (pdf in Dutch)
• 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Ben Feringa