Vidi Grant for dr. Harish Vedantham

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded 78 experienced researchers a Vidi grant of €800,000. With this grant, the researchers can develop their own innovative five-year research plans and can establish their own research groups. One of the Vidi laureates is dr. Harish Vedantham of ASTRON/Kapteyn Astronomical Institute. The Vidi grants are awarded annually by the NWO as part of the NWO Talent Programme.

Dr. Harish Vedantham - e-MAPS (exploring Magnetism on the planetary scale)
The Earth’s magnetic field traps and speeds up charged particles that create aurorae and radio-waves. This project will detect radio-waves from objects outside the solar system to answer a longstanding question: what determines the magnetic field strength of planets?

Vidi grants are intended for experienced researchers who have been conducting successful research for some years after gaining a PhD. Alongside the Veni and Vici grants, the Vidi grant is part of the NWO Talent Programme. Within this programme, researchers are free to submit their own topics for funding. In this way, NWO wishes to stimulate innovative and curiosity-driven research. The researchers are selected based on their research quality, the innovative nature of their research, the expected societal impact of their research proposal and the possibilities for knowledge utilization.