ALW Background

Scientific research in the area of earth and life sciences is exciting and popular. Many Dutch researchers are leaders in this broad and competitive field of science.

Scientists have ever deeper insights into the complex and dynamic processes in the solid earth, the oceans, the atmosphere, the living nature, and in organisms including humans. The processes are set on time scales of tens of millions of years in geology or in nanoseconds when it comes to molecular mechanisms in living cells.

Advances in the technology of satellites and deep drilling to imaging technologies and bioinformatics combined with intensified collaboration between various scientific fields lead to a major acceleration in research. By granting project and programme subsidies, ALW stimulates outstanding research that contributes to a thorough scientific understanding of the earth and life.

The current ALW division is the result of the 1998 merger of the Life Foundation (SLW) and the foundation for Geological, Oceanographic - and Atmospheric Sciences (GOA).

Last update: May 8, 2008