Ten million euros for scientific investments

10 March 2009

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has awarded 88 grants in the NWO Medium investment programme, for the purchase of equipment, setting up data collections and writing software and bibliographies. The projects include investment in MRI equipment, a mass spectrometer and an infrastructure concerning the well being of present and former cancer patients. 

The objective of the NWO Medium investment grant is to stimulate investment policy at research institutions. The grants represent urgent investments in innovative and high-quality research for which the purchase of special equipment or the set-up of databases is essential. NWO pays a maximum of 75 percent of each grant, with the university or institution contributing at least 25 percent. The contributions by NWO vary between 110,000 and 900,000 euros. For investments involving a contribution by NWO in excess of 900,000 euros, researchers can submit applications to the NWO Large programme.

NWO received a total of 88 applications, and the proposals were assessed by scientists based in the Netherlands and abroad. Ultimately, 23 proposals were awarded. These proposals fall within four NWO divisions, namely, ALW (Earth & Life Sciences), CW (Chemical Sciences), GW (Humanities) and MaGW (Social Sciences), and within ZonMw (Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development). EW (Physical Sciences) will announce the results of the selection in April. Physics and Technology Foundation STW provide resources for investment within different grants. Thanks to extra, incidental resources, the budget increased by 64% this year to 10 million euros. The projects awarded are listed below.

Enhancing the research landscape

NWO wants to use the Medium programme to enhance the national research landscape and showcase it on the basis of quality and, where appropriate, scientific importance. An investment from NWO Medium serves a combination of local and national interest in virtually every case. For instance, an investment has national significance if researchers from other institutions can use the new research facility, be it a database or hard infrastructure. NWO also wants to use this programme to stimulate investment policy at research institutions. For this reason, NWO weighs up the profiling, the size of the investment, the schedule and the operational management of the institution making the application. Finally, it is also a decided advantage if the exploitation of the investment is guaranteed.

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last modified on 7 April 2010