NWO Physical Sciences awards 1.6 million euro via Investment Subsidy NWO Medium

28 April 2009

NWO Division for the Physical Sciences has announced which projects shall be awarded a grant from the programme Investment Subsidy NWO Medium. The division received six proposals for the subsidy. Three of these proposals were selected. A total of 1.6 million euro will be invested in the three projects, 0.1 million of which comes from the Netherlands National Computing Facilities Foundation (NCF).

Four of the six proposals came from the field of astronomy and two from ICT. The proposals were compared and assessed by a division-wide committee. The proposals from Leon Merchant (University of Groningen), Henri Bal (VU University Amsterdam) and Huib Jan van Langevelde were selected. Koopmans will develop computer equipment to study data from the radiotelescope LOFAR (Low Frequency Array). Henri Bal wants to set up a fourth generation Distributed ASCI Supercomputer (DAS). The facilities that Langevelde will develop shall focus on the further expansion of research technology interferometry (higher bandwidth and greater sensitivity) within astronomy.

Strengthening of the research landscape

With the programme Investment Subsidy NWO Medium, NWO aims to strengthen and profile the national research landscape on the basis of quality and, where applicable, societal relevance. An investment from this programme nearly always serves a combination of local and national interests. For example, an investment has national significance if researchers from other institutes can make use of the new research facility, such as a databank or expensive equipment. Moreover, with this programme NWO wants to stimulate the investment policy of research institutes. That is why in making the awards NWO includes factors in its funding decision such as the profiling, investment behaviour, planning and operational management of the institute from which the application originates. Another critical factor is the guaranteed exploitation of the investment.


This NWO grant can be obtained via the following NWO divisions: ALW, CW, EW, GW and MaGW. The other divisions had already announced their allocations at the start of March 2009. Applications for the 2010 round must be submitted by September 2009.
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last modified on 26 May 2009