Twenty-one innovative research projects launched through Open Competition Domain Science-XL programme

Description

The NWO Domain Board Science has approved 21 grant applications in the Open Competition Domain Science-XL programme. The topics vary from studying the coronavirus Achilles’ heel to learning about danger through the experiences of others. Together, the projects have been granted about 60 million euros.

Curiosity-driven, fundamental research is necessary for innovations that make society economically successful and socially resilient. The ENW XL-grant gives researchers the opportunity and freedom to start, strengthen or expand excellent, challenging and innovative lines of research.

This year, NWO, also on behalf of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, will make an additional 65.4 million euros available for the various Open Competitions for non-programmed research. Of this amount, 29.8 million euros will go to physical and natural sciences. With this new extra budget, more than one and a half times more research proposals can be awarded funding compared to the original budget for this round.

Granted projects

The granted projects, the corresponding main applicants and short summaries of the research proposals are listed below. Most of the projects will start this year and last for an average of five years.

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Unravelling proteins one by one with nanopores
Prof. dr. G.M. Maglia (RUG)

Proteins are the workhorses in our cells. Yet, we still miss lots of information on these fundamental molecules of life. We will develop new nanopore technologies to tackle the main challenges in protein analysis: to count and identify proteins, to read off their basic code at the single-molecule level, and to resolve the temporal shape changes of individual proteins that underlies their function. Unravelling proteins one-by-one by resolving their sequence and functional dynamics provides extraordinary potential to radically advance our understanding of proteins.

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