€43.3 Million Allocated to Erasmus University Rotterdam for Research Projects

Seven Dutch consortiums with top researchers will receive a total amount of €142.7 million from the Gravitation Program, through which the Dutch Government encourages research in the Netherlands.

Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) has announced that the Gravitation program will allocate €43.3 million for research projects at the university.

“It is great news that several EUR projects have been awarded a grant from the Gravitation programme. Congratulations for years of hard work by all the scientists involved, congratulations!” chairman of the EUR Executive Board Ed Brinksma said.

Among the projects that will receive funding is Growing Up Together in Society (GUTS), a consortium of researchers focusing on how youth grow up in a complex society, of which Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) is the secretary as well as the Algorithmic Societies (ALGOSOC), a project exploring machine learning as an adaptive and iterative process of world-making where EUR is a co-applicant.

ALGOSOC will receive 21.3 million while Growing Up Together in Society (GUTS), led by professor Eveline Crone of Erasmus University Rotterdam will receive €22 million.

“Research into brain development in young people is often individually focused. But a child does not grow up individually, it is part of systems of family, friends, school and social norms. That is why it has great added value to connect knowledge about this,” professor of Developmental Neuroscience in Society Eveline Crone said.

Crone said that they are making the investment for young people, also mentioning the impact of the COVID-19. She added that the research focuses on learning together in education, social networks, and youngsters who have been in contact with the law at a young age. Through this, she said that attention is paid to social inequality. 

“EUR is the best place for this, it’s in the university’s DNA. I am very happy to be able to do this here for the next ten years,” she added.

According to EUR, the Minister of Education, Culture and Science in the Netherlands, Robbert Dijkgraaf, provides the funding to these consortiums so they can participate in research among the best in the world.

“People think too easily about interdisciplinary collaboration, but you really have to learn to speak each other’s language and trust each other. We have invested in that and that is how you get breakthroughs,” Crone stressed.

Moreover, EUR announced that the consortium of psychologists, sociologists, child psychiatrists, pedagogues, and neuroscientists who are part of the University of Amsterdam, VU University, Amsterdam UMC, Leiden University, University of Groningen, Utrecht University, Radboudumc and the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, has been working for a period of five years.