Top Dutch scientists receive 174 million euros for ten years

The new support has been welcomed with open arms in the scientific world. Not only is this an unprecedentedly high amount, but it is also committed for ten years.

The so-called Summit Grant is a one-off, ten-year funding for leading Dutch scientists and is an initiative of the outgoing Minister of Education, Culture and Science Dijkgraaf.

“Superior science is not something to be taken for granted,” Dijkgraaf says. “This is only possible because Dutch researchers can work together like no other. And because there is funding that, just like science, is focused on the long term.”

The Summit Scholarship is awarded to Dutch researchers who are already among the world’s top achievers or very close to it.

A total of five projects will receive support worth millions thus ensuring its validity for ten years. The bulk of the funds, 40 million euros, will go to the TU Delft project. There, scientists will investigate whether a lifeless molecule can become a living cell.

Nanobiology professor Cees Dekker, together with his team of about thirty Dutch scientists, will study how life is defined. “How did life originate on Earth? Can you create a living system from lifeless molecules?” Decker wonders out loud Radio NOS 1 News.

Collaborating with a team of physicists, biologists and engineers as well as philosophers and ethicists, we look at what life is all about. “But we also look at the ethical aspect,” Decker emphasizes. “Is what we are doing safe, and are we not playing God here? Above all, it is important to know how to maintain human control over the systems we build, for example.”

However, there are also criticisms of summit scholarship. Not everyone who works in science is happy about being allocated large sums of subsidies. Three researchers already set out a year ago question marks In aid procedures.

For example, they stated that the distribution of many millions would be ambiguous, and that there is a so-called “Matthew effect,” where success is rewarded with success.

In addition to the TU Delft research project, there are four other groups that can count on significant financial relief over the next ten years. These are research groups focusing on climate change now and in the future, regenerative medicine, quantum physics, and social cohesion.