Four AU researchers receive research grants worth millions
The Villum Foundation has just awarded over 300 million DKK to 11 researchers within technical and scientific research at Danish universities. Four of them are from Aarhus University. The grants are approximately 30 million DKK each and extend over six years.
Four researchers at Aarhus University have just received grants of around 30 million DKK each from the Villum Foundation. The foundation announced this in a news release.
The recipients are professor at the Department of Chemistry Troels Skrydstrup, professor at the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics Torben Heick, professor at the Department of Computer Science Lars Birkedal and professor at the Department of Mathematics Fabrice Baudoin.
The grants are awarded through the Villum Investigator programme and are targeted at experienced, internationally recognised researchers within technical and natural science research areas. According to the Villum Foundation, the ideal applicant is an "active researcher who has demonstrated international, groundbreaking research of the highest scientific quality for 10 years or more." A total of 11 researchers from Danish universities have received a grant at this year's award ceremony.
"The researchers have all made their mark internationally with groundbreaking research and visionary ideas, and now they will have the opportunity to pursue their research with a solid and long-term financial foundation," the Villum Foundation writes.
Research on sustainable plastics and stochastic analysis
One of the AU researchers, Troels Skrydstrup, is working in his project to develop chemical technologies that can ultimately make the plastics industry more sustainable.
"This grant gives me a rare opportunity to delve into one of the biggest environmental problems of our time - plastic waste - and develop new chemical methods that can change the way we recycle plastics in industry," says Troels Skrydstrup to the Villum Foundation.
Torben Heick's project is about sorting RNA in the cell nucleus. Lars Birkedal's grant goes to the further development of the Center for Basic Research in Program Verification (CPV). CPV develops new, advanced mathematical models and logics that make it possible to reason precisely about the correctness and security of software systems. Fabrice Baudoin's project is about stochastic analysis and aims to develop new methods and address the central challenges in the theory. Stochastic analysis is the branch of mathematics that deals with the study of processes that exhibit randomness. It plays a crucial role in areas such as finance, artificial intelligence, biology and physics.
DTU, UCPH and AU
Lars Bo Nielsen, the director of the Villum Foundation, states in the news that the grants help provide researchers with the freedom to pursue their work.
"With the Villum Investigator program, we support excellent and curiosity-driven research that pushes the boundaries of what we know and understand about the world. We provide freedom to researchers who have demonstrated the ability to think innovatively and lead strong research environments. With their professional expertise and curiosity, they contribute new knowledge that can have significance far beyond the walls of universities."
The Villum Foundation has, on average, awarded around 500 million DKK to research over the past two years.
The 11 recipients of the grants this year represent institutes from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), the University of Copenhagen (UCPH), and Aarhus University.
This text is machine translated and post-edited by Cecillia Jensen.