The afternoon included a mix of presentations and lively discussions with the faculty deans, (research) directors from various institutes as well as invited researchers. Michiel Scheffer was informed about Radboud’s strategy towards the significant impact of its research and education, existing research interdisciplinary initiatives and research facilities, university's successful performance during the first three years of Horizon Europe, our grant writing and knowledge transfer support practices as well as funded EIC projects, startups and spinoffs on campus.
Since 2021, Radboud University has been involved in 97 Horizon Europe projects, leading 40 of them. Of those, 20 are funded within the European Research Council (ERC). Our overall success rate of 26,5 precent is higher than EU average and we rank sixth in terms of net EU contribution among Dutch higher education beneficiaries.
Additionally, a number of innovative projects and research ideas were presented by researchers during the short-pitch session of the meeting, such as the National Individual Floating Transport Infrrastructure (NIFTI), the Dynamic project (14 Tesla MRI scanner), research on sustainable AI within the Radboud AI Department, scientific and applied research at Radboud Center for Language and Speech Technology as well as interdisciplinary human-centered, value-driven research in language and technology at Radboud Center for Language Studies.
Michiel Scheffer provided insights into the funding opportunities for Radboud within the calls published by the EIC. Further discussion with the participants evolved around practical issues of applications for researchers, in particular, for those who work in the field of social sciences and humanities.
Taking into account the insights presented by Michiel Scheffer, it was decided to organize an information session on upcoming EIC calls and relevant instruments for the University, with the aim of encouraging grant applications from various faculties. Stay tuned for our updates. If you already have a research idea and are looking for funding opportunities within Horizon Europe and EIC in particular, get in touch via collaborate [at] ru.nl (collaborate[at]ru[dot]nl)