These recently graduated scholars can do their research at foreign research institutes thanks to a Rubicon grant from NWO and ZonMw.For many researchers, experience abroad is an important step in their career. The Rubicon programme gives young, highly promising researchers the opportunity to gain international research experience.
Cognitive psychologist Evert Boonstra receives the grant for his research: From virtual biological systems to virtual reality.
Biological systems sustain themselves by embodying their immediate surroundings. This process can be understood as a mathematical model requiring constant (re-)alignment with these surroundings. The current project investigates how a virtual biological system does this compared to humans, and lays a new basis for research into psychiatric disorders.
Boonstra has been awarded the two-year grant at the University of Cape Town.
Neuroscientist Ines Maldonado-Lasunción receives the grant for her research: A drug and a supramolecular hydrogel: new combinatorial therapy for chronic spinal cord injury.
Spinal cord injury remains incurable. Maldonado-Lasunción will investigate a new treatment for chronic spinal cord injury combining a drug that activates neuronal regeneration and a novel biomaterial providing a permissive environment for neurons to grow. She will also map the molecular interactions of growing neurons with their microenvironment.
Maldonado-Lasunción has been awarded the two-year grant at the Imperial College London.
Rubicon programme
Thanks to the Rubicon grant these young researchers can do their research at a foreign institute that offers the best environment for their research. The size of the grant is dependent on the destination chosen and the duration of the stay. Each year, NWO/ZonMw can fund about 60 young researchers within Rubicon (for a total amount of 7 million euros allocated over three rounds). The awards in this news item concern the third round of 2022.