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The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a Vidi grant of up to €850,000 to Hjalmar Bouma, Hanna van Loo, Zoé Christoff, Björn Hoops, Tim Lichtenberg, Sanne Moorman, and Rik Smit. With this grant, the researchers can develop their own innovative research plans and establish their own research groups.

UG researchers Francesca Rizzo and Diego Pereira-Martins have been awarded the Early Career Award by the KNAW (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences). The KNAW presents twelve of these awards to researchers at Dutch universities annually. The award is intended for young researchers with innovative, original research ideas. Rizzo researches how galaxies form and evolve over cosmic time, while Pereira-Martins investigates the mechanisms involved in leukaemia to improve patient outcomes.

Fatih Turkmen is worried about the current developments in AI. Turkmen’s research is, amongst other things, about making chatbots more privacy-friendly, secure against malicious attacks and about how we could use AI safely for managing important and perhaps critical infrastructures.

A Protonic Ceramic Electrolyser Cell (PCEC) is a device which can produce hydrogen from water at temperatures that match with key industrial processes. Researchers at the University of Groningen recently showed that careful coordination of materials in such a PCEC can double the production of hydrogen at the same amount of electricity consumption.

Tax returns, phishing emails, relationship crises, or simply a cup of coffee. Residents of Groningen bring all kinds of questions to the support points (‘steunpunten’) of WIJS Groningen. Every year, around 3,000 people seek help with a wide range of issues. In the new episode of the RUG & Co. podcast, we discover how students and Groningen residents work together to find solutions.

In her inaugural lecture, Prof. Amalia Dolga introduces regenerative neuropharmacology, a field that uses molecules to protect and renew the ageing brain.

Scientific research regularly leads to innovative techniques or new products that can have social or economic value. For 30 years, RUG Ventures has therefore been investing in enterprising academics who wish to develop their ideas into businesses.

When and why do we take action when someone else is wronged? Not everyone is driven by a sense of justice when standing up for others. Concerns about the reputation of one’s own group also play a major role. This is evident from research by Hakan Çakmak, on which he will defend his PhD thesis at the University of Groningen on 29 October.

The University of Groningen is committed to creating a working and learning environment in which everyone feels welcome and at home. To achieve this, there are several programmes, courses, workshops, and initiatives related to social safety. In Social Safety Stories, we like to highlight some of them and the people who run them. In this edition, Senior Learning & Development Specialist Anna Salzano shares why training PhD supervisors is an important aspect of embedding social safety within the UG. For both the PhDs and the supervisors themselves. 

The Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) recently warned that our cars could spy on us, using Bluetooth devices as a way in. Researcher Fadi Mohsen of the University of Groningen studies vulnerability in Bluetooth on phones, computers and websites, and he showed that it is possible to steal large amounts of personal information via Bluetooth and then use AI to generate user profiles.