Ten grants for interdisciplinary PhD research at UG Schools

The Ubbo Emmius Fund (UEF) has made ten grants available for research projects at UG Schools for Science & Society as part of the M20 Scholarship Programme. With the grants, ten PhD students who want to further develop into interdisciplinary researchers will be appointed. The M20 Programme is a long-term initiative of the UEF. Like the Schools, the projects are multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary in nature, and dovetail with societal issues.

The 2024 application round opens on 5 February 2024 and ends on 15 March 2024. The link to the online application portal will be available on this page on Monday 5 February.

M20 PhD Programme

It is the M20 Programme's goal to develop scholars with the interdisciplinary foundation required to address society’s most pressing challenges. The pilot round with 4 PhD students took place in 2022, then 10 PhD projects were selected in 2023, and this year again 10 PhD projects will be selected. The programme complements the University of Groningen’s vision to turn knowledge into impact by prioritising interactions with the private sector, public actors and nonprofits.

Funding for this programme was provided exclusively by a private donor and is managed by the Ubbo Emmius Foundation. The 2024 round offers a total of ten PhD scholarships to the four Schools:

• Wubbo Ockels School for Energy and Climate
• Jantina Tammes School for Digital Society, Technology, and Artificial Intelligence
• Aletta Jacobs School of Public Health
• Rudolph Agricola School for Sustainable Development

Wubbo Ockels School

Focused on the world's transition to renewable sources of energy, the Wubbo Ockels School works to help communities better adapt to climate change and the threat of global warming.

Research revolves around the use of hydrogen as an energy source, the decarbonization of the global economy, and the role of citizen empowerment in shaping public discourse on climate change adaptation.

The Wubbo Ockels School’s scientific director is Lorenzo Squintani, full professor in Energy Law, who obtained a PhD in European Environmental Law from the University of Amsterdam.

Topics

The selected topics for 2024 for the Wubbo Ockels School are:

• Hydrogen Economy
  Green hydrogen is a promising means to cope with the challenges posed by the transition to renewable energy sources. This research field offer a fruitful ground for interdisciplinary research involving, but not limited to, engineering, law, economics, psychology, sociology, business and economics and spatial sciences.

• Citizen-empowerment in the Energy Transition
  Citizen empowerment is put at the heart of the energy transition by the European Union. Three important choices that citizens have in this empowerment are support for energy production at the local level, heating their houses, and mobility. All three choices will directly influence physical infrastructure needs and socialized costs at the national scale.

• Climate Adaptation
  The climate is changing and this affects both humans and nature. Climate adaptation is simultaneously a technological, ecological, social-cultural and political challenge. This requires the adoption of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches.

More information

More information on the M20 programme and the Schools’ thematic areas can be found on the Ubbo Emius Foundation website.