On November 17 2015 NWO will organise a matchmaking event in the ‘Oude Magazijn’ in Amersfoort. The event is part of NWO’s new research programme ‘Building blocks of life’, launched to address a number of urgent scientific and social challenges at the interface of physics, chemistry, biology, computer science and systems analysis. The goal of the ‘Building blocks for life’ programme is to realise excellent ground-breaking research and to form interdisciplinary research projects in collaboration with public and private partners.
Researchers are invited to join the matchmaking event, which is organised to facilitate the preparation of interdisciplinary proposals. You are kindly invited to present yourself and your ideas in a pitch. In addition, there is extensive opportunity to meet other interested parties and to learn about the details of the call for proposals. Please register for this event via the website.
Building blocks of life programme
Our understanding of the molecular basis of life, our ‘building blocks’, has increased tremendously through technological breakthroughs in physics, chemistry, biology, computer science and systems analysis of massive data files.
In the coming years, the Building blocks of life programme will integrate this knowledge to facilitate a decisive step in the fundamental understanding of the molecular building blocks composing cellular systems. This knowledge will enable adjustment, improvement and creation of new forms of life for specific purposes.
Challenging innovations can be foreseen in many key scientific and technological areas: health care (e.g. personalized medicine), qualitatively and quantitatively improved food supply, sustainable crop production, hybrid techno-biological systems, new materials and intelligent robots based on neural networks, and organisms working under extreme circumstances.
With this programme, NWO wants to address long-term urgent scientific and social challenges in this field of research. The first call for interdisciplinary research proposals in the area of the understanding and design of building blocks of life is scheduled for the first quarter of 2016. An expected budget of M€ 10 will be available for public-private interdisciplinary research proposals.
The research programme is a cross- sector initiative of the NWO divisions: Earth and Life Sciences, Chemical Sciences, Physics, and Medical Sciences. The participating top sectors are Agri & Food, Chemistry, High Tech Systems & Materials, Life Sciences & Health and Horticulture & Propagating Stock.