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DKK 5.9 million for daring research ideas

The VILLUM FOUNDATION recently announced the recipients of this year's Villum Experiment grants, and researchers at the Faculty of Technical Sciences have received total grants of almost DKK 6 million.

The Villum Experiment programme was launched in 2017 to target technical and natural science research projects that challenge norms and could potentially change the way we approach important topics. To sharpen the focus on research ideas and allow researchers to think freely, applicants are anonymous to the international assessors. Consequently, the 21 international assessors have not been able to consider applicants’ CVs and academic qualifications, but have assessed the research ideas solely on the basis of whether they challenge the norm and could potentially change the world and our knowledge about it.

This year, a total of DKK 98,663,650 will be allocated to 51 researchers at Danish universities. The recipients are young, old and in between. They can be anything from postdocs to professors, because what matters is the idea, not the CV. Common to all applicants is the aspiration to foster innovation within natural sciences and technical research. The projects propose ambitious exploration of a multitude of topics, and in so doing, they fulfil the ultimate ambition of research: they change the way we look at the world. The grants amount to DKK 1-2 million and will run for up to two years.

This year’s recipients at the Faculty of Technical Sciences are:

Researcher Johnna Holding, Department of Bioscience, who receives DKK 1.99 million for her project ”Does organic matter released from the melting Greenland Ice Sheet influence cloud processes in the Arctic?”.

Assistant Professor Hooman Farkhani, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, receives DKK 1.93 million for his project "Spin-Grain: Spintronic nano-grains with local vortex oscillations for reservoir computing”.

Associate Professor Shubiao Wu, Department of Agroecology, receives DKK 1.99 million for the project”A novel microbial pathway towards simultaneous mitigation of N2O and CH4 in wetlands”.

The programme is advertised annually in open competition, and the application deadline is in March.

Read more about the grants and the research programme on the VILLUM FOUNDATION website (Danish only).