It's full speed ahead for interuniversity scientific excellence, as Flemish universities are pooling their resources to finance interuniversity research consortia for the first time. They are investing more than €36 million in iBOF funding.
With the Special Research Funds (BOF), the Flemish government has provided each university with a strategic instrument to pursue an autonomous scientific research policy, based on its own priorities and needs, with excellence always a selection criterion. With the iBOF funding, the universities are now sharing their resources.
In this way, they join forces in innovative scientific research and in domains in which several universities have demonstrated excellence. They strengthen their international positioning, which will also empower them to obtain European research funding, including within the framework of the future Horizon Europe programme. “With the formation of these interuniversity consortia, the Flemish universities want to join forces. We want to put our scientific research even more firmly on the map and accelerate it to an international level of excellence,” says Luc Sels, chair of the Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR).
The first iBOF call resulted in 136 applications, of which 30 projects were admitted to the second round. The available funding makes it possible to fund the 15 best ranked projects for a total amount of €36.69 million.
Researchers from VUB are on eight of the 15 consortia. Prof Ann Nowé leads one consortium: DESCARTES - infectious diseases economy and artificial intelligence with guarantees. The final selection includes two projects from social and human sciences, six from science and technology and seven from biomedical sciences. The projects will run for four years and will start on 1 January 2021.