The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has granted an ‘Investment Subsidy NWO Medium' to two researchers at the Faculty of Science (UvA). Dr Maarten Marx and Prof. Cyriel Pennartz have each received a subsidy. They will be able to use the money to buy equipment and set up data collections, associated software and bibliographies.

In total, the NWO has granted 31 subsidies, with a total investment of 10 million euros. It received 79 applications, which were assessed by university staff in the Netherlands and abroad.

Many researchers depend on large pieces of equipment, data collections and new software to carry out their work, whether in scientific and technical fields, social and behavioural sciences or the humanities. With its Investment Subsidy NWO Medium, the NWO finances such large acquisitions, which tend to be too costly for individual groups. These acquisitions are vital to upholding the standing of Dutch academic research.

The grants

Political mashup - Dr Maarten Marx (Informatics Institute)

Maarten Marx is working on bringing together an enormous quantity of political data, including reports of parliamentary discussions and political biographies. This new data infrastructure will offer insights into many interesting social issues. A case in point is the question of the nature of influence: Do particular discourses first appear in the media, or in politics?

Multi-area ensemble recording systems for investigating neural substrates of cognition - Prof. C Pennartz (Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences)

Although cognitive processes such as memory, attention and perception depend on the electrical activity of large groups of brain cells, most measurement techniques are restricted to the activity of just one cell or several cells. Cyriel Pennartz is using ‘ensemble' measurement equipment to gain insight into how areas of the brain, and brain cells, work together during cognitive processes.