A Vici grant from NWO is a crowning achievement for the scientists involved. The grant goes to researchers who are well established in their fields, who can use the funds to continue and expand on their work. It also allows for funding of PhD tracks, for example. Each grant means a sum of one and a half million euros, awarded to the researchers personally.
One of the Vici grants goes to Daniël Lakens of the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences (IE&IS). His project helps researchers in psychology to not only report but also interpret the magnitude of effects in a meaningful way. The other grant won by a TU/e graduate is for Peter Zijlstra of the Faculty of Applied Physics and Science Education (APSE). He is building DynaSense, an optical platform for measuring weak (and as of yet virtually immeasurable) interactions between proteins.
Interpreting results meaningfully
Daniel Lakens' research is called 'Interpretable Effect Sizes for Psychological Science'. The goal is to help scientists think better about what their research results mean.
Lakens explains, "Often researchers in psychology or other fields only discuss whether or not an effect occurs. But it is also important to think about how big an effect is. That often proves difficult, because when we measure happiness on a scale of 1 to 10, for example, it is difficult to interpret '0.5 points happier.' Is that a lot, or a little? Does it matter, or not? We've known for 100 years that this is a problem."
"We have ever larger data sets, so we get more effects that are statistically significant but practically irrelevant," Lakens continues. "The goal of my project is to come up with a set of solutions and get scientists to apply those in their research."
The intended result is more usable interpretations of research findings, more efficient design of studies and better testing of theoretical predictions. "This project helps researchers in psychology not only report the magnitude of effects, but also interpret them in a meaningful way."
Lakens' expertise extends to meta-science, research methods and applied statistics. He also researches reward structures in science. Lakens is part of the Human Technology Interaction research group.
Making the invisible visible
Peter Zijlstra is developing DynaSense, an 'optical platform for single-molecule sensing of weak protein interactions'. In short, an advanced measurement system that uses light to detect interactions at the molecular level. "Making the invisible visible," as Zijlstra puts it. He further explains: "Proteins interact with each other to perform their function. Various techniques exist to measure strong interactions, but weak protein interactions are not detectable with standard techniques because they take place on very short time scales (microseconds)."
DynaSense is Zijlstra's way to track those weak protein interactions anyway. The platform consists of a specially designed surface with metal nanoparticles (the so-called plasmonic metasurface). This surface contains a well-ordered lattice of these particles that ensures optical signals from proteins are amplified many times over. This allows Zijlstra to measure interactions between proteins very precisely, thereby gaining insight into how individual proteins bind and release.
This research solves important challenges in the field of optical sensors, and will be able to make future contributions to drug development. Zijlstra's research group is Molecular Plasmonics .
About Vici grants
A Vici grant allows scientists to develop an innovative line of research and expand their research group over the next five years. It is one of the largest personal scientific grants in the Netherlands and is aimed at advanced researchers. Such a grant allows scientists to conduct research of their own choosing and gives innovative scientific research a leg up.
The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) awards the Vici grants annually as part of its Talent Programme . This year, there were 369 preliminary applications and 130 actual applications. Of those, 43 were awarded: 16 to women and 27 to men. The allocation rates relative to the number of preliminary applications submitted are 11 percent among women (16 out of 140) and 12 percent among men (27 out of 229). Relative to the number of final applications submitted, the allocation rates are 33 percent among women (16 out of 48) and 33 percent among men (27 out of 82).
The target audience for Vici consists of senior researchers. There are also Veni and Vidi grants for researchers who have recently received their doctorates or have been conducting research for some years, respectively.
