Two ERC Consolidator Grants for Leiden researchers
Research on quantum computers and Islamic charities: two Leiden researchers have received a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council.
The Consolidator Grant is for researchers with seven to twelve years of experience since completing their PhD. They can use the grant of up to two million euros to fund their team of co-researchers and support staff over a five-year period.
The two Leiden Consolidator Grants go to:
Vedran Dunjko - Beyond-classical Machine learning and AI for Quantum Physics (LIACS)
Vedran Dunjko is researching the combination of machine learning with quantum computing. This could potentially offer great acceleration in simulating complicated quantum mechanical systems such as molecules, materials and interactions between elementary particles in atomic nuclei. Dunjko and colleagues want to find out in which cases these benefits can actually be reaped.
Radhika Gupta - Entangled Universals of Transnational Islamic Charity
Transnational Islamic charity today claims ‘humanity’ as its constituency. As a universalist category, humanity is no longer the monopoly of Western humanitarianism. Islamic charitable networks have invested in state-of-the-art hospitals, multistorey housing complexes and schools for modern education that serve Muslims and non-Muslims. This project will study how Islamic charitable networks position themselves as universalist projects, entangled with Western humanitarianism and neoliberal welfare regimes.
The European Research Council received 2,130 applications this year from researchers from European universities and selected 308 projects that between them will receive 627 million euros.