“Modesty is a fine virtue, but sometimes you have to dare to take the leap. Increasingly, VUB researchers have understood this. They are boldly applying for the most prestigious calls—and succeeding. ‘2024 was our best year ever, with a record investment of €156.5 million,’ says Tania Van Loon, Head of the Research Funding Europe Unit. ‘This should encourage other researchers to take their chances as well.”
Between 2021 and the end of 2024, VUB secured no fewer than 158 projects under the European Horizon programme. Standouts in 2024 included five ERC grants and nine Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellowships. These are highly coveted awards. Competition is fierce, and the chances of success are slim. Yet VUB deliberately focuses on these prestigious opportunities.
“Winning a grant is a huge boost for the quality of the research and the visibility of the research group,”
“The topics of these grants have a European dimension, and they allow you to build networks with researchers across Europe. The funding is generous, and securing a grant gives you time and freedom to focus on research. That inspires colleagues to try as well. They think: ‘If so-and-so can do it, why can’t I?’”
The numbers show that this approach is working.
“Halfway through September was the deadline for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships. Thirty-five project proposals were submitted—twice as many as last year. At VUB, we are increasingly punching above our weight.”
A few years ago, the Research Council, on the initiative of Vice-Rector for Research Pieter Ballon, launched several support measures for researchers who need an extra push.
“For instance, as a tenured academic, you can receive several months of exemption from regular duties to write your ERC proposal. You can also rely on support from the Research Funding Europe Unit. Our five staff members have deep expertise in ERC and Marie Skłodowska-Curie grants. We help with administrative and budgetary aspects, but also with content and style. The core, of course, remains excellent research, but evaluators are also sensitive to well-crafted presentation and a compelling narrative CV. The researcher’s personal motivations are important too.”
“Our researchers are also securing grants themselves” – Kiavash Movahedi (Brain and Systems Immunology Lab)
Professor Dr. Ir. Kiavash Movahedi’s team studies brain macrophages, the immune cells of the brain, with the hope of developing new strategies to treat Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. This expensive life sciences research is made possible in part by an ERC Consolidator Grant (€2 million).
Kiavash Movahedi: “An ERC grant enables blue sky research: fundamental scientific investigation driven by curiosity. The attitude is high risk, high gain: if it succeeds, you can really push boundaries. Practical applications may lie further in the future, but we learn a great deal along the way. Our ERC grant started in August 2023. Before that, the Brain and Systems Immunology Lab had six people. We are now fourteen, which already illustrates the impact of such a grant. An ERC grant is a quality label and a guarantee of high-level research. It helps attract top talent. Our lab is an international team, with members from Canada, Spain, India, Italy, Russia… After a while, these researchers also seek external funding themselves, through FWO and Marie Skłodowska-Curie grants. This snowball effect allows the group to grow. A large part of our budget goes directly to research—microscopy, sequencing, animal models… all very costly. Across Europe, universities invest in ERC grants and other international funding. Rightly so, as they provide visibility and prestige. The Vice-Rector encourages researchers to apply for these grants. It’s a smart move, and the benefits are now starting to show. We were somewhat behind, but that trend has now completely reversed.”
“This project fits within VUB’s rich tradition of end-of-life research” – Lara Pivodic (End of Life Research Group)
For one year, researchers will visit around 300 people over the age of seventy every two months to examine how their wellbeing evolves as the end of life approaches. This type of longitudinal, fundamental research would not be possible without the ERC Starting Grant (€1.5 million) secured by Professor Lara Pivodic.
Lara Pivodic: “The aim of this project is not immediately to develop or test interventions. Through fundamental research, we want to gain new insights into how the physical, psychological, social, and existential wellbeing of older adults evolves as life draws to a close. We still know very little about this. Both the substantive focus and the longitudinal approach are quite unique. We do not only focus on physical needs but give equal attention to psychosocial and existential experiences. We follow these individuals for a year and visit up to seven times. We review a questionnaire with everyone and conduct a narrative interview with a portion of the 300 participants. This allows people to describe, in their own words, how they experience the end of their life. This research will map the needs of older adults and help provide answers to difficult questions, such as: what is the best time to start palliative care? And at which points do people require additional support? This project fully aligns with VUB’s rich tradition in end-of-life research. Our End-of-Life Care Research Group—a collaboration with UGent—is one of the largest in Europe, with around forty researchers. Longitudinal fundamental research of this kind is very difficult without ERC funding. The trust from ERC is substantial: they expect the project to have a significant impact, while allowing us researchers considerable freedom in how we achieve our goals.”
“I sense a change in mindset at the university” – Tim Raats (imec-SMIT research group)
Twelve PhD students in an international training network are being educated not only as professional academics but also prepared for management roles in the media. The ambition exceeds the likelihood of success, admits Professor Tim Raats, who secured a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Network grant.
Tim Raats: “Public broadcasters and other public interest media are under pressure. Current research mainly examines how they position themselves relative to social media and streaming platforms. We want to go further. The question we ask is: if there were no public broadcasters, would we reinvent them? And in what form? We want to explore scenarios for the public broadcasters of tomorrow, in light of geopolitical, AI, and other challenges. This is difficult because it requires a broad combination of knowledge and specialisations. This MSCA Doctoral Network brings that expertise together. The funding supports twelve doctoral students from eight European countries, with three working under VUB researchers. The students also spend three months at a foreign university and complete an internship at a media company. We train them not only as academic professionals but also for managerial roles in the media. International competition forces you to secure European grants. The recent scaling up of larger research groups at VUB helps with this. Our research group now has more than 140 staff members, including two valorisation managers and several project coordinators. Together, we collaborated on this proposal. I sense a change in mindset at the university. More colleagues are now considering applying for an ERC grant—something that would not have occurred to us a few years ago. You also see colleagues successfully securing these grants, which motivates you to try as well.”
“Suddenly, all the pieces fell into place” – Harry Zekollari (Water and Climate research group)
Thanks to an ERC Starting Grant (€1.5 million) and an FWO Odysseus grant (€1 million), Professor Harry Zekollari was able to return to VUB and establish a research group within the Water and Climate department. The team develops advanced models to simulate glacier evolution in the context of climate change.
Harry Zekollari: “Odysseus is an FWO grant designed to attract top researchers from abroad to Flanders, while the ERC Starting Grant helps establish your own research line. After completing my PhD at VUB, I spent six years as a postdoctoral researcher, including at ETH Zurich and TU Delft. These are prestigious institutions where I learned an enormous amount academically and personally. But I wanted to become a professor and start my own research group. It was a long search with a lot of effort and little success—until in 2023, suddenly, all the pieces fell into place. I secured both the ERC and Odysseus grants and could return to VUB. It was a dream come true, as I’m from Brussels and proud to be a VUB alumnus. The research group officially started at the end of 2023. Besides the manager and myself, the team includes ten PhD students and postdocs from Belgium and abroad. I bring into the group the valuable lessons I learned in Switzerland and the Netherlands: you can learn a lot from the best. That doesn’t mean the grass is always greener elsewhere. We are smaller at VUB and need to be more creative with resources, but we receive excellent support from the Vice-Rectorate for Research. Moreover, as a research professor, I enjoy a privileged position: the entire team can focus extensively on research. That is a luxury.”
