University managements award four Collaboration Grants

On June 30, the managements of the Universities of Münster and Twente again awarded so-called Collaboration Grants, with a total of four teams convincing the jury with their concepts. The Universities have been using this funding instrument since 2018 in order to finance internal start-ups, intensify existing research collaborations between Münster and Twente, and provide the impetus for cross-border cooperation. In addition, the Grants unfold a great potential for acquiring third-party funding.

This year, a total of 15 project applications were submitted, with eight of the teams presenting their projects to the jury in short, five-minute presentations. Two projects – the so-called Strategic Collaboration Grants – each receive 80,000 euros, which are financed fifty-fifty by the University of Münster and the University of Twente for a duration of twelve months. For the first time, two more teams received funding for bilateral research projects which will be worked on by PhD students – the so-called Collaboration Grants for Young Researchers. Experienced researchers can receive up to 50,000 euros a year, for up to four years, for supervising junior researchers.

Award-winning projects

Strategic Collaboration Grants

“Model Order Reduction for Discrete Particle Systems”: Dr. Stephan Rave (Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Institute for Analysis and Numerics, Münster) and Associate Professor Dr. Thomas Weinhart (represented today by Dr. Anthony Thornton, professor of Granular Materials within the Department of Thermal and Fluid Engineering at the UT):

Granular materials are the most manipulated substance on the planet, after water. They play a vital role in numerous industries, including chemical, pharmaceutical, agri-food, energy, high-tech manufacturing, mining, and construction. While other sectors like aerospace have embraced computer-aided design, these industries still heavily rely on time-consuming and costly experimentation. To bridge this gap, a project is underway to combine two prominent open-source codes, MercuryDPM (UT) and pyMOR (UM), for the simulation of the behavior of granular materials, which promises to save time and resources in the design and development processes as well as to improve the overall performance and reliability of the final product or system.

“Novel tools to study and steer the volume of living cells”: Professor Dr. Bart Jan Ravoo (Organic Chemistry Institute and Center for Soft Nanoscience at UM), Professor Dr. Jeroen Leijten and Assistant Professor Dr. Julieta Paez (both Faculty of Science and Technology, Developmental Bioengineering Group):

Living cells within tissues interact with their surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM), a protein-based network, through intricate physical and chemical signals spanning various time and length scales. Understanding the mechanisms behind this communication is crucial in the field of healthcare. Gaining insight into tissue imbalances and diseases allows for the development of precise and effective treatments to restore tissue function and enables innovative tissue engineering approaches. This project aims to introduce a groundbreaking photo-chemical approach that grants unprecedented control over the volume of cells in three dimensions, in a reversible manner, and under the user's direction. This innovative technique will facilitate precise analysis of the influence of cell volume on cell behavior with enhanced precision and flexibility. Furthermore, it offers simplicity of implementation, cost-effectiveness, and compatibility with high-throughput production and analysis, opening doors to extensive research and potential applications in the field.

Collaboration Grants for Young Researchers

“Quantifying and modelling peat breathing with satellite radar data”: Professor Dr. Hanna Meyer (Institute of Landscape Ecology, Münster) and Associate Professor Dr. Ling Chang (Faculty of Geo-Information Sciences and Earth Observation, Twente):

Peatlands are crucial carbon sinks, vital for mitigating climate change. To enhance our understanding of peat breathing and carbon loss, Chang and Meyer propose a novel approach utilizing satellite remote sensing, specifically radar technology. Their study focuses on the Amtsvenn and Hündfelder Moor, an 894-hectare cross-border peatland area. Through the integration of satellite and in-situ observations with machine learning techniques, they aim to develop and validate a model that accurately captures current and future trends in peatland degradation and carbon release.

“Role of contacts in two-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures for solar energy harvesting applications”: Professor Dr. Ursula Wurstbauer (Institute of Physics and Center for Soft Nanoscience, Münster) and Professor Dr. Rebecca Saive (Faculty of Science and Technology/S&T, Inorganic Materials Science Group, Twente):

As our society grapples with an urgent energy crisis, local and renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power have become paramount, especially in regions like the Netherlands and Germany. In pursuit of sustainable solutions that promote a circular economy with minimal material usage and easy recyclability, Wurstbauer and Saive delve into the investigation, improvement, and fabrication of a highly promising class of materials for solar cells: nearly atomically thin two-dimensional heterostructures.

“The subject of batteries is high up on the international agenda”

Top-level experts from the Universities of Stanford (USA) and Twente (Netherlands) are visiting the MEET Battery Research Centre at the University of Münster from 24 to 26 January as part of a Winter School. About a year ago, a delegation from Münster University – including Rector Prof. Johannes Wessels and Prof. Martin Winter – and one from the University of Twente travelled to Stanford University in California. In the talks they held there, one of the topics discussed was the role of battery research and energy storage as a global challenge in the energy and mobility transition. The collaboration between Münster, Twente and Stanford in battery research is to be expanded to train highly qualified battery researchers. Kathrin Kottke spoke to Martin Winter – the Director of the MEET Battery Research Centre and of the Helmholtz Institute Münster (HI MS) at the Jülich Research Centre – about the scientific importance of the visit and about the next steps being planned in the collaboration.

The Director of MEET, Martin Winter, discusses the visit being paid to the Battery Research Centre by experts from Stanford and Twente [en]

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REACH – The EUREGIO Start-up Center

The North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Economics pledged some 20 million euros until 2024 to finance the establishment and operation of a start-up centre under the aegis of the University of Münster. The result is REACH. The start-up centre provides assistance in the form of essential infrastructure and resources to prospective entrepreneurs at the universities who wish to establish their own start-ups.