Award of 33 Kiem grants for new interdisciplinary initiatives

Published on 17 July 2023

No fewer than 55 applications were submitted for a Kiem seed grant, an initiative for developing new interdisciplinary, interfaculty research partnerships and encounters. The draw took place on Monday for the allocation of 22 seed grants. The Executive Board was so impressed with the number of applications that they made extra funding available and ultimately 33 projects received funding.

In recent months, researchers at Leiden University have been encouraged to submit projects that promote interdisciplinary research collaborations. At least two researchers have to be involved in each application, and each of them must be attached to a different faculty. And because we want to create opportunities for talented young people to gain experience, at least one early-stage researcher has to be part of each project. Caroline de Ruijter (SAZ) explained earlier about the background to the Kiem grants: ‘This call is part of the bigger ambition to promote interdisciplinary research at the university. Ultimately, there will be three steps: Kiem, Groei and Bloei (Seed, Growth and Expansion). The Kiem grant is intended as seed funding for smaller cross-faculty projects involving early-stage researchers. A maximum of 10,000 euros is available for each proposal.’ 

The successful Kiem projects

There were more applications than the available number of grants so a draw took place on Monday 10 July among those projects that met the eligibility conditions. The result is that 33 teams can now get started with their project. 

Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl: ‘I’m very happy with the result of the KIEM call, especially with the diversity of proposals and some unexpected partnerships. This is another step towards more interdisciplinary research within the university. I wish the teams every success and a lot of fun as they get started with their projects, and I look forward to hearing the results.’

The following KIEM teams will receive a seed grant of a maximum of €10,000:

Lead applicant	Title of research project	Collaborating faculties
Wiep Klaas Smits	Mining the genome of bacteria cultured from the stool of healthy humans	LUMC/FWN
Marta Elena Artola Pérez de Azanza	Screening Assay for Identifying Ligands Of RNA pseudoknots as new antibacterial and antiviral discovery platform	FWN/LUMC
Marieke Liem	Violence as a Population Health Problem	FGGA/FSW/LUMC
Kartica van der Zon	Oprichting kenniscentrum en ontwikkelplan m.b.t. interdisciplinaire samenwerking tussen Jeugdrecht & Pedagogische Wetenschappen	FdR/FSW
Olga Gadyatskaya	Ethics@ULEI: Organization of international seminar on ethics in teaching and research in cyber security and artificial intelligence	FWN/FdR/FGGA
Dario Fazzi	Beyond Risk? Understanding the Threats of the Anthropocene	FGW/FWN/FdR/FGGA
Bas Nijboer	Hoe maken we van interdisciplinaire samenwerking een succes	FGGA/FSW/FdA/FWN
Julia Henrich	Skills for interdisciplinarity and mental health in a complex work environment	LUMC/FSW/FdR/ICLON
Amanda Henry	Spark: Fire and Human Evolution	FdA/FSW/LUMC
Liesbeth van Vliet	Exploring Personal Connection in Serious Illness Communication	FSW/LUMC
Aris Politopoulos	Crafting Heritage Experiences: Fostering collective engagement with the past through Minecraft	FdA/FGW
Jiska Aardoom	Duurzame zorg: Hoe wordt dit ervaren door de patiënt?	LUMC/FSW
Daniela Vicherat Mattar	BOCA Building Other forms of Communicating the Academy	FGGA/FGW/IIAS
Akrati Saxena	The Impact of Affirmative Actions on International Academic Collaboration	FWN/FSW
Rebecca Schaefer	Mood and music in the brain: Influences of mental health on behavioral and neural correlates of music-based motor learning	FSW/LUMC
Carsten Stahn	Changing Approaches Towards Restitution and Return of Colonial Heritage: Tracing Experiences and Identifying Shared Decolonial Practices	FGW/FdA
Roos van Oosten	Academic conferences in the 21st century: practicing what we preach	FdA/FGGA/FdR
John Burton Kegel	The re-enchantment of infrastructure in Africa: Comparing Colonial and Contemporary Coastal Corridors	IIAS/FSW/FGW
Willem Jespers	Investigating the role of the H1N1 proteome as potential triggers of the auto-immune response leading to narcolepsy type 1	FWN/LUMC
Ksenia Fedorova	Exploring the Gap between Embodied Cognition and Generative AI	FGW/FWN
Samira Rezaei	Deep learning in scientific imaging: the intersection of astrophysics and medicine	FWN/LUMC
Mariska Kret	“Bridging Animal Affective Science and Emotion Psychology using Affective Computing” – a Leiden University pre-conference workshop at the International Society for Research on Emotion (SRE) in July 2024	FSW/FWN
Francesco Ragazzi	ReCNTR Lab: Multimodal Research Work-in-Progress Series	FSW/FGW/FWN
Laura van der Velde	Exploring facilitators and barriers for reducing stigma related to food aid through a camera lens: a participatory photovoice study among people experiencing food poverty	LUMC/FSW
Susana Valdez	Health and Migration: Understanding the use of AI and machine translation in doctor-patient communication	FGW/LUMC
Sarah L. Carthy	Hurting yourself to hurt others: Examining the role of counterfinality in antisocial punishment	FGGA/FSW
D.K. de Vries	Elaborating organ damage and kidney transplantation outcomes	LUMC/FWN
Olga Bogolyubova	Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Safety and Danger in the Digital World	FGGA/FWN/FdR/FSW
Jorrit Smit	Excavating Fossilized Data. A cross-cut analysis of the ties between university research and fossil industries	FSW/FWN/FGGA
Tim de Coster	Cardiac Chaos Control study group	LUMC/FWN
Lydie Cabane	Protecting against disasters: interdisciplinary perspectives on the notion of protection	FGGA/FSW/FdR
Rosanne Govaarts	The developing brain in neuromuscular diseases	LUMC/FSW
Hendrik Vrijburg	Eliciting willingness to pay for domestic and international climate change policies	FdR/FGGA/FSW

About the KIEM grants

Whether it is climate change, public health or artificial intelligence, there are some areas where science flourishes even more when different disciplines join forces. With the new small-scale Kiem grants, Leiden researchers can now explore or start collaborative projects with colleagues from other faculties. With the KIEM call, Leiden University has made 33 seed grants available, each worth a maximum of €10,000.