From cheers to tense sighs: results Kiem lottery 2025 announced
At a festive gathering, 25 projects were awarded a Kiem grant 2025 - 2026 of 10,000 euros. Interdisciplinary teams from Leiden University will conduct innovative research into horror, international payments and fungi in historical collections, among others.
Here's a sight you don't see very often: a room full of scientists and support staff gazing tensely at a bingo wheel. And yet that is exactly what happened during the draw of the Kiem scholarship 2025 - 2026. Because fate will decide which 25 interdisciplinary ideas will receive a sum of 10,000 euros. With every ball that was drawn, there were cheers or dogged sighs. And during the drawing of the very last number, everyone present played a drum roll on their knees.
Various domains
This year, 58 teams affiliated with at least two faculties applied for a Kiem scholarship. Like last year, the grants were awarded by drawing lots. The “winning” projects will work on complex issues in interdisciplinary teams. The research areas are hugely diverse. From new medicines to climate action, from better understanding of the quantum world to better interdisciplinary education.
Fear, fungi and payment
A selection of the winning projects: why can being scared be so much fun, for instance while watching a horror film or listening to scary stories? Social scientists, humanities scholars and science communicators will investigate this, including by building a real haunted house. Another partnership will map fungi in the university's historical buildings, with the aim of better understanding fungi, looking for new variants and investigating risks for books and people. In a third project, public administration experts and lawyers will jointly examine different international payment systems and the intertwining of economic systems and politics.
All tendered projects have a duration of one year. The final round of Kiem is expected to take place next year.
About the Kiem grant
Through the Kiem grant, Leiden University aims to promote interdisciplinary work, both in the field of research and teaching, and in the field of support. Therefore, in principle, all employees of the university can apply for the scholarship, as long as two or more faculties are involved in the application. Each year, €10,000 is available for up to 25 projects; the last round is expected to take place next year.
The Kiem scholarship could be applied for the first time in 2023. Wonderful results have already emerged from the various projects. For example, a Kiem study looked into a large patient database to find the link between violence and health problems; the results gave the researchers enough confidence to submit a larger grant application. A Kiem project on safety and danger produced a new research network; a third Kiem project developed a way to create hyper-realistic 3D environments relatively easily - those environments can be applied in all sorts of ways. The Kiem website gives you a good idea of the projects submitted and implemented.