A lot is going on within NCOH. Last month, 11 proposals were submitted as part of the NCOH PhD programme call “Complex systems”, which comprise a total of 17 PhD projects. That means that a considerable number of PhD projects will be allocated in the NCOH PhD programme, which is funded from the Partner contributions to the NCOH. Together with the first round of 8 PhD students in the “Metagenomics” call, and additional in-kind projects, over 30 PhD positions will soon be filled.
Three consortia expressed an interest in submitting a project to the Topsector Life Sciences & Health One Health call on prophylactic vaccines and preventive strategies. This call is expected to open at the end of April. The preparations for this call are ongoing at present, and as part of this development, the ‘One Health’ debate took place on Thursday 28 February 2019 in The Hague. This debate marked the conclusion of the Castellum research programme, a public-private partnership aimed at developing vaccines against zoonoses, and the start of the new Topsector Life Sciences and Health One Health call.
In addition to these two calls, Marion Koopmans took the initiative to submit a proposal with several NCOH Partners across three NCOH Strategic Research Themes in response to the “Nationale Wetenschapsagenda” call. Partners from Wageningen University and Research and Utrecht University are also involved in the so called ‘REGIODEAL’; a specific programme focused on circular and low emission farming in the region Utrecht/Gelderland.
Last but not least, I would like to invite you all to the NCOH Annual Scientific Meeting with the theme “Complex Systems”. The Annual Meeting will take place on the 17 May 2019 in Nijmegen. Then we will also present to you the Young NCOH Board that is being installed; this board of young researchers will support and coordinate the network of NCOH PhD students and post-docs in many of our Young NCOH activities.
Sincerely yours,
Dick Heederik
Chair NCOH Executive Board