Each year, NWO and ZonMw can fund around sixty young researchers (for a total amount of around 9 million euros, spread over 3 rounds). The present awards relate to the second round of funding from 2025 and will go to a total of 24 researchers.

The UvA recipients

Dr R.L.M. van Herten (Amsterdam UMC, location AMC): The virtual AI assistant that helps doctors guide the stroke recovery trajectory
Despite successful blood flow restoration, many stroke patients fail to recover neurological function. Van Herten will therefore develop an advanced AI system that integrates multimodal brain imaging with clinical data to predict 90-day recovery outcomes. This explainable framework will help clinicians optimize treatment strategies and improve patient care.

Van Herten will go to Weill Cornell Medicine, US, for two years.

Dr M. Stoop (Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy): Coursing through the Galaxy: properties of the fastest explosive stars
Massive stars will end their life in an explosive supernova. A substantial fraction of these massive stars is observed to have an extraordinarily high velocity: so-called runaway stars. Stoop's project makes use of the ESA Gaia telescope to find thousands of runaway stars and investigate their yet unknown kinematic properties.

Stoop will go to Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Germany, for two years.

Dr J. Veenstra (Institute of Physics): Active Colloidal Solids: From Spontaneous Collectives to Distributed Machines
Veenstra's project develops active colloidal solids: mechanically linked assemblies of self-propelled microparticles whose elastic and active interactions generate shape change, motion, and mechanical response. Inspired by the distributed, force-coupled nature of living systems, this approach uncovers design principles for collective mechanical behavior, transforming fragile active matter into stable, adaptive materials functioning as distributed microscale machines.

Veenstra will go to ENS Lyon, France, for two years.