Supported projects

MOL - Recent research shows that deep in our genes we are easterners. We are largely descended from steppe peoples who crossed into Europe five thousand years ago.

EUROPE - Twenty years ago the first SARS outbreak gave the warning. But Europe has failed to prepare for the Covid-19 pandemic due to a lack of funding for drug research and may still fail to prepare for the next pandemuc, argue several prominent scientists interviewed by Stefano Valentino and Gian Paolo Accardo.

BRUSSELS - A good 15 percent of all spending within research and development in Flemish higher education comes from companies. Private companies finance research projects and doctorates and purchase licenses. But the line between close cooperation and conflict of interest between university and company is sometimes wafer-thin.

UNITED STATES - American Dreams is a journalistic multimedia story by Johannes De Bruycker. The project explores a wide range of philosophical and scientific issues, including the nature of reality, (lucid) dreams and nightmares, consciousness and trauma.

BRUSSELS - With a delay of more than 6 months, the drug use space GATE opened its doors in the Belgian capital on May 5, 2022.

BRUSSELS - The sperm bank appeals to the imagination. Especially its pioneering years, when there were no rules and doctors did as they pleased. Yet hardly anyone knows how it used to be, because donor insemination happened in the greatest secrecy.

CAPE TOWN - While in Belgium almost eighty per cent of the population has been vaccinated, in Africa the percentage is still pitifully low.

BRUSSELS - Though they are right under our feet, soils do not receive much attention. Yet the many free services they provide for us are truly priceless, and they are under pressure. What can we do to prevent all this, and to repair damaged soils, Tim Vernimmen asked eight soil scientists in four countries. In response, they told him about all the things healthy soils can do for us - our food and water needs, our buildings, our health, and the climate - inspiring an article for the popular science magazine EOS that became a plea to stop ignoring the soil. 

SCHIEDAM - A radically different view of cholesterol and cardiovascular disease, that is what The Cholesterol Myth is all about. Part of it is that cholesterol is no longer the big bogeyman, but, according to experts, can be seen as a positive, body-specific, even healing substance. On closer inspection, cholesterol also plays a positive role in our diet. These visions underpinned in the book raise the question of what causes all those cardiovascular patients to die every day, just as the author almost lost his father.

BRUSSELS - The five Flemish universities have made considerable progress in the area of gender equality in recent years. Yet at this rate it would take until 2050 before there is gender balance among academic staff. Only slightly more than one in four professors in Flanders is female - while there is no shortage of highly educated women.