Supported projects

CAMBRIDGE/LOUVAIN-LA-NEUVE - How do we use the available land in our own region, and what impact does that have elsewhere? That question is crucial for our food supply, poverty reduction, nature conservation, and the fight against climate change. Unfortunately, there are many misconceptions about land use.

BRUSSELS - A maze of European subsidy rules has created a lucrative niche: grant consultants. These consultancy firms earn substantial sums by assisting researchers with their subsidy applications. This raises a fundamental question: does current research policy steer science too much towards competition and market value, at the expense of an open, societal approach to research?

AMSTERDAM - On the eve of the annual World Antibiotic Awareness Week, De sluipende pandemie (The Sneaking Pandemic) was published on November 12, 2025. This new book by Rinke van den Brink explores the rise of antibiotic resistance, the failures of healthcare systems, and the urgent need for global cooperation. The Sneaking Pandemic is the follow-up to Het einde van de antibiotica. Hoe bacteriën winnen van een wondermiddel (The End of Antibiotics: How Bacteria Are Beating a Miracle Drug), published in 2013, and describes what has happened in this field since then.

AMSTERDAM - What images are associated with fertility, masculinity and fatherhood in society? In 'Mannen die zwijgen' (Men Who Remain Silent), Tomas Vanheste explores the stigma attached to male fertility issues, examining possible causes and treatments.

SVALBARD - 'De laatste wildernis' (The Last Wilderness) takes you to two of the most extreme and inaccessible places on Earth: the North and South Poles, and the depths of the ocean.

BRUSSELS - This book features donor families of today. What is their story? How did they choose a donor? With what words do they talk about this at the kitchen table? And what reactions do they get from those around them? Children also have their say in this book. What are their needs, questions or wishes regarding their genesis?

BRUSSELS - Mythical as a dragon, but also real; people have become attached to an image of what might have been a dinosaur. A team of researchers set out to find the definitive evidence of what caused the end of the dinosaur era. One fine line in the rock bed contains knowledge down to the minute, from that fateful day, 66 million years ago.

ANTWERP - With the help of thousands of women, the microbiology lab at the University of Antwerp is going on a voyage of discovery into the underside of the female body: what microorganisms are found in the vagina, what are they doing there and what can we learn from them? The social relevance of this pioneering work is beyond question....

ANTWERP - Take a morning-after pill every day for two years. That was long the doctor's advice to girls who were 'too big'. The side effects, such as reduced fertility, were hardly taken seriously.

ZURICH/ALTMULTHAL - Fossils of dinosaurs are the new Picassos and Van Goghs. Millions are often given for precious skeletons. Such is the case for Trinity, the skeleton of a T. rex that Antwerp entrepreneur Fernand Huts bought a year and a half ago.

ANTWERPEN - Valère, Veerle Duflou's partner, chose to donate his body to science. Ten years after his death, Veerle wants to know what happens to those bodies. She goes to the Antwerp University anatomy lab and follows the people to whom these bodies end up.

BRUSSELS - Our meat consumption must go down, and to facilitate this, an army of producers is ready with alternatives. Some found inspiration in age-old recipes, others are reinventing meat altogether.

PUERTO BAQUERIZO MORENO - A visual documentation of the human history of Galápagos and its first inhabitants, who bore witness to the development of the last century.

ANTWERP - There are many forgotten disasters around the world, but one day they will be in the news again. Are we prepared for when the alert levels reach code red again?

COLOMBO - A Sri Lankan scientist, also a young mother, is trying to map the patterns of migrating coral larvae to protect the future of coral reefs and her people.

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.

GALWAY/NUUK/REYKJAVIK - For months now, the North Atlantic has been plagued by extreme heat waves. The new high-tech research vessel the Belgica is sailing to the polar regions for the first time to document and investigate the effects of climate change in the oceans. Journalists Arno Van Rensbergen and Johannes De Bruycker went on board for a week.

BRUSSELS - Twenty years ago, the first SARS outbreak sounded the alarm. But Europe failed to prepare for the Covid-19 pandemic due to a lack of funding for drug research, and may still be unprepared for the next one, 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.

BOSTON/WASHINGTON D.C. - 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 - After a delay of more than six months, the GATE drug consumption room opened its doors in the Belgian capital on 5 May 2022. Can this project succeed in Brussels and can this harm prevention tool be developed in other cities in Belgium, Europe and in Flanders?

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.

BELGIUM - The share of the pharmaceutical sector in the Belgian economy is large. According to the organization pharma.be in 2017, the sector employed 35,711 people and our country exported for a total value of 40.5 billion euros of medicines and vaccines worldwide, which is about 10% of Belgian exports. 

BRUSSELS - A six-part documentary series behind the scenes of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences.

BELGIUM - Fourteen years ago, Karen * gave birth to a daughter. A girl like other girls, but with a Y-chromosome, that's how Karen describes it herself. This Y-chromosome caused her daughter to develop testicles during pregnancy. Her body was insensitive to the testosterone that the testicles produce, so she developed as a girl. Coincidentally, Karen knew that something like that sometimes happens. Shortly before the delivery, she saw a documentary about children born with a variation in sex characteristics. She was already startled by the lack of specific support for parents of these children. After the birth of her own child, she experienced it herself.

HANOI - Last year's publication of a scientific paper announcing Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier had succeeded in growing an airborne avian influenza virus in his lab in Rotterdam caused a big stir. Though inherently risky, such research was necessary, he argued, because it would teach us which naturally occuring viruses to look out for.