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Committee on Interdisciplinary Research

The Committee implements the Board of the Foundation’s grant decision to award visiting Postdoctoral Fellowships with the partner institutions Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Oxford, Stanford Bio-X and Weizmann Institute of Science, and the grants for the Interdisciplinary Synergy Programme and the Explorative Interdisciplinary Synergy Programme, that supports novel, cross-disciplinary, high-risk/high-gain research initiatives.

The Board has established an annual grant budget of DKK 157 million for support of Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Fellowships at the four prestigious institutions Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford Bio-X, University of Oxford and Weizmann Institute of Science (DKK 32 million), and up to five Interdisciplinary Synergy Programme grants, each of up to DKK 15 million and up to ten Explorative Interdisciplinary Synergy Programme grants, each of up to DKK 5 million.

The Committee members are appointed by the Board in accordance with the general rules covering the Foundation’s committees.

The current members of the Committee are listed below.

Sine Lo Svenningsen

Chair

Associate professor, Section for Biomolecular Sciences, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Member since 2019

Helen Byrne

Member

Professor of Applied Mathematics, Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, Member since 2024
Member since 2024

Asger Mortensen

Member

Professor, SDU NanoOptics, Southern University of Denmark, Denmark
Member since 2019

Maija Tenkanen

Member

Professor, Vice-Dean in Research, Department of Food and Nutrition, University of Helsinki, Finland
Member since 2020

Robert Russell

Member

Professor, Faculty of Bioscience, University of Heidelberg, Germany
Member since 2021

Thomas Schön

Member

Professor, Department of Information Technology, Uppsala University, Sweden
Member since 2021

Max Nieuwdorp

Member

Professor, Internal Medicine, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Member since 2022

Amparo Acker-Palmer

Member

Professor, Institute for Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Goethe University, Germany
Member since 2022

Erwin Reisner

Member

Professor, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Member since 2023