Three scientists receive prestigious ERC Advanced Grants
European funding enables scholars to carry out ambitious projects
No fewer than three scholars from the University of Antwerp – Joke Hadermann, Dirk Van Hulle and Annelies Van Rie – have been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant. ‘If you secure that kind of funding, you’re playing in the Champions League of academic research,’ says Maarten Weyn, Vice-Rector of Research and Impact.
Every year, the European Commission frees up large budgets for groundbreaking scientific research. Amongst other things, it awards grants through the European Research Council (ERC). There are five different types of research grants. One of them focuses specifically on highly promising postdoctoral researchers, while another funds collaborative projects between scholars.
The ERC Advanced Grant is intended for experienced scholars with proven expertise and international recognition. The funding allows them to spend several years working on a large-scale research project. In 2025, the ERC is awarding Advanced Grants to 281 researchers, amounting to a total of 721 million euros. 17 Advanced Grants have been awarded to Belgian universities.
‘In the recent past, researchers from the University of Antwerp have been awarded such a grant on several occasions, but the “tally” in 2025 is nothing short of impressive: no fewer than three scholars, from three different fields of research, have received the exceptionally good news from Europe,’ says Vice-Rector Maarten Weyn.
Tackling tuberculosis
In the years ahead, Annelies Van Rie (Global Health Institute) will intensify her focus on combating drug-resistant tuberculosis, a persistent form of TB that’s becoming increasingly common. ‘We need to make sure that scientific advances can also stop epidemics in poorer countries,’ says Professor Van Rie. ‘Our goal is to develop breakthrough tools that translate our ever-growing knowledge on drug resistance in the tuberculosis bacillus into action.’
Prof Annelies Van Rie.
Together with a team in South Africa, her team will therefore develop an innovative approach that will allow patients to receive optimal treatment faster and public health professionals to intervene more efficiently to prevent further spread of the bacillus. ‘If the new approach works, it could fundamentally change the way we fight drug-resistant diseases worldwide.’
The inspiration of great writers
Dirk Van Hulle (Department of Literature) also secured an ERC Advanced Grant. He will spend the next few years concentrating on Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. In so doing, he won’t focus on the books these top authors wrote themselves, but on their input, the books they read that had an impact on their own work.
Prof Dirk Van Hulle.
‘Much research remains to be done on this,’ says Van Hulle. ‘We’re going to digitally bring together the books that these authors once owned, but that have become scattered across dozens of different collections and archives, as well as the ones that have disappeared. This will result in three online libraries, making it possible to make connections between the source texts, the notes the authors took and their own works.’
Better energy materials
The research project led by Joke Hadermann (Department of Physics) aims to develop a new cutting-edge electron microscopy technique that, over time, is to lead to innovations such as better batteries and solar cells with longer lifespans. ‘Most components contain extremely small particles that themselves contain multiple crystal phases. Those crystal phases change during operation and interact with each other, but how this happens and what impact it has is still unclear. We’re going to unravel that mystery with our new technique.’
Prof Joke Hadermann.
The Advanced Grant for Joke Hadermann means the Research Group Electron Microscopy for Material Science (EMAT) now boasts ten ERC research grants. ‘Talk about having an impact,’ says Weyn. ‘This is really unique in Flanders.’ A full list of all of UAntwerp’s ERC grantees can be found at https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/research/publications-and-expertise/research-excellence/erc/.