Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter

21/12 Valorisation Grants for 21 entrepreneurial researchers

Technology Foundation STW has awarded a Valorisation Grant to 21 entrepreneurial researchers. They can use this to further develop their scientific discoveries into a commercial application. The Valorisation Grant is partly funded by the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM). A total of 1.575 million euros was awarded in this funding round. Read more

21/12 Microwaves calm fusion plasma hiccups

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Ir. Gert Witvoet has developed smart control strategies for the so-called sawtooth instability, an always present 'hiccup' in the hot plasma of a nuclear fusion reactor. The frequency of the hiccups influences the reactor's efficiency. Witvoet, a PhD student at Eindhoven University of Technology, developed a model and control system for the sawtooth together with researchers from the Dutch Institute for Plasma Physics FOM-Rijnhuizen. Read more

FOM Office closed between Christmas and New Year

15/12 Rubicon for young talent

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has given three Rubicon-grants to research with a physics research theme or physics component. Ferry Prins, Lia Verhoeff and Liesbeth Janssen are part of 28 researchers who have recently gained their PhDs and will have the opportunity to carry out research abroad thanks to support from the Rubicon programme. Read more

15/12 Christmas issue FOM expres online

The last issue of FOM expres in 2011 has been published. The Christmas issue is once again full of interesting news articles and background information about the FOM Foundation, the FOM institutes and the Administrative Unit for Research Groups at Universities. Read more

14/12 Changes to the membership of the Governing Board and Executive Board of FOM

In the board meetings of Tuesday 13 December 2011, the Governing Board and the Executive Board of the FOM Foundation reached the decision to change the membership of both boards. This means that several members will retire from the boards, several will be reappointed and that new members will be appointed as well. This news release provides an overview of the changes. Read more

14/12 ATLAS and CMS experiments present Higgs search status

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In a seminar held at CERN on 13 December, the ATLAS and CMS experiments presented the status of their searches for the Standard Model Higgs boson. Their results are based on the analysis of considerably more data than those presented at the summer conferences, sufficient to make significant progress in the search for the Higgs boson, but not enough to make any conclusive statement on the existence or non-existence of the elusive Higgs. Read more

08/12 Davide Iannuzzi presents research during Innovation Convention

FOM workgroup leader Dr. Davide Iannuzzi was under the spotlight during the 'Innovation Convention' held on 5 and 6 December in Brussels where he had a stand explaining his research in the field of 'Fiber-top technology'. His stand was one of two to be honoured with a visit from European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn. Read more

01/12 Piet Mulders and Beatriz Noheda appointed APS Fellow

The American Physical Society (APS) has appointed Professor Piet Mulders and Professor Beatriz Noheda as 'Fellows of the American Physical Society'. The Fellowships signify their colleagues' recognition of their exceptional contributions to physics. No more than 0.5% of American Physical Society members are honoured in this fashion. The fellowship certificate will be presented in March 2012. Read more

28/11 Green plastic powered by FOM, Michelin, SKF and DPI

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The FOM Foundation is forming a partnership with Michelin, SKF and Dutch Polymer Institute (DPI) to gain a better fundamental understanding of how polymers are reinforced by adding fillers. Today the partners signed the contract for this new FOM Industrial Partnership Programme that has a budget of 1.6 million euros. Nearly all 'plastic' objects around us consist of polymers that have been reinforced with fillers to improve their physical properties. The researchers have set their sights high: they want to be the first to make a quantitative connection between the macroscale properties and performances of these reinforced materials and their structure at the molecular level. The partners will jointly deploy a wide range of advanced techniques to study the network structures at the mesoscale. Read more

Press releases 2011