The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded an Advanced Grant to six Leiden researchers. It awards these significant grants to established principal investigators for ground-breaking, high-risk research.

Physicist Martin van Hecke is one of the most innovative researchers in the Netherlands. He studies the surprisingly complex behaviour of seemingly simple systems. Serious physics and everyday problems come together in his work. His work is an example of how fundamental and applied research can go hand in hand. In 2019 he developed ‘programmable origami’, for instance, which was published in Nature Physics.

Read more about Martin van Hecke’s ERC Grant.