Climate researcher Diana Suhardiman and cancer researcher Geert Kops are amongst the recipients of an ERC Advanced Grant. Suhardiman will use the grant to do research on better understanding grassroots adaptation forces and practices towards more inclusive and just climate governance. Kops receives a grant to study the structure of human centromeres, crucial regions of our chromosomes that ensure proper cell division.
Go directly to: navigation
Go directly to: content
KNAW researchers receive ERC Advanced Grants
Suhardiman is director of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) and special professor of Natural Resource Governance, Climate and Equity at Cultural Anthropology and Development Studies at Leiden University. Suhardiman will use the grant of € 2.5 million to do research on better understanding grassroots adaptation forces and practices towards more inclusive and just climate governance.
Diana Suhardiman, KITLV
'Local communities in Southeast Asia have been forced to adapt, drawing on their tacit knowledge, cultural values, and the ability to continuously evolve. And yet, their knowledge systems are almost absent in global discussions on climate adaptation. The ERC Advanced Grant, will enable us to create grassroots inter-scalar climate adaptation assemblies and networks towards more inclusive and just adaptation.'
Suhardiman recieves a grant for TRACE, a research project that will bring together a number of case studies as embryo to set up a platform to better understand grassroots adaptation practices and connect them with national and global climate discussions. Conceptually, this platform will advance our understanding of adaptation through the lenses of knowledge, culture, and agency. For example, farmers in Indonesia continuously adapt their crop planting season while using at least nine different calendar systems at the same time. Similarly, fishermen have continuously (re)arranged their seafaring routes in response to climate and agrarian change, conflict, and globalization.
Crucial errors in cell division
Geert Kops is director of the Hubrecht Institute, group leader, professor of Molecular Tumor Cell Biology at the University Medical Center Utrecht and Oncode Institute Investigator. Geert Kops receives an ERC Advanced grant to study the structure of human centromeres, crucial regions of our chromosomes that ensure proper cell division. Mistakes in this process can lead to cancer, developmental disorders, or miscarriages. Kops and his colleagues will investigate the molecular events that shape centromeres during cell division, and what goes wrong in cancer cells.
Geert Kops, Hubrecht Institute
'This grant enables us to use various cutting-edge imaging and DNA sequencing technologies in a range of human cells and tissue models to understand the shape of centromeres. Given the centromere’s essential role in chromosome segregation, we also aim to learn more about the role of the centromere in cancer cells.'
To ensure correct distribution of genetic material, the DNA is packaged into chromosomes that attach to fibers capable of pulling them into the two new cells. The site of the cromosome where this connection happens is called the centromere, a specialized region that marks the “center” of the iconic X-shaped chromosome. The precize structure of the centromere is crucial to make robust connections with the fibres, and to resist the forces involved in pulling the chromosomes apart. The project, titled CENTROSHAPE, will uncover the structure of human centromeres and the key molecular events that shape them during cell division.
About the ERC and the ERC Advanced grant
The ERC, set up by the European Union in 2007, is the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. It funds creative researchers of any nationality and age, to run projects based across Europe.
The ERC Advanced Grant is designed to support established research leaders pursuing ambitious projects across all fields of science. Recipients of the ERC Advanced Grants are active researchers with a track-record of significant research achievements. They are exceptional leaders in terms of originality and significance of their research contributions. The ERC Advanced grant offers up to 2.5 million for a period of 5 years.