260 million SEK to research within materials in first WISE call
A total of 193 applications were submitted in the first PhD and postdoc call within Wallenberg Initiative Materials Science for Sustainability (WISE). Now, 90 projects have been awarded a total of 260 million SEK by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW), and 13 of the projects belong to KTH.
The 90 selected projects are distributed broadly across the seven involved universities: Chalmers University of Technology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Linköping University, Lund University, Luleå University of Technology, Stockholm University, and Uppsala University, as well as selected groups at Umeå University and Karlstad University.
"The granted projects are of very high quality and relevance for sustainability and are carried out by prominent researchers in each project's research area," says Magnus Berggren, WISE Programme Director.
The research projects are distributed across the entire spectrum of WISE's research and thematic areas. The gender distribution of funded applicants was 31 percent for women and 69 percent for men, while the distribution for success rates for granted applicants is 54 percent for women and 44 percent for men. Furthermore, 61 percent of the researchers granted funding have an academic age of less than 20 years, i.e., received PhD degree more recent than 20 years ago.
"The high success rate of female applicants stands out in comparison to other funding organizations and shows high competence of Sweden's female researchers in this important and exciting field," says Olle Eriksson, vice Director of the WISE programme.
"Further, the regrowth of young investigators in the area is exceptional, which is crucial for reaching a sustainable society," says Magnus Berggren.
KTH's granted projects
- Biodegradable organic semiconductors for zero waste electronic sensors (PhD student project). Project leader: Anna Herland
- New sustainable composites by uniting cemented carbides and advanced high-strength steels, (PhD student project). Project leader: Annika Borgenstam
- Superconducting materials with broken time reversal symmetry and fractional-flux-quanta-based cryogenic computers (PhD student project). Project leader: Egor Babaev
- 2D Materials for Electrochemical Transistors Targeting Near Zero Energy Neuromorphic Computing (PhD student project). Project leader: Frank Niklaus
- Electrodes for Hydrogen Production using Anion Exchange Membrane Water Electrolysis (postdoc project). Project leader: Göran Lindbergh
- Single Atom Catalysts for Sustainable Conversion of Synthetic Chemicals (PhD student project). Project leader: Jonas Weissenrieder
- Towards green magnetic cooling (PhD student-project). Project leader: Levente Vitos
- Electroresponsive self-assembly for ?-layer Supercapacitors (postdoc project). Project leader: Mark Rutland
- Scrap-tolerant and recycling-friendly metallic alloys (postdoc project). Project leader: Peter Hedström
- Self-organized liquid-infused materials for CO2 capture (postdoc project). Project leader: Shervin Bagheri
- Regenerable materials for water purification created from functional algal polymers (postdoc project). Project leader: Ulrica Edlund
- Function and stability of new materials and interfaces for solar cells (PhD student project). Project leader: Ute Cappel
- Anisotropic Cu aerogel monolith electrocatalyst (postdoc project). Project leader: Yuanyuan Li