To address complex societal challenges, like the climate crisis or pandemics, governments need to make evidence-based decisions based of best available data. Due to the rapid growth of tech companies, much of relevant data is now held by the private sector. This project investigates how to rebalance the ‘data asymmetry’ between governments and businesses and how the shared private sector data is used in government decisions on societal issues.

Proteins are able to assume different conformations, depending on their physical environment such as pH, ionic strength and the proximity of other molecules. The ability of proteins to switch between conformations is the basis of allostery, a collective effect that can lead to specific binding and a sensitive dependence on ligand concentration, such as in the binding of oxygen by hemoglobin. In the field of virology, there is strong evidence that the formation of virus capsids, shell-like aggregates that consist of tens to hundreds of copies of (often) the same capsid protein, coincides with a conformational change of the capsid proteins. Such a conformational switch in principle avoids long-lived intermediates (kinetic traps) and leads to strong hysteresis, which avoids that intact viruses rapidly fall apart once the coat protein concentration is below the critical aggregate concentration. However, it is very hard and perhaps even impossible to study the effect of conformational switches directly in proteins without altering other properties at the same time. In this proposal the goal is to create and study multiblock copolymers that have, by design, a well-defined and controlled conformational switch. The reason for choosing multiblock copolymers is that nowadays, in polymer chemistry, there hardly are fundamental limitations in terms of the number of the different blocks and their chemical nature that can be linked together. We address the question what the (quantitative) role is of conformational switches in: (1) the stability as well as the assembly and disassembly pathways of shell-like structures; (2) the ability to encapsulate cargo; and (3) the combined effects with so-called ‘origins of assembly’ with respect to specific encapsulation. This last effect is believed to be the basis for specific encapsulation of viral RNA in a mixture with non-specific RNA. If successful, this work will lead to a better understanding of the role of conformational switches in self-assembly in general, and opens up possible applications in material science as well as in the formulation of new types of drug and gene delivery vehicles.

Migration is a way to adapt to local environmental change. This project investigates the long-term relationship between environmental change and migration in the Netherlands from 1812 to 2023. The central question to the project is who migrates in response to environmental change, and why. A comprehensive dataset is created combining information on various environmental changes with individual-level migration data. Migration patterns in response to sudden and gradual environmental shifts are analysed, taking into account socio-economic and institutional changes over time. The findings aim to inform policy interventions to protect vulnerable populations and advance the academic understanding of environmental migration.

For innovation to happen it is not enough that new ideas and technologies are being invented. Cultural factors play an essential role in their acceptance and appropriation. Recent scholarship hypothesises that Europeans after 1650 became more receptive to new technology and innovation than their ancestors, and so enabled the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution. The spread of new knowledge and techniques among scholars and specialists between 1500-1850 is indeed well-documented. Yet since acceptance by specialists does not guarantee wider acceptance, we will study how and to what effect, new knowledge actually anchored among the wider public. This project focuses on the circulation and evaluation of new knowledge, ideas and technologies among a non-specialist public of middle-class authors in the Netherlands, who kept handwritten chronicles to record events and phenomena that they considered important. We develop a method to use them in large numbers and comparatively, so as to track and analyse the circulation, evaluation and acceptance of old and new ideas and information over time and spatially. We will create a large high quality annotated corpus of texts, develop computational tools to trace patterns in topics, perspectives and appreciation of novelty and to alert us to passages that require further, qualitative analysis by close reading. In this way we will assess the circulation of new ideas, their reception, and the impact on attitudes to novelty and tradition in wider society.