The Hesse Ministry for Science and the Arts in Wiesbaden today announced four new research projects, which are to be supported in their work with funds from the Hesse LOEWE Programme from 1 January 2021 onwards.  

The new LOEWE cluster entitled “WhiteBox – explicable models for human and artificial intelligence” at the Technical University of Darmstadt will receive approx. EUR 4.7 million. The research topic for this LOEWE cluster is the question of how to better explain artificial and human intelligence. The key issue at the new LOEWE cluster entitled “Diffusible Signals” (the impact of diffusible signals at human cell/microbe interfaces) at the University of Marburg is how bacteria ‘communicate’ with human inflammatory cells. The Hesse state government is supporting the project with funds totalling approx. EUR 4.8 million. The two iCANx and PriOSS projects in the fields of medicine and physics are being directed by the Justus Liebig University in Giessen; research groups from the Philipps University in Marburg and the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim are also involved. The iCANx LOEWE cluster: Cancer – Lung (Disease) Crosstalk: Tumour and Organ Micro-Environment will receive approx. EUR 3.2 million. The research scientists want to discover how to prevent the growth of lung tumours and tumour metastases in lungs. Previously unknown reactions on surfaces are to be decoded as part of LOEWE-PriOSS – Principles of Surface-Supported Synthesis Strategies – in order to develop fundamental mechanistic models of surface-supported synthesis. The amount of support here is approx. EUR 4.2 million.

Higher Education Minister Angela Dorn comments, “We want universities and research institutes to be future-oriented and multi-faceted, because we don’t know at this time what kinds of challenges we’ll be facing tomorrow and beyond that. We’re doing this by providing our universities with excellent equipment, by supporting their capacity for adopting strategic policies and particularly through the outstanding top-level research in LOEWE. “The variety of content in the applications reflects the broad research skills, but also the intense networking and innovative capability of Hesse’s universities and research institutes,” says Prof. Dr Karl Max Einhäupl, Chairperson of the LOEWE Programme Advisory Board, adding his opinion. The LOEWE Administrative Committee decided which projects should be supported with state funds in the 13^th round of the Hesse Research Support Programme on the basis of the assessments by outside experts and the recommendations of the LOEWE Programme Advisory Board. The chosen research projects will receive project funds totalling approx. EUR 17 million from the state programme for a period of four years from 1 January 2021 onwards.