Prof. Benoit Vanhollebeke, Director of the Neurovascular Signaling Laboratory at ULB and Investigator at the WEL Research Institute, is the 2024 laureate of the Pierre & Simone Clerdent Foundation Triennial Award, awarded by the FNRS.

The Award, worth 400,000 euros, provides three years' support for a medical research project in the field of human neurology carried out by a university team based in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation.

The research carried out by Prof. Benoit Vanhollebeke and his team focuses on the brain's blood vessels, which form the blood-brain barrier that protects the brain from toxic blood components. This barrier, which is established during embryonic development, plays an important role in the progression of many neurological diseases.

The Simone & Pierre Clerdent Fondation Award 2024 will be awarded to Pr Benoit Vanhollebeke on Thursday November 14, 2024.

The press release in PDF format

The Scientific Committees and Panels began meeting this week. 15 ‘Credits & Projects’ and IISN scientific committees, 41 FRIA juries and 8 FRESH juries are meeting until 14 November to assess the applications.

The Gagna & Van Heck International Prize for incurable diseases, a worldwide award presented every three years by the FNRS, has been presented for the first time to a Belgian team. Laurence Boon (Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc de Bruxelles, UCLouvain) and Miikka Vikkula (Institut de Duve, UCLouvain) were rewarded for their contribution to the complex spectrum of orphan vascular diseases, leading to significant therapeutic advancements and practical solutions.  

They have been united in work and life for 30 years, represent an example of biomedical vocation and work tirelessly to improve the daily lives of patients suffering from poorly understood diseases.

Miikka Vikkula is Professor of Genetics at UCLouvain's Institut de Duve and Investigator at the WEL Research Institute; Laurence Boon is Professor, Clinical Physician and Coordinator of the Vascular Malformations Center at Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc in Brussels (UCLouvain). 

Together, they have been rewarded for their contribution to a better understanding of orphan vascular diseases, and for the significant therapeutic advances they have made.

• See the press release...
• See the article in l’Echo...
• See the report in RTLinfo 19h...

The FRFS and the WEL Research Institute have opened the second “WEL-T Investigator Programme” call 

This call is funded by the Walloon region, for strategic research of excellence in engineering, chemistry and physics with a view to developing breakthrough innovations for industrial applications aimed at sustainable transition.  This programme is open to researchers from the universities of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation who are either established (Advanced grants, max. €350,000/year) or at the beginning of their career (Starting grants, max. €200,000/year).

More info... 

Thanks to the help of the King Baudouin Foundation, acting on behalf of the SofinaBoël Fund for Education and Talent, the FNRS and the FWO (the Research Foundation Flanders) will grant in 2025 the SofinaBoël Fellowships to talented PhD students for a research and/or training stay abroad.

SofinaBoël Fellowships 

• Aimed at talented PhD students for a research and/or training stay abroad.​
• Candidates may go abroad to a host institution of their choice in all countries worldwide except the United States of America (for which another mobility scheme with the BAEF exists).
• The stay abroad will last either 6 or 12 months and should fall within the academic year 2025-2026.

Fellowships support

• Fixed allowance of 1.650 €/month. Top-up funding that may be used for accommodation, daily living expenses, expenses related to the research or training undertaken in the course of the Fellowship, and local transportation.
• Travel costs: a lump sum of 1.000 € covering one economy class return ticket.

Eligibility criteria

• Candidates must be PhD students with a fully paid affiliation at a Belgian University at the deadline of the call and when leaving for the research stay. 
• Candidates are expected to maintain their paid affiliation for the entire duration of their stay.
• Candidates must have obtained a MA or MSc after November 1^st, 2020.
• Candidates must have been affiliated to a Belgian university for at least one full year prior to the submission deadline and be affiliated to a Belgian university for at least the entire duration of the research stay.​
• Beneficiaries of clinical PhD fellowships, as well as candidates from the Royal Military Academy, are eligible.
• Candidates who have already obtained a SofinaBoël Fellowship in the past are not eligible. 

Evaluation criteria

An independant Panel, appointed by the FNRS and the FWO, will evaluate all applications according to the following evaluation criteria:

• The candidate's profile.
• The candidate’s motivation, expressed in a motivation letter.​
• The quality of the host institution.
• The potential to realise the project described in the application.
• The transfer of knowledge obtained abroad to the research group of the applicant in Belgium.
• The project's merits and benefits to the candidate's career. 

The final decision will be made by the Board of Trustees of the Fund SofinaBoël for Education and Talent, on basis of the FNRS/FWO independent Panel recommendations.

Call timeline

• Opening of the call: 9 September 2024
• Deadline of the call:12 November 2024
• Panel meeting: February 2025

Applications, written in English, must be sent electronically to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. on November 12^th, 2024 at the latest. 

The requested documents are :

• The application form duly completed.
• A detailled curriculum vitae (including a list of publications).
• A letter of reference by the applicant’s PhD supervisor.
• A personal motivation letter.
• An invitation letter from the foreign host institution.
• A detailed curriculum vitae (with list of publications) of the head of the foreign research group.