CWI has been awarded three projects in the NWO Free Competition for physical sciences. Serge Fehr (Cryptology), Jan Rutten (Formal Methods) and Bert Zwart (Stochastics) each saw their application granted. From a total of 133 applications, 26 projects were granted. The total amount of money in the program is €5,4 million.
Serge Fehr was awarded a project on the topic of quantum cryptography, where he will investigate the possibilities – and limitations - of using quantum mechanical effects for solving cryptographic problems that go beyond that of secure communication. Jan Rutten's project will focus on improving the efficiency and applicability of co-induction, a technique for proving the properties of systems used in computer science and other scientific disciplines. Bert Zwart, in collaboration with Nikhil Bansal (TU/e), was awarded a project for bridging the gap between two different mathematical approaches to scheduling problems, namely the probabilistic (average behaviour) and the combinatorial (worst case scenario) approach.
The Free Competition is a funding program from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) which funds innovative and risk-laden scientific research with a high-quality research question. The research must be demonstrably relevant to the discipline of astronomy, computer science or mathematics.
