We now know the recent winners of know Weave-UNISONO. Researchers from the Wrocław University of Science and Technology will work on the production and use of entangled photons for information transfer in secure quantum networks, while a team from the Jagiellonian University will investigate how biopolitics developed during World War I. Both teams will cooperate with partners from Austria and Germany.
Research on entangled photons
The first of the awarded projects, entitled “Clear entanglement through dark states,” will be conducted by a team from the Wrocław University of Science and Technology under the supervision of Dr Michał Gawełczyk. On the Austrian side, the team from the University of Innsbruck will be led by Gregor Weihs, the team from the Johannes Kepler University in Linz will be led by Armando Rastelli, and on the German side, the team from the TU Dortmund University will be led by Doris Reiter. The funding awarded amounts to almost PLN 1 million.
In the planned research, semiconductor quantum dots will be used to entangle photons, which will thus be able to safely carry information in quantum networks. It turns out, however, that the type of entanglement most commonly used to date, polarised entanglement, has its weaknesses because it undergoes decoherence, i.e. partial destruction, in optical fibres. Therefore, there is room for improvement in this process. The funded project will attempt to develop new ways of creating entangled states, primarily through the use of dark exciton (a quantum object in which an electron interacts with a missing electron) to generate temporal entanglement. The research of entangled particles can help find answers to fundamental questions about quantum physics and also enable the development of quantum technologies, including secure telecommunications.
Shaping the biopolitics of wartime
The second project will be conducted under the leadership of Dr. Kamil Ruszała from the Jagiellonian University. On the Austrian side, the team from the University of Vienna will be led by Prof. Dr Kerstin von Lingen, while German researchers from the Humboldt University of Berlin by Dr Oksana Nagornaia. The funding awarded amounts to almost PLN 600.000.
The project entitled “Forging Wartime Biopolitics: Militarised Refugees' Bodies and Environments in WWI Eastern Europe” innovatively combines the history of mass displacement with medical and environmental history, going beyond the methodological framework of national historiographies. In doing so, it opens up new fields for understanding migration crises both in the past and in the present, exploring responses to crises in different contexts. The impact of military actions on the environment and everyday lifeworlds during World War I, which has been little recognised in the academic debate to date, will be examined, with a focus on war-related displacement in Eastern Europe. The innovative potential of the project lies in providing comprehensive insights through advanced data processing and GIS mapping (creation and analysis of geographic data in a geographic information system), offering a multidimensional perspective of the complex history on the Eastern Front of World War I.
Weave-UNISONO and lead agency procedure
The proposals were evaluated by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), while the National Science Centre and the German DFG agency accepted the results of the evaluation as part of their cooperation under the Weave programme. The NCN will fund the work of Polish research groups. Funding for the Austrian teams will be provided by the FWF and for the German teams by the DFG.
The Weave Programme builds on the multilateral international cooperation between the research funding agencies associated in Science Europe and aims at simplifying the submission and selection procedures of research proposals for joint multilateral international research projects, involving researchers from two or three European countries.
Winners are selected pursuant to the lead agency procedure, whereby only one partner institution is in charge of the merit-based evaluation of proposals, with the other partners accepting the results of the evaluation.
Under the Weave programme, partner research teams apply for parallel funding to the lead agency and to their respective participating institutions. Joint research projects must include a coherent research program with the added value of the international cooperation clearly defined.
The Weave-UNISONO call is open on a continuous basis. Research teams intending to collaborate with partners from Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium-Flanders are encouraged to read the call text and submit their proposals.