The project originated in a long-running collaboration in which De Boer and Heller have been involved. Between 2010 and 2014, Heller was a postdoctoral fellow and later a researcher on a VENI grant at the UvA-Institute of Physics, and since then he has been a frequent visitor in the Amsterdam String Theory Group of which De Boer is a member.

The End of Time

The theoretical understanding of fundamental interactions, including gravity, as well as of quantum matter, is largely based on a paradigm known as effective field theory. When this framework breaks down, new phenomena surface. In the past, this has offered numerous critical insights about the fundamental laws of nature. The project “The End of Time: Dynamical Effective Field Theory Breakdown” of De Boer and Heller is concerned with the breakdown of effective field theory in gravitational systems, focusing on two paradigmatic examples: black hole spacetimes and so-called de Sitter cosmologies. The aim of their efforts is to understand under which conditions local observers like us will perceive departures from Einstein's spacetime picture of gravity.

Weave

Weave is an initiative set up by European research funders and embedded in Science Europe within which 12 European research funders currently fund cross-border research. Through the lead agency principle, researchers can collaborate bottom-up with one or two partners from participating countries and regions. The aim of this form of collaboration is to simplify submission and assessment procedures by having researchers submit their proposal to one research funder (lead agency), which is responsible for the scientific assessment. Upon awarding by the lead agency, the research funders of the other countries and regions (partner agencies) fund their ‘own researchers’ and thus follow the decision of the organisation to which the proposal is submitted.

The awarded proposal of De Boer and Heller was submitted to the Flemish agency FWO. The funding is equivalent to the Open Competition ENW-M2 grants of NWO, and allows the researchers to employ two PhD students or postdocs in their research project.