The FNR said on Friday that it has earmarked €1.12m for the 21 projects held in this second round, of which seven are ICT related, six concern biomedical and life sciences projects, three are in social sciences, three in law and economics, one in mathematics and one in sustainable resources.

The largest funds were allocated to Muhannad Ismael’s covid-19 detection analysis by cough and voice (€80,000), Leslie Ogorzaly’s wastewater analysis to monitor the spread of coronavirus in Luxembourg (€80,000), Mohammad Ghoniem’s covid-19 literature browser for scientific investigations (€79,200), and Carole Devaux’s comparison of real-time PCRs (€78,800).

Responding to a parliamentary question on Friday, health minister Paulette Lenert (LSAP) said that the FNR had funded 30 projects in the first call for covid-19 studies, of which six were international collaborations.