APH researcher Stéphanie van der Pas (Assistant Professor, Epidemiology and Data Science, Amsterdam UMC) has received a prestigious Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) to conduct research on finding causal relationships in large data sets.

Finding causal relationships is challenging when an intervention cannot be randomly assigned to a research participant because it is unethical or practically impossible. For example, when one wants to examine effects of smoking, a vegetarian diet or abortion. Often researchers must then stick to establishing a correlation or association.

Drawing on her background in mathematics, Van der Pas will develop new methods to reliably find causal relationships and thus extract more valuable insights from data. In doing so, she will work from multiple perspectives on causality, and also explore the added value of combining datasets. With the Starting Grant, she will hire two PhD students and two postdocs to carry out the research with her.

About the ERC Starting Grant

The ERC awards the Starting Grants to fund emerging academic talent for five years to pursue  pioneering projects. The ERC, part of the European Commission, awards grants to a select number of excellent scientists. This year, 408 researchers will receive a Starting Grant, totaling 636 million euros. The grant is part of the Horizon Europe program, which helps young scientists start their own projects, form teams and implement their most promising ideas.

Source: Amsterdam UMC