De Jutekelder
Open Mind pitches
Twenty researchers have been nominated by the Open Mind jury committee to present their out-of-the-box research idea during this session. Ten of these finalists will receive a grant of 100,000 euros during the festival to carry out their research for one year. The winners will be announced during the plenary closing.
Click here to watch the application videos of the Open Mind finalists.
Open Mind pitches 2026
| Heading green for SMART bio-plasters for effective healing of acute wounds | dr. A.E.G. El Ghalbzouri - LUMC |
| Soft Hearts, Smart Materials: A liquid crystal artificial heart for next-generation cardiac support | dr. I. Marin – TU Eindhoven |
| The cartilage band-aid | dr. S.J.P. Callens – TU Eindhoven |
| Training native soil microbiomes for increased drought resilience | prof. Dr. Ir. F.T. de Vries – Universiteit van Amsterdam |
| Meet PECA: Pathway Engineering Computational Assistant | prof. Dr. Ing. F.J. Bruggeman – VU Amsterdam |
| Dustbag Metabarcoding: Citizens as active samplers of home biodiversity | dr. T.J.E. Aivelo – Universiteit Leiden |
| The Hide-and-Sick of Neuronal Survival: Neurons hide toxic cargo and make neighboring cells sick | dr. S. Varderidou-Minasian - UMC Utrecht |
| Tissue Ark: Tissue scraps into patient parts | dr. V.D. Trikalitis - Universiteit Twente |
| Rebuilding from within: Towards an autologous immune-competent intestinal organoid model | dr. W. Dykstra - LUMC |
| Getting a Grip on plastic: Rewriting Enzyme Architecture | dr. D.S. Bindels Msc - Universiteit Leiden |
| Repowering the protein factories of cells with healthy ribosomes | dr. C. Voskamp-Visser – Universiteit Utrecht |
| Sustainable Hydrogen peroxide from Waste: Porous Photocatalysts from waste human hair | dr. P. Verma – Universiteit Amsterdam |
| Flapping Paradigm: a self-learning, adaptive system for urban wind energy and data harvesting | dr. A. Daliri – TU Delft |
| Shining a new light on tumor margins | dr. J. Kalkman – TU Delft |
| Electronics-free Robotic Capsule for Live Gut Sensing | dr. C. Wang - Universiteit Twente |
| The Living Radio Chip | Y.W. Wu – TU Delft |
| WAVE-MAT: Frequency adaptive floating metamaterials for ocean wave absorption | dr. ir. A.B. Faragau – TU Delft |
| Fueling the Mind: Brain Iron and the Origins of Fatigue | dr. J.J. Tromp - RadboudUMC |
| Smart Mirrors for enhancing Solar Yield | dr. L.M. Einhaus – Universiteit Twente |
| RelAIte: Designing AI that preserves Human Connection | dr. L. Solms – Universiteit Amsterdam |