In the last decade, computer-mediated communication (CMC) has grown explosively as a means of communication. The popularity of different digital communication technologies―from text messaging (texting, SMS) and instant messaging (IMing) to Twitter, Whatsapp, and social networking sites such as Facebook and Hyves―has increased rapidly, also among children, adolescents, and young adults. Because the language used in CMC can deviate from the conventional norms of spelling, grammar, and punctuation, this has raised concerns among adults, teachers, and the media that CMC may have a detrimental effect on traditional literacy: they are afraid it may degrade youngsters? reading, writing, or spelling skills. Linguists, on the other hand, point out what they see as positive aspects of using CMC, such as increased exposure to text, increased motivation to read and write, and increased phonological and metalinguistic awareness. Previous empirical studies into the effects of CMC on literacy exhibit a mixed pattern of results. The proposed project aims to bring order into this chaos of opinions and findings by further investigating the impact of CMC on literacy in four subprojects: theoretical research, corpus research, correlational research, and experimental research. The project will scrutinize register differences between the informal ?texting system? used in CMC and the more formal ?school system? used at school, it will investigate whether interference occurs between these two language systems, and it will study the effect of factors such as youngsters? educational level and age group on this interference. Furthermore, this project will overcome various limitations of previous studies: it will include Dutch participants, it will consider not just texting and IMing but also other forms of CMC, it will reconceptualize the notion of literacy in view of the technological developments of this digital age, and it will explore the causal relationship between CMC and literacy. The Centre for Language Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen would be happy to facilitate the empirical research. The proposed PhD-candidate is enthusiastic and eager to tackle the challenges presented by this project, so that she can finally apply the knowledge she has gained in the many theoretical and applied linguistics courses she has completed during her Bachelor?s studies, her first Master?s studies, and her current Research Master?s programme―all of which makes her the right person for this project.

Biobanks are collections of samples, data and images of individuals taken at different stages of their lives, either when they are ill or when they are healthy. They have agreed to take part in health-checks or population health studies. Biobanks are a vital source of information for fundamental and translational biomedical research aimed at the development of better predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory (‘4P’) health care. Historically, Dutch biobanks were developed independently, based on, for example, research interest, local or regional activities, or clinical discipline. Today, in the era of genomics and modern imaging, there is an urgent need to connect the extremely valuable information held in biobanks through a large-scale, standardized biobank infrastructure to avoid redundancy, create efficient research workflows, streamline and facilitate data access, and optimally link various sorts of data. Such a national biobank infrastructure will enable efficient health monitoring, validation of life style interventions and other ways to prevent disease, deliver better diagnostics and therapeutics, and expand the leading position of the Netherlands in international biomedical research. A large-scale biobank infrastructure is also essential to help generate the ‘evidence base’ required by registration and reimbursement authorities to assess the impact/quality/cost-benefit ratio of screening programmes, medications and treatments. The Netherlands is currently one of the world-leaders in biobanking with respect to both the number of its biobanks and the amount of material held by them, and in terms of its internationally knowledged expertise. In recent years, several important nationwide initiatives have been undertaken to organize and professionalize biobanking, including the String of Pearls Initiative (PSI), the European Population Imaging Infrastructure (EPI2), and the Translational Research IT project of the Centre for Translational Molecular Medicine (CTMM-TraIT). BBMRI-NL (Biobanking and BioMolecular Research Infrastructure Netherlands) was established to align, connect, complement and enrich biobanks, and to lay the groundwork for a robust national biobank facility. The first phase of BBMRI-NL (BBMRI-NL1.0; 2009-present) was highly successful and united 193 Dutch biobanks (population and clinical), jointly containing materials and data from >900,000 individuals, ~13 million biobanked samples, and a wide spectrum of accessory data. It lay the foundation for a well-organized national biobanking infrastructure for Dutch biomedical research. BBMRI-NL is the Dutch hub of the BBMRI ERIC (BBMRI European Research Infrastructure Consortium) and is closely aligned with major European initiatives and ‘Grand Challenges’ in the European Framework programme (e.g. Healthy Aging in Horizon 2020), and national initiatives, like the Life Sciences & Health ‘top sector’. With the recent complementary initiatives of EPI2 and CTMM-TraIT and major extra funding for data collection in specific sub-populations (notably the ‘Deltaplan Dementia’), the time has come to make the next decisive step towards a truly nationally integrated ‘NL Biobank Research Facility’ with BBMRI-NL2.0. In the future, biobanking will increasingly be integrated with health care. BBMRI-NL 2.0 will allow biomedical researchers to contribute to ‘4P’ medicine by linking diverse data sets through coordinated access to biomedical resources, technologies, standards and know-how, supported with cutting-edge IT systems and tools, and by providing tools for the standardization and harmonization of data, and its long-term storage. BBMRI-NL2.0 presents a unique opportunity to bring together Dutch biobank and imaging collections that are among the largest in Europe, building on proven success and extensive expertise in the compilation and analysis of such extensive datasets. BBMRI-NL2.0 will enable fully integrated access for research on how genetic and environmental factors contribute to disease. The research results from BBMRI-NL2.0 will drive new and improved ways to diagnose and predict disease, and highlight factors critical to disease prevention, healthy ageing or optimal development, and thus to the quality of life. It will cement the Netherlands’ leading position in biobank-based biomedical research. The envisioned NL-Biobank, with its content ranging from genes, molecules and images to their clinical cognate, will provide a unique repository of integrated data that optimally prepares the Netherlands for the challenges of Horizon 2020 and makes BBMRI-NL2.0 a highly visible and attractive partner for international collaborations.

Data-driven life science plays a key role in gaining new insights into health status and disease, in developing methods to promote health, and enabling health research & personalised medicine. The quality and success of data-driven life science critically depends on the availability of increasingly larger and richer series of human samples, health and disease phenotype data, and the methodological framework to derive information from them. Our DARE-4-LIFE application was crucial in this respect, as it was aimed at sharing, linking and analysing high-quality, comprehensive data across different resources and different levels in The Netherlands. The proposed infrastructure proposed would have built on the achievements of BBMRI.nl 1.0 (2008-2014) and 2.0 (2015-2020), resulting in a larger cluster of initiatives sharing data with new connections in the area of social science and nutrition. The unsuccessfulness of the application poses a direct threat to data-driven life sciences in The Netherlands. Specifically, discontinuation of the BBMRI infrastructure will disrupt the biobank community and the data sharing process. If biobanks in the Netherlands, within the BBMRI cluster and beyond, can no longer rely on an infrastructure to support and maintain data sharing, this is a huge loss for science, also in comparison to the international competition. Bridge funding will be essential to sustain a number of essential activities, namely: - Maintaining support to find & access samples and images, and steps towards integrating more data - Supporting researchers with Ethical, Legal and Societal Implications in data-driven life science research.