A research funding has been awarded to Elena Beretta, Ilaria Tiddi, Radu Apsan, and Ivano Malavolta from the “Sustainable Research Fund” call. The call was launched in 2025 by NWO and the Dutch Climate Research Initiative (KIN) to stimulate sustainable research practices in science.

The title of the granted project is “GreenNebula – Advancing Sustainable and Responsible Scientific Research Practices in the Era of Generative AI”. The project has a value of 50,000 euro, it will be managed by the Network Institute, and will start in June 2026.

Below you can read the public abstract of the project: Nebula is VU Amsterdam’s secure, EU‑aligned platform for generative‑AI research, enabling reproducible studies, full control over AI models’ settings, and privacy-preserving analysis of sensitive data. This project advances Nebula by making sustainability a first‑class design dimension. We will optimize the inference engine and software architecture of the platform to cut its energy consumption, provide real‑time “green cost” feedback and actionable nudges for researchers, and co‑create guidelines and workflows with researchers. Outcomes include an energy‑efficient Nebula release, open guidelines for sustainable generative‑AI infrastructures, a prototype for sustainable prompt optimization, and a dissemination workshop, promoting sustainable research practices when using generative-AI techniques.

Congratulations on the new project!

The full list of all the 20 projects who received the NWO Sustainable Science research grants is available here.