On October 14th, OCW Director General Feite Hofman has awarded the NWO Stevin Prize to SRON researcher Ilse Aben in the Royal Theatre in The Hague. Aben deserves the award for the societal impact she has achieved with the Dutch space instrument TROPOMI. At SRON, Aben leads the TROPOMI team that weekly publishes a world map of major methane leaks. These leaks have a combined climate impact twice as large as the total greenhouse gas emissions of The Netherlands. Projects by the United Nations and the European Union, among others, use this data to close the leaks through diplomatic channels. The Stevin Prize is the highest Dutch award for the application of knowledge for society and amounts to 1.5 million euros for research.
