THE TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY

Their core work

Boston University is a major US research university that contributes specialized expertise to European research consortia, primarily through individual researcher mobility (Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowships). Their H2020 involvement spans biosensing and diagnostics, cardiovascular health screening, behavioral ecology, and sensory neuroscience. As a third-party or partner institution, BU typically provides niche lab capabilities — particularly in microfluidics, optical biosensing, and epidemiological data analysis — that complement European-led projects rather than driving them.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In the early period (2015–2018), BU's involvement was heavily weighted toward fundamental research — ant cognition, spatial hearing, visual perception, and network architecture — reflecting broad curiosity-driven science with no clear sectoral focus. From 2019 onward, a pronounced shift toward health and biomedical applications emerged: atrial fibrillation screening, antimicrobial resistance economics, microfluidic diagnostics, and digital health tools. The transition signals a move from basic behavioral and neuroscience research toward translational biomedical work with clearer clinical and public health relevance.

BU is increasingly oriented toward health technology — digital screening, point-of-care diagnostics, and population-level cardiovascular risk assessment — making them a strong candidate for future medtech and eHealth consortia.

How they like to work

BU never coordinates H2020 projects — all 14 participations are as partner (10) or participant (4), with 10 of those as a third-party entity. This means they typically join through an existing consortium member rather than being recruited directly, suggesting they contribute specialized expertise (a specific lab, dataset, or methodology) rather than project management. With 92 unique partners across 23 countries, they are well-connected but spread thin, indicating a hub-style network driven by individual researchers' collaborations rather than institutional strategy.

BU has collaborated with 92 unique partners across 23 countries, an unusually wide network for a non-coordinator, reflecting diverse researcher-driven connections rather than repeat institutional partnerships. Their reach spans well beyond the US into broad European coverage.

What sets them apart

As one of the few US universities active in H2020, Boston University offers European consortia access to American research infrastructure, patient cohorts, and methodological expertise that is hard to source within Europe alone. Their strength in microfluidics-based diagnostics combined with cardiovascular epidemiology positions them at the intersection of lab technology and population health — a combination few single partners can offer. For consortium builders, BU is a low-overhead addition: they join as a specialist contributor without demanding coordination responsibilities.

Highlights from their portfolio

• INDEX
  Largest single grant (EUR 708,500) and their most technically focused project — integrated on-chip nanoparticle isolation and exosome detection combining microfluidics with optical biosensing.
• AFFECT-EU
  Most directly translational project: digital, risk-based screening for atrial fibrillation across European populations, bridging BU's epidemiological expertise with real-world clinical impact.
• BrainiAnts
  Exemplifies BU's earlier fundamental science focus — studying how social complexity shapes cognition in ant colonies, a topic unusual in H2020 and indicative of the university's research breadth.