Tom Brughmans received a diploma from the DFF for his Sapere Aude project MINERVA, at the seminar celebrating all DFF-starting grant holders for 2019 and 2020. The event took place at the Crowne Plaza in Copenhagen on Wednesday 6 October. The Independent Research Fund Denmark (DFF) aims to play a role in supporting excellent younger researchers, and the Sapere Aude starting grant is their flagship instrument for this. The event highlighted the responsibility of all DFF starting grant holders to take up roles as research leaders, emphasising the flexibility of the Sapere Aude grant to enable this for each of the recipients. The grant holders were treated to presentations from two previous starting grant recipients, demonstrating the Impact the grant had on their abilities to establish research teams and pursue innovative research lines. This was followed by roundtable workshops, where the new research leaders had the opportunity to brainstorm with DFF’s board of directors and scientific councils about the active role the DFF could take to support young research leaders.