Daylight Research

At Velux Stiftung, we support research on the effects and utilization of daylight in three fields:

• Daylight and humans
• Daylight and nature
• Daylight technology

For many of us, light is so ubiquitous that we tend to forget it has important functions beyond the obvious. Daylight enables us to see, but it also transmits information about time of day, providing important information for our biological clock which influences our brain, organs, metabolism, and sleeping behaviour.

Daylight also plays a fundamental role in nature. We support many projects investigating the role of daylight and seasonal rhythms, for example how important signalling cues like daylength and warming temperatures combine to affect plants. If a plant starts flowering after a certain temperature threshold has been reached, even during the shorter days of winter, this might cause certain species to shift their geographic range, which could lead to changing ecosystems.

Just as plants can use the sun’s energy through photosynthesis, many technologies make use of daylight as a source of energy. While roof-mounted solar panels are now an important alternative energy source, daylight can also be used, for example, to feed a photovoltaic battery that is sitting just beneath the skin. Unlike a conventional battery, a sub-dermal battery that recharges with sunlight doesn’t require regular replacement operations.

Daylight Research is a highly interdisciplinary funding area, and projects that integrate several disciplines while tackling a relevant problem are of special interest to us. We recommend browsing our projects sections to see how broad the funding area Daylight Research really is.