EPSRC awards researchers

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The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has announced the recipients of the second round of Science and Innovation Awards.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has announced the recipients of the second round of Science and Innovation Awards.

 

Funding has been awarded to build the UK's research base in the areas of nanometrology, statistics, plasma physics and the Mathematics-Computer Science interface.

 

EPSRC, together with the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and the Department for Employment and Learning Northern Ireland (DELNI) will fund seven new programmes with a value of over £27 million.

 

Professor John O'Reilly, Chief Executive of EPSRC, said, "A strong research base in engineering and the physical sciences is vital to the UK's success as a knowledge economy. These latest awards underscore EPSRC's commitment, working in partnership with the Funding Councils and the Department for Employment and Learning Northern Ireland, to address shortages of academics to lead research teams in some crucially important areas."

 

The projects will create new centres of research activity in their respective fields in existing research environments that are encouraging and supportive of innovative approaches.

 

Recipients include University of Warwick which will collect £5 million to create a new centre of excellence in fusion plasma physics, in collaboration with the UK magnetic fusion programme at Culham Science Centre. Queen's University, Belfast is to receive £3.2 million for Professors Bill Graham and Ciaran Lewis to complement and strengthen the current experimental activity in high and low temperature plasma physics with theoretical and computational expertise.

 

Professor Ian Leslie from University of Cambridge will get £2.3 million to develop the Cambridge Statistics Initiative. University of Bristol will receive £3.5 million for Professor Peter Green, Professor Guy Nason and Dr Christophe Andrieu to develop SuSTaIn – Statistics underpinning Science, Technology and Industry.

 

£3.8 million will go to University of Warwick to set up the Centre for Discrete Mathematics and its Applications led by Professor Mike Paterson.

 

Imperial College London and University College London together will receive £5.6 million for Professor Tim Jones (Imperial) and Professor Gabriel Aeppli (UCL) to develop new tools for nanoscale characterisation and metrology based at the London Centre for Nanotechnology (LCN). Also in the nanotechnology field, University of Strathclyde and King's College London have won £4.3 million to advance nanometrology, for applications in molecular science, medicine and manufacture.