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Research Project Grants 2020

March 2020
Sciences

Dr Kirsten Abbot-Smith
University of Kent
The cognitive constraints on children’s ability to manage a conversation topic
£328,544

Dr Asma Ahmed
Canterbury Christ Church University
Biological treatment of industrial effluents using novel biofilm-membranes
£263,547

Professor Dario Alfè
University College London
Materials modelling for energy storage applications with quantum Monte Carlo 
£207,486

Dr Paul Badenhorst
University of Birmingham
Using fly blood to identify nuclear reprogramming factors
£269,056

Dr Thomas Douglas Bennett
University of Cambridge
Developing new materials from inorganic glasses and metal organic frameworks
£283,962

Dr Frédéric Blanc
University of Liverpool
Dynamic nuclear polarisation enhanced NMR from paramagnetic metal ions
£262,868

Dr Natasha Blitvic
Lancaster University
Permutation patterns as noncommutative central limits
£55,810

Dr Richard Bryce
University of Manchester
Accelerating shape-based drug design by machine learning and quantum mechanics
£193,035

Dr Paul Bushby
Newcastle University
Dynamo action driven by magnetic buoyancy: a new model for solar magnetism?
£171,032

Professor Julea Butt
University of East Anglia
Better by design: chemically diverse biomolecular wires
£188,675

Professor Ronald Chalmers
University of Nottingham
A new approach to CRISPR adaptation and the discovery of host accessory-proteins
£398,610

Dr Vijay Chudasama
University College London
Revisiting the protein-nanoparticle interface
£152,396

Dr Beatrice S L Collins
University of Bristol
An autonomous biocatalytic molecular motor
£195,742

Dr Mark Crimmin
Imperial College London
Front-side nucleophilic substitution: a new approach to chiral organometallics
£233,992

Professor Vikram Dhillon
University of Sheffield
A search for electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational-wave events with GOTO
£94,920

Professor Judith Driscoll
University of Cambridge
>100K high temperature superconductor films with low electric anisotropy
£301,135

Dr Jonathan Shaw Ellis
University of Plymouth
Wherefore the magic? Investigating the origin of psychedelic compounds in nature
£242,910

Dr Kathryn Elmer
University of Glasgow
Evolutionary transition from egg-laying to live-bearing reproduction
£220,922

Dr Veronique Fischer
University of Bath
Quantum limits for sub-elliptic operators
£318,871

Dr Colin Freeman
University of Sheffield
Understanding the mixing and properties of high entropy perovskites
£230,775

Professor Lorenzo Frigerio
University of Warwick
Phase separation drives the development of protein storage vacuoles 
£200,157

Dr Andy Graham
University of South Wales
New strategies for the synthesis of surface functionalised nanotubular materials
£351,943

Professor Joseph Harrity
University of Sheffield
Harnessing the Lewis acidity of boron in metal-free cross-coupling reactions
£180,074

Professor Michael Ingleson
University of Edinburgh
Developing boron containing polymers of intrinsic microporosity
£90,227

Dr Gregoire Ithier
Royal Holloway, University of London
A new statistical and dynamical theory of disordered interacting quantum systems
£267,540

Dr Robert Knight
King’s College London
Mathematical modelling of muscle stem cell behaviour in ageing
£227,280

Dr Stefano Leoni
Cardiff University
Computational framework for hierarchical frequency of complex chemical processes
£121,299

Professor Barbara Mable
University of Glasgow
What can you learn from a fly? Biting insects as noninvasive samplers 
£292,919

Dr Stuart MacNeill
University of St Andrews
Why do T5-like bacteriophages encode a split DNA ligase?
£120,815

Dr Sarah E. MacPherson
University of Edinburgh
I’m still learning: collaborative learning in person and remotely in aging
£266,261

Dr Yanlan Mao
University College London
Mathematical modelling of living and nonliving matter in tissue morphogenesis
£307,706

Dr Isabelle Mareschal
Queen Mary, University of London
Determinants of information selection during vision_2
£299,590

Dr Karsten Matthies
University of Bath
Derivation of kinetic equations: from Newton to Boltzmann via trees
£194,844

Professor Nathan Mayne
University of Exeter
The planetary habitability paradox: can an uninhabited planet be habitable?
£204,742

Professor Conrad Mullineaux
Queen Mary, University of London
Flocculation in cyanobacteria: from mechanism to ecology
£201,021

Dr Patrick O’Malley
University of Manchester
How nature oxidises water to molecular oxygen and hydrogen
£181,341

Dr Michela Ottobre
Heriot-Watt University
Can we make long-term predictions?
£182,353

Professor Andrew Pilkington
University of Manchester
Understanding the origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the Universe
£248,001

Dr Emma Richards
Cardiff University
Single or double? A radical approach to synthesis via frustrated Lewis pairs
£267,667

Professor C. Patrick Royall
University of Bristol
Unifying protein design and assembly of soft matter for new materials
£402,051

Dr Zoe Schnepp
University of Birmingham
Elucidating the mechanisms of iron-catalysed graphitisation
£198,827

Professor Mala Shah
University College London
Location-dependent effects of neurotransmitters in neurons
£198,185

Professor Tom Sheppard
University College London
Unleashing the synthetic potential of azaenolates
£129,632

Professor Sivaramesh Wigneshweraraj
Imperial College London
Do bacterial analogues of eukaryotic processing (P) bodies exist? 
£248,114

Dr Ozgur Yazaydin
University College London
Molecular engineering of biomimetic metal-organic framework membranes
£126,366

Professor Semir Zeki
University College London
Neural correlates of consciousness in single visual brain areas
£245,527

Humanities

Dr Matthew Baerman
University of Surrey
Declining case: inflectional loss in progress
£288,356

Professor Paul Bishop
University of Glasgow
‘Away from the water’: the first energy transition, British textiles 1770–1890
£451,811

Professor Andrew Chadwick
Loughborough University
Understanding the everyday sharing of misinformation on private social media
£347,251

Professor Ralph Fyfe
University of Plymouth
A landscape transformed: the reclamation of Exmoor Forest
£248,612

Professor Máire Ní Mhaonaigh
University of Cambridge
Mapping the medieval mind: Ireland’s literary landscapes in a global space
£499,612

Dr Ryan Perry
University of Kent
Whittington’s gift: reconstructing the lost common library of London’s Guildhall
£366,511

Professor Sarah A Radcliffe
University of Cambridge
Geographies of indigenous citizenship in Latin America
£283,553

Professor Kathleen Rastle
Royal Holloway, University of London
Psychological influences on spelling and spelling change
£231,700

Dr Albert Remijsen
University of Edinburgh
Suprasegmentals in three West Nilotic languages
£330,416

Professor Rick Schulting
University of Oxford
Ebb and flow: exploring rivers in later prehistoric Britain
£253,783

Dr Danielle Turton
Lancaster University
Changing /r/ accents? Towards a sociophonological understanding of sound change
£196,271

Social Sciences

Professor Daniel Ladley
University of Leicester
The performance of performance related pay: individual vs collective systems
£127,610

Dr Sherilyn MacGregor
University of Manchester
Environmental sustainability in immigrant households 
£330,996

Dr Remigius N Nwabueze
University of Southampton
Modern technologies, privacy law and the dead
£267,143

Professor Gregory Sambrook Smith
University of Birmingham
Hidden depths: the environmental and social impacts of river sand mining
£327,448

Dr Owen Thomas
University of Exeter
Warnings from the archive: a century of British intervention in the Middle East
£158,205

June 2020
Sciences

Dr Nicolas Barry
University of Bradford
Understanding the nucleation and growth of precious metal nanocrystals
£111,549
 
Dr Paul Beales
University of Leeds
Enzymatic feedback in confinement: towards artificial chronobiology
£208,170
 
Dr Joseph Beames
Cardiff University
Mechanistic insights into photon upconversion using TR-EPR
£192,223
 
Dr Jan-Willem Bos
Heriot-Watt University
Discovery of new phosphide thermoelectrics
£186,251
 
Dr Nicholas Bristowe
University of Kent
Group-theory-led first principles identification of new magnetoelectrics
£256,809
 
Dr Alessia Buscaino
University of Kent
Viral infection and the discovery of novel RNA interference pathways 
£188,795
 
Dr F. Mark Chadwick
Imperial College London
Weakly coordinating chiral anions
£140,991
 
Dr Jamieson Christie
Loughborough University
Understanding biomaterial dissolution from computer modelling
£173,565
 
Dr Corina Cirstea
University of Southampton
COVER: coalgebraic foundations for quantitative verification
£410,291
 
Dr Richard Cobley
Swansea University
Single synapse measurements in neuromorphic percolating nanoparticle networks
£178,014
 
Dr Paul Davies
University of Birmingham
Artificial gold enzymes: a hybrid approach to late transition metal catalysis
£253,213
 
Dr Javier Escudero
University of Edinburgh
Nonlinear analysis and modelling of multivariate signals on networks
£218,643
 
Professor Alex Freitas
University of Kent
Evolutionary algorithms for fairness-aware machine learning
£196,487
 
Dr Scott Glover
Royal Holloway, University of London
Online control in motor imagery: motor-cognitive or functional equivalence?
£116,328
 
Dr Olga Golyshina
Bangor University
Uncovering archaeal dark matter 
£200,059
 
Professor Andrew Goryachev
University of Edinburgh
Realising mechano-biochemical model of cell morphogenesis: a simulation approach
£176,601
 
Dr Mark Haw
University of Strathclyde
The birth of crystals: new understanding of nucleation by direct measurement
£239,596
 
Professor Euan Hendry
University of Exeter
Disentangling the chiral clutter: optically enhanced rotational spectroscopy
£216,542
 
Dr Lee Henry
Queen Mary, University of London
Get by with help from your little friends: explaining defensive symbiont dynamic
£254,882
 
Professor Alistair Hetherington
University of Bristol
Understanding the origin and significance of patchy stomatal opening and closure
£227,648
 
Dr Richard Holland
Bangor University
The magnetic sense in bats: mechanism and function
£183,593

Professor Francis Jiggins
University of Cambridge
A new laboratory model to test the principles of host–parasite coevolution
£215,354
 
Dr Daniel Kattnig
University of Exeter
From butter to astronauts: magnetic field effects on lipid autoxidation
£226,604
 
Professor Hon Wai Lam
University of Nottingham
New chemistry for the concise synthesis of morphinan opioids
£175,540
 
Dr Matthew Langton
University of Oxford
Supramolecular transporters for engineering signal networks in artificial cells
£249,815
 
Dr Tao Liu
University of Nottingham
Mechanics and biomimicking of marine mussel plaques
£323,157
 
Dr Peter Lund
University of Birmingham
Use of high density transposon libraries to study and predict evolution
£199,676
 
Dr Dmitri Mauquoy
University of Aberdeen
Falkland Island peatlands as a mirror to understand future European peatlands
£230,609
 
Dr Paul McGonigal
Durham University
Noncovalent control of shapeshifting molecules
£290,619
 
Dr Samuel Murphy
Lancaster University
The role of electrons on the evolution of radiation damage in matter
£139,932
 
Professor Miles Padgett
University of Glasgow
Quantum mechanics in a rotating world
£380,036
 
Professor Kirsty Park
University of Stirling
Land sharing vs. land sparing: new insights from ecological-economic modelling
£288,930

Professor Martin Paterson
Heriot-Watt University
Unified quantum dynamics of nuclei and electrons
£349,858
 
Professor Jon Preece
University of Birmingham
Triphenoxazoles: fluorescent, photoconducting liquid crystals
£343,424
 
Professor Michael Ritchie
University of St Andrews
DNA methylation in the placenta of viviparous fish and sexual selection
£117,416
 
Professor Edwin Robertson
University of Glasgow
Modulating sleep with learning to enhance learning
£278,695
 
Professor Alexander Ruban
Queen Mary, University of London
Hydrophobic mismatch in the photosynthetic membrane as a trigger of NPQ 
£188,847
 
Dr Hendrik Suess
University of Manchester
Einstein metrics on Fano varieties and their cones
£283,663
 
Dr Lauren Sumner-Rooney
University of Oxford
Evolution and development of a highly variable visual system in spiders
£115,603
 
Dr Alex Thornton
University of Exeter
The role of social relationships in cognitive evolution
£295,861
 
Dr Darren Tomlinson
University of Leeds
Imaging the interactome
£236,258
 
Professor Simon Roy Turner
University of Manchester
How plants create a nanoscale highways in their cell membrane
£297,043
 
Dr Baojun Wang
University of Edinburgh
Distributed cell-consortia biocomputers with scalable signal processing capacity
£360,093
 
Professor Andrew Weller
University of York
Making xenon a ligand using solid–state molecular organometallic chemistry
£198,181
 
Dr Christopher Williamson
University of Bristol
iDAPT: ice dependent adaptations for plant terrestrialisation
£392,737
 
Dr Uwe Wolfram
Heriot-Watt University
Quantifying rapid cold-water coral habitat loss in a future ocean
£285,903
 
Dr Alan Wood
Nottingham Trent University
A world of complexity: the ionosphere seen as never before
£260,600
 
Dr Shengfu Yang
University of Leicester
Unveiling quantised vortices in nanoscale quantum fluids
£132,097

Humanities

Professor Miles Glendinning
University of Edinburgh
Building a modern Scotland: the new towns, c. 1947–2017
£278,969
 
Dr Nigel Harris
University of Birmingham
The correspondence of Zwingli and Oecolampadius: translation and analysis
£137,669
 
Professor Karen Harvey
University of Birmingham
Material identities, social bodies: embodiment in British letters, c. 1680–1820
£403,805
 
Professor Iain Jackson
University of Liverpool
The architecture of the United Africa Company: building mercantile West Africa
£298,182
 
Dr Jamie Sexton
Northumbria University
Anonymous creativity: library music and screen cultures in the 1960s and 1970s
£129,887
 
Dr Tim Shephard
University of Sheffield
Sounding the bookshelf 1501: musical knowledge in a year of Italian printed books
£379,586
 
Professor Rosemary H Sweet
University of Leicester
War, travel and cultural exchange: William Gell and the British in Iberia, 1750–1830
£250,162
 
Dr Paul Vickers
Northumbria University
A radical new interdisciplinary space for sonification
£357,566

Social Sciences

Dr Amy Chandler
University of Edinburgh
Suicide in/as politics
£356,477
 
Dr Stella Chatzitheochari
University of Warwick
Educational pathways and work outcomes of disabled young people in England
£249,090
 
Dr Katharine Dommett
University of Sheffield
Understanding online political advertising: perceptions, uses and regulation
£390,215
 
Dr Diane Frost
University of Liverpool
Work, authority and poverty: Charles Booth and Liverpool
£123,675
 
Professor Anthony Grant
Edge Hill University
A linguistic description of Pearl Lagoon Basin Miskitu
£53,160
 
Dr Elizabeth Johnson
Durham University
Circulatory entanglements: marine biomaterials and paradoxes in ocean governance
£233,168
 
Dr Mathan Satchi
University of Kent
The path of the labour share in the short and long run
£98,444

November 2020
Sciences

Dr Tim Adamo
University of Edinburgh
Twistors and quantum field theory in strong backgrounds
£163,344

Professor Ian Apperly
University of Birmingham
Intuitive alignment in human judgement: causes and consequences
£233,276

Professor Anthony Barrett
Imperial College London
Nucleoside synthesis in the blink of an eye
£287,089

Dr Sebastian Breitenbach
Northumbria University
Reconstructing Siberian permafrost dynamics using stable and clumped isotopes
£488,989

Professor Steven Bull
University of Bath
Peptidomimetic sulfinamide foldamers that are ‘chiral at sulfur’
£248,228

Professor Glenn Burley
University of Strathclyde
A unified approach to bio-orthogonal reaction discovery in living systems 
£256,897

Dr Bingzhang Chen
University of Strathclyde
How does phytoplankton diversity affect primary production in the ocean?
£205,424

Dr QueeLim Ch’ng
King’s College London
Neural regulation of insulin-like hormones in brain–body communication
£213,909

Professor John Christie
University of Glasgow
Unlocking the enigma of plant tropisms: from light sensing to directional growth
£294,109

Professor Maria R Conte
King’s College London
Making sense of disorder in protein–RNA interactions
£237,275

Dr Daniel Dundas
Queen’s University Belfast
Modelling energy transfer during irradiation of matter by swift particles
£204,508

Dr Ozge Eyice
Queen Mary, University of London
Microbial link from organic sulfur compounds to methane in anoxic sediments
£279,601

Dr John Fielden
University of East Anglia
Redox-switchable polyoxotungstate charge transfer chromophores
£193,677

Dr Alexander Forse
University of Cambridge
Direct capture of carbon dioxide from the air with super-strong adsorbers
£311,333

Professor Rupert Fray
University of Nottingham
Gall wasp induced plant structures and mechanisms of cellular reprogramming
£225,071

Professor Stephen Goldup
University of Southampton
Mechanically interlocked oligonucleotides: properties and applications
£215,440

Professor Duncan Graham
University of Strathclyde
Plasmonic photothermal heating of gold nanoparticles increases Raman scattering 
£386,308

Dr Anna Grubert
Durham University
A neuro-cognitive model of memory-guided visual attention
£487,805

Professor Tim Guilford
University of Oxford
Spatial cognition in an oceanic navigator: a new model for avian navigation
£365,796

Dr Xavier Harrison
University of Exeter
Linking gut microbiomes to optimal foraging decisions in the wild
£287,811

Professor Terence Herbert
University of Lincoln
Determining the role of non-canonical RNA binding proteins in exocytosis
£248,628

Professor Thorsten Hesjedal
University of Oxford
Nanocluster engineering for high-performance topological quantum materials
£215,917

Professor Richard Isaac
University of Leeds
The orchestration of female responses to mating by male seminal fluid peptides
£208,662

Dr Tommaso Jucker
University of Bristol
Disturbance and its fingerprint on the 3D structure of the world’s forests
£163,306

Professor Lev Kantorovich
King’s College London
Universal approach to dynamics of finite and extended atomistic systems
£267,516

Professor Anthony Kent    
University of Nottingham    
Hypersonic superoscillations: enhancing the resolution of acoustic imaging
£341,722

Dr Sara Macias
University of Edinburgh
Interfering with pluripotency
£398,994

Dr Eamonn Mallon
University of Leicester
How do bees imprint genes?
£194,432

Professor Andrea Manica
University of Cambridge
Neanderthal palaeoecology: the whens, hows and whys of a species’ journey
£197,386

Dr Haresh Manyar
Queen’s University Belfast
Converting waste biomass into biofuels using VFAs bio-refining platform
£187,607

Professor John Murphy    
University of Warwick    
Dark matter and the ultimate performance limit of semiconductor silicon    
£222,147

Professor Adele Murrell
University of Bath
Modelling the fits and starts of how genes burst into expression
£410,983

Dr Victor Pacheco-Peña
Newcastle University
Switching light: towards new paradigms in digital computing with metamaterials
£255,043

Dr Thomas Penfold
Newcastle University
Transforming the analysis of X-ray spectroscopy with machine learning
£263,550

Dr Bernard Piette
Durham University
Cages with paradoxical geometries
£212,837

Dr Stephen Alexander Rolfe
University of Sheffield
The function and origin of novel nutrient transporters in clubroot
£175,935

Ms Julie Seibt
University of Surrey
How sleep changes brain connections: insight from the translatome of dendrites
£221,792

Dr Gaynor Smith
Cardiff University
Genetic regulation of mitochondria in neurons
£261,954

Dr Drew Thomson
University of Glasgow
Chiral induction and self-sorting in peptide knots and catenanes
£182,840

Professor Jonathan Todd
University of East Anglia
DMSOP, a missing link in the global sulfur cycle
£226,422

Dr Pier-Emmanuel Tremblay
University of Warwick
Dynamical stellar models for active evolved planetary systems
£203,073

Dr Elisabetta Versace
Queen Mary, University of London
Generalisation from limited experience: how to solve the problem of induction
£269,334

Dr Ruth Webster
University of Bath
Understanding and exploiting an iron catalysed route to an interstellar molecule
£276,012

Professor Geraldine Wright
University of Oxford
Can flowering plants produce addictive behaviours in bee pollinators? 
£469,001

Dr Wolfgang Wuster
Bangor University
Understanding snake venom variation: integrating the role of diet and defence
£185,084

Dr Levi Yant
University of Nottingham
Preadapt: revealing the basis of whole genome duplication-mediated adaptation
£328,486

Dr Jie Zhang
University of Southampton
Towards practical algorithmic mechanism design: beyond the worst-case analysis
£195,303

Humanities

Professor Evgeny Dobrenko
University of Sheffield
Inventing the cultural institutions of Stalinism, 1917–1932
£267,150

Professor Philip Schwyzer
University of Exeter
Writing religious conflict and community in Exeter, 1500–1750 
£214,818

Professor Phiroze Vasunia
University College London
Comparative classics: Greece, Rome, India
£199,460

Social Sciences

Professor Graeme Acheson
University of Strathclyde
The entrepreneurs who made Glasgow: the city and its businesses, 1861–1901
£141,874

Professor Peter Garrard
St George’s, University of London
Investigating the relationship between power, behaviour and hubris
£234,713

Ms Kristin Hausler
British Institute of International and Comparative Law
Beyond restitution: exploring the story of cultural objects after repatriation
£219,653

Dr Ben Williamson
University of Edinburgh
Biology, data science and the making of precision education
£151,516

Professor Dominic Wyse
University College London
Children’s agency in the National Curriculum
£183,275

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