EPSRC Capital Award: Emphasising Support for Early Career Researchers

As a leading international technological University, Strathclyde is widely recognised for delivering high quality research with impact as part of its "Place of Useful Learning" ethos. This funding is targeted at providing research infrastructure and equipment which will primarily be targeted at our early career researchers. These are ourfuture research leaders, and the funding will allow us to augment our support of them and strategically prioritise the needs of this group of highly motivated academics.

Our commitment to supporting the career development of exceptional researchers and academics is exemplified in our Strathclyde Chancellor's Fellowship Scheme. This scheme is designed to recruit high-calibre early-career researchers to lectureship roles within areas of strategic priority to the University (aligned with our Strategic Themes). In keeping with the expected career trajectory of those appointed under the scheme, the contractual arrangement for each Fellow includes an expectation to achieve promotion within five years of appointment to Senior Lecturer or Reader level, depending on their entry point to the scheme. This "accelerated promotion" aspect is a key feature distinguishing this from a conventional academic appointment. We will use this grant to provide additional funding to accelerate their academic development and progress within this framework.

The EPSRC Capital Award allows investment in these and other early career researchers, while wrapping support, mentoring and training around them to build excellent skills in the management and delivery of research around capital infrastructure. We will also ensure a wider range of staff members, where appropriate, can employ the funding to deliver our ambitious research targets. Importantly, we will use it to continue to promote our culture of sharing resources to enhance research output.

The impact from this grant, in the first instance, is on the early career research community in the University. It will provide additional support and opportunities for them to accelerate their novel research outcomes through additional and new equipment. This will allow those that receive funding to undertake novel experiments or improve existing research through enhanced measurement/monitoring/etc.

We anticipate the prioritisation of interdisciplinary bids for the funds, and as such we expect to make significant impact in interdisciplinary research.

Many of our early career researchers are aligned with the University's Strategic Themes, which are: Energy; Advanced Manufacturing & Materials; Health & Wellbeing;Ocean, Air & Space; Measurement Science & Enabling Technologies; Innovation & Entrepreneurship; and, Society & Policy.

Within these themes there are strong links to industry partners and external stakeholders. Impact will be delivered to these partners through our research engagement with them.