Early Career Researcher Capital Enhancement Programme

The University of Sheffield requests support for a programme of targeted investment to enhance the capital research infrastructure available to Early Career Researchers (ECRs) working within EPSRC research areas. In line with the institution's EPSRC portfolio the programme of activity will be focused across the Faculties of Engineering (FoE), Science (FoS) and Medicine, Dentistry & Health (MDH) and will enhance the experience of our early career researchers by updating and investing in capital equipment. This funding will enable Sheffield to enhance its ECR focused research infrastructure, ensuring that The University can provide ECRs with frequent, hands-on access to the most appropriate and best quality equipment required for their discipline.

The primary benefits of the capital award will be to and through the development of Early Career Researchers (ECR). The award will build on the university capital research assets strategy to provide a funding stream to make this equipment a priority for ECR needs in EPSRC themes such as healthcare technologies and sustainable energy. This will directly result in our ECRs having increased capacity and productivity in emerging and ground breaking research areas. Post-graduate and post-doctoral researchers will have the equipment they need to develop research ideas in EPSRC space; enabling them to position themselves as pioneers through high quality publications, engagement with industry and follow on research proposals.

The equipment provided will have been based on the potential research quality, collaboration and future benefit to the local areas and national industry challenges. The alignment to Sheffield research strength and our world class laboratories will ensure that the equipment is housed in areas that seed cross discipline working. This will increase ECR access to this space, facilitating interaction with a wider range of researchers and the potential for collaborative projects. The ECRs will present their research in a number of university and external forums which will generate interest in the equipment and the scheme, delivering the highest quality applications.

Industry will directly benefit from the research in a number of ways in the medium to long term. The national innovation landscape will benefit from the research leadership of our ECRs, helping industry to incorporate new and ground breaking technologies into their R&D future plans. The equipment will increase opportunities to collaborate with existing university partners and develop new partnerships in a range of EPSRC areas. The scheme will provide ECRs with the results necessary to build the trust needed to complete innovative projects with external partners.

To maximise potential impact, the equipment will also be able to be accessed widely across the academic community. This will increase the potential for use by existing collaborations and create a step change for research that is addressing challenges of immediate interest to industry. All equipment in our World Class Labs has dedicated training plans. New academics and ECRs will be able to build cutting edge equipment training into their undergraduate and Masters programmes. The learning gained as part of research projects will result in a highly skilled workforce needed for the adoption of current and future technologies by industry.

Our research groups enable impact by working with partners to reduce emissions and waste products to provide cleaner manufacturing processes, to produce stronger more durable products and they work across disciplines to improve patient care by providing technological solutions for the clinic. The scheme will continue to invest in equipment and research that will target challenges of the future, where equipment will allow genuine advances in areas such as renewable energy, healthcare, building performance and drug discovery.