Capital Award support for Early Career Researchers at Imperial College London

Imperial College London is an internationally leading centre for research, education and translation and the only UK higher education institution to focus exclusively on science, engineering, medicine and business. The College is renowned both for world-class fundamental research and for the translation of this research for the benefit of society and the economy. This proposal aligns with the College's strategy to achieve enduring excellence in research and to promote the development of world-class core disciplines and multidisciplinary research addressing major societal challenges. The provision of cutting-edge research infrastructure and enabling equipment is essential to our mission and the nurturing of world-class talent is core to the College's mission and embodied in our strategy. This exemplifies EPSRC's view of a World Class Lab supporting the next generation of researchers as a combination of excellent people undertaking cutting-edge research using state-of-the-art, fit-for-purpose equipment underpinned with qualified, well-resourced technical support. Funding will be used to provide capital equipment to our early career researchers with academic posts leading to: 1) increasing the types and quality of data available from their research groups; 2) providing new opportunities for collaboration both internally and externally, resulting in joint grant proposals and publications; and 3) enhancing the attractiveness of the research environment of the group, helping to secure high-quality research staff.

This funding will support the career development of early career researchers with academic positions at Imperial. This will be through providing them with 1) the tools to increase the types and quality of data available from their research groups; 2) new opportunities for collaboration both internally and externally, resulting in joint grant proposals and publications; and 3) enhancing the attractiveness of the research environment of the group, helping to secure high-quality research staff. Outside of academia, we know from our survey that many of the ECRs who could benefit from the funded equipment are already engaging with end-users or working collaboratively with industrial partners and governmental organisations. Other potential benefits that have been described by our ECR community include improved patient care through enhanced screening methods and the development of novel therapies. We will use our enterprising ecosystem at Imperial to support these interactions and help promote maximum impact from this funding.