Capital Award in Support of Early Career Researchers at UCL

We request a block grant award of £425k to be spent on capital research equipment to support Early Career Researchers (ECRs) undertaking excellent research in engineering and the physical sciences. As UCL Vice-Provost (Research) and holder of the UCL EPSRC Equipment Account, Professor David Price (Principal Investigator) will take oversight of the block grant. We will allocate capital funds through a competitive process, ensuring the objectives of the award are met, and that funds have maximum impact. In alignment with UCL's institutional strategies to maximise usage and sharing of equipment, to support researcher development and leadership, and to support world class research at the interface between disciplines, the selected investments will benefit interdisciplinary cohorts of lecturers, fellows and postdoctoral researchers, enabling them to carry out high quality research which will further their careers.

The proposed investment is expected to have an impact outside of academia, through the excellent research it will enable our researchers to conduct. Engineering and physical sciences research at UCL covers a wide breadth of areas, with impact on industry, the economy, health, the environment, policy and more. By encouraging bids for equipment which benefits large cohorts of ECRs, non-academic impact in a wide range of areas will be maximised through this investment. In addition, we expect the investment to facilitate increased collaboration between our researchers and industrial partners, enabling our partners to benefit from the new techniques and capabilities at UCL, and further strengthening the potential impacts on industry and society.