Grant winners

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH RESEARCH

Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation Programme

• Award winner: Steve C. Robson

• Institution: Newcastle University

• Value: £1,558,235

EACH study: evaluation of array comparative genomic hybridisation and non-invasive prenatal diagnosis using cell-free fetal DNA in prenatal diagnosis of fetal anomalies

Health Services and Delivery Research programme

• Award winner: Jenny Shaw

• Institution: University of Manchester

• Value: £638,198

CrISP: critical time intervention for severely mentally ill released prisoners: a randomised control trial

LEVERHULME TRUST

Philip Leverhulme Prize

These prizes, with a value of £70,000 each, are awarded to outstanding scholars who have made a substantial and recognised contribution to their particular field of study.

Performing and visual arts

• Award winner: Esther Johnson

• Institution: Sheffield Hallam University

Film-making, photography and curating

• Award winner: Phoebe Unwin

• Institution: University College London

Contemporary visual art: the exploration of feelings and forms through painting

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

Follow on Fund

• Award winner: Sue Ziebland

• Institution: University of Oxford

• Value: £84,965

Living beyond cancer: using people's experiences to develop a resource as part of www.healthtalkonline.org

• Award winner: Jill Manthorpe

• Institution: King's College London

• Value: £98,2

Improving front-line collaborative responses to multiple-exclusion homelessness: community of practice development programme

• Award winner: Anthony Heath

• Institution: University of Manchester

• Value: £79,948

Ethnicity in politics online data centre

Knowledge Exchange Opportunities

• Award winner: Charlie Jeffery

• Institution: University of Edinburgh

• Value: £46,338

Conversations on the political economy of constitutional change in Scotland

IN DETAIL

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

• Award winner: Polina Bayvel

• Institution: University College London

• Value: £4.75 million

UNLOC: unlocking the capacity of optical communications

Developments in optical-fibre transmission have enabled vast improvements in telecommunications and the internet that now underpin almost every aspect of society. Virtually all data (whether from phones, computers or mobile devices) are carried over optical fibres. However, current infrastructure faces strain from the demand for ever-higher bandwidth - it is predicted that by 2020 demand will grow 10 times faster than capacity. The Optical Network Group at UCL has been awarded this grant to unlock more optical communications capacity. With collaborators from Aston University, they will develop a new generation of optical communication systems and networks via advanced digital signal processing techniques, novel modulation formats, and coding designed to work with the nonlinear properties of optical fibres. Some limits on data transmission were thought to be fundamental, but by combining theoretical and experimental approaches, the group hopes they can be broken.