Grant winners – 28 May 2015

National Institute for Health Research

Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation programme

• Award winner: Andrew Horne
• Institution: University of Edinburgh
• Value: £1,215,358

A multi-centre randomised controlled trial of the efficacy and mechanism of action of Gabapentin for the management of chronic pelvic pain in women

• Award winner: Alberto Sanchez‑Fueyo
• Institution: King’s College London
• Value: £1,671,143

Prospective randomised marker-based trial to assess the clinical utility and safety of biomarker-guided immunosuppression withdrawal in liver transplantation (“LiverTOL-Dx” Trial)

Health Technology Assessment programme

• Award winner: Simon Thompson
• Institution: University of Cambridge
• Value: £226,643

Screening women for abdominal aortic aneurysm

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council

Research grants

• Award winner: Marina Bloj
• Institution: University of Bradford
• Value: £17,501

Neural pathways underlying human 3D motion perception

• Award winner: Ruaidhri Carmody
• Institution: University of Glasgow
• Value: £693,836

Dissecting the function of Bcl-3 in NF-kB signalling in B cells

• Award winner: Giorgio Gilestro
• Institution: Imperial College London
• Value: £375,531

Genetics of sleep regulation and function: the AKR genes in Drosophila

Economic and Social Research Council

Research grants

• Award winner: Timothy Hope
• Institution: University of Salford
• Value: £150,136

A profiler for crime, criminal justice and social harm

• Award winner: Krijn Peters
• Institution: Swansea University
• Value: £134,268

At the end of the feeder road: assessing the impact of track construction for motorbike taxis on agrarian development in Liberia

• Award winner: Alison Brown
• Institution: Cardiff University
• Value: £411,516

Economic recovery in post-conflict cities: the role of the urban informal economy

• Award winner: Michaela Benzeval
• Institution: University of Essex
• Value: £1,467,783

How can biomarkers and genetics improve our understanding of society and health?

In detail

Award winner: Daniel Stevens
Institution: University of Exeter
Value: £241,890

Media in context and the 2015 general election: how traditional and social media shape elections and governing

Researchers on this project will explore pressing questions relating to media effects on governance and elections. These include:

• the flow of campaign information, which is traditionally depicted as trickling down from elites to the masses;
• the changing media landscape and the impact of declining newspaper readership and trust in media;
• the role of traditional and social media in the post-election period (interpretations of poll results may confer legitimacy on an outcome and may provide a narrative about an electoral mandate).

The project will also look at flaws in election coverage studies. Much work ignores non-election coverage, thus not permitting analysis of the overall news context. British media studies also tend to rely solely on survey data, ignoring the benefits for establishing causation and effect sizes offered by field experiments.