Grant winners – 9 July 2015

National Institute for Health Research

Health Technology Assessment Programme

• Award winner: Khalid Khan
• Institution: Queen Mary University of London
• Value: £983,153

Accuracy of a rapid intrapartum test for maternal group B streptococcal colonisation and its potential to reduce antibiotic usage in mothers with risk factors (GBS2)

• Award winner: Daniel Prieto-Alhambra
• Institution: University of Oxford
• Value: £340,486

Risks and benefits of bisphosphonate use in patients with chronic kidney disease: a population-based cohort study

• Award winner: Sube Banerjee
• Institution: University of Sussex
• Value: £1,487,380

SYMBAD: Study of mirtazapine or carbamazepine for agitation in dementia

• Award winner: Brian Ritchie Davidson
• Institution: University College London
• Value: £1,762,782

Thermal ablation versus surgery for patients with colorectal liver metastases

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council

• Award winner: Christine Foyer
• Institution: University of Leeds
• Value: £397,731

Functions of the Whirly 1 protein in chloroplast-nucleus crosstalk

Leverhulme Trust

Research Project Grants
Sciences

• Award winner: Adam Hardy
• Institution: Cardiff University
• Value: £270,284

The Nagara tradition of temple architecture: continuity, transformation, renewal

• Award winner: William Harwin
• Institution: University of Reading
• Value: £253,141

3D learning in a rich cooperative haptic environment

• Award winner: Silvana Cardoso
• Institution: University of Cambridge
• Value: £204,433

Precipitation reactions in environmental plumes: implication for oceanic methane releases

Social sciences

• Award winner: Miriam Bernard
• Institution: Keele University
• Value: £140,606

The ageing of British gerontology: learning from the past to inform the future

• Award winner: Mirco Tonin
• Institution: University of Southampton
• Value: £119,820

The long-term effects of property rights and institutional ownership on regional development

In detail

Award winner: Jenny Thomson
Institution: University of Sheffield
Value: £189,038

Evaluating the effect of exposure to digital text on early literacy development

This project will focus on the need to update understanding of young children’s reading development in light of their increased exposure to digital texts on different-sized devices. It will explore whether learning to read text on a tablet involves different skills from learning to read from traditional print books. “Certainly, as an adult, reading from digital devices can feel like a very different experience to our experience of reading from paper,” writes Jenny Thomson, senior lecturer in the department of human communication sciences at the University of Sheffield, in the Leverhulme Trust’s newsletter. “However, our experiences as individuals who first learned to read on paper will be quite different to children whose first exposure to print may be across books, tablets, computers and smartphones.” This project will explore whether traditional notions of early predictors for reading success need updating in the digital era.