Grant winners

Economic and Social Research Council

A total of £1.5 million is to be provided to nine projects that will conduct research into innovative services, products, processes and business models with the aim of bringing the UK out of recession. In this latest phase of the Innovation Research Initiative, funding will go to substantive research projects, based on longer-term research using established methods, and to shorter exploratory research projects designed to investigate new research methods and exploration. Funding has been provided jointly by the Economic and Social Research Council, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts and the Technology Strategy Board. Below are details of the seven winners based at UK universities.

Award winner: Paul Nightingale

Institution: University of Sussex

Development and exploitation of financial innovation

Award winner: Sara Davies

Institution: University of Strathclyde

Innovation in peripheral areas

Award winner: Simcha Jong

Institution: University College London

New modes of innovation

Award winner: Joe Nandhakumar

Institution: University of Warwick

Valuing innovation: an exploratory study of developing business models for "serious" computer games

Award winner: Kamalini Ramdas

Institution: London Business School

Innovation in service delivery

Award winner: Jakob Elder and Luke Georghiou

Institution: University of Manchester

Understanding public procurement of innovation

Award winner: Martin Sexton

Institution: University of Reading

The impact of environmental regulation on innovation in the housing sector: the case of the Code for Sustainable Homes

ENGINEERING AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL

Award winner: D.H. Coyle

Institution: University of Ulster

Value: £101,963

Intelligent pre- and post-processing algorithms for autonomous multiclass brain-computer interfaces

Award winner: D.E. Clark

Institution: Heriot-Watt University

Value: £101,622

Sequential Monte Carlo smoothing with finite set statistics

Award winner: N. Krasnogor

Institution: University of Nottingham

Value: £950,600

Evolutionary optimisation of self-assembling nano-designs (ExIStENcE)

Award winner: S. Scheel

Institution: Imperial College London

Value: £8,587

Macroscopic bodies - a novel ingredient in the quantum engineering toolbox

Award winner: J.E. Gough

Institution: Aberystwyth University

Value: £16,285

Quantum control: feedback mediated by channels in non-classical states

Award winner: M.P. Halsall

Institution: University of Manchester

Value: £609,229

Silicon emission technologies based on nanocrystals

Award winner: P. Oliva

Institution: Queen Mary, University of London

Value: £101,310

Computation-sensitive proofs

Science and technology facilities council

Award winners: Phil Dawson and Colin Humphreys

Institutions: University of Manchester and University of Cambridge

Value: £346,698 (Manchester) and £826,111 (Cambridge) Nitrides for the 21st century

Award winner: Stephen Billings

Institution: University of Sheffield

Value: £1,205,632

System identification and information processing for complex systems

Award winner: David Barton

Institution: University of Bristol

Value: £7,186

Modelling and testing of nonlinear energy harvesters

Award winner: Ian Sinclair

Institution: University of Southampton

Value: £1,922,453

CeM-CATS: A Centre for Multi-disciplinary Computer Assisted Tomography at Southampton

IN DETAIL

Award winner: Zsolt Podolyak

Institution: University of Surrey, in collaboration with the universities of Brighton, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester, York, West of Scotland and Daresbury Laboratory

Value: £10 million

FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research)

Funding will go towards designing and building equipment for FAIR - a EUR1 billion nuclear physics facility which will be built in Darmstadt, Germany. The experiments carried out are intended to further understanding of atomic nuclei and other common forms of matter in the Universe, and will provide data on where and when the chemical elements are made. The project forms part of NuSTAR (Nuclear Structure Astrophysics and Reactions), an international collaboration that will provide research at FAIR and become a training ground for the construction of nuclear power stations, design and man medical facilities for imaging and therapy and devise security measures to thwart terrorist activities.