Grant winners

BIOTECHNOLOGY AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL

Responsive Mode Grant Awards

Values are the amounts requested. Awarded amounts may differ

• Award winner: Graham Seymour

• Institution: University of Nottingham

• Value: £2,000

The validation, characterisation and translation of the outputs derived from network analysis and QTL mapping of tomato fruit quality traits (TomNET)

• Award winner: Barbara Wieland

• Institution: Royal Veterinary College

• Value: £177,000

Emerging Chlamydia-like organisms as novel causes of bovine reproductive failure

• Award winner: Andrew Firth

• Institution: University of Cambridge

• Value: £346,000

Deciphering the enigmatic expression mechanism of the newly discovered PIPO gene in the Potyviridae family of plant viruses

• Award winner: Matthew Baylis

• Institution: University of Liverpool

• Value: £870,000

Improving projections for the future of bluetongue and its vectors under scenarios of climate and environmental change

LEVERHULME TRUST

Research Project Grants

Sciences

• Award winner: Heike Arnolds

• Institution: University of Liverpool

• Value: £102,813

Ultrafast spectroscopy of molecular electronic junctions

• Award winner: Zdzislaw Brzezniak

• Institution: University of York

• Value: £93,155

Quasi-geostrophic and related stochastic partial differential equations

• Award winner: Jan-Willem Bos

• Institution: Heriot-Watt University

• Value: £145,784

Reduced titanium and niobium oxide thermoelectrics

Humanities

• Award winner: Cecile De Cat

• Institution: University of Leeds

• Value: £161,284

Referential communication and executive function skills in bilingual children

• Award winner: Janet C.E. Watson

• Institution: University of Salford

• Value: £149,680

Documentation and ethnolinguistic analysis of the modern South Arabian languages

IN DETAIL

Research Programme Grant

• Award winner: Sir Richard J. Evans

• Institution: University of Cambridge

• Value: £1,584,611

Conspiracy and democracy: history, political theory and internet research

This project offers three views of the evolution of the idea that conspiracies are primarily perpetrated by governments: one over the long perspective from the 18th to the 21st centuries, marking the fundamental shift; a second in the history of the last 100 years of thinking and theor-ising about democracy; and a third looking at the impact of the internet. There are two connecting themes. First, what are the circumstances in which conspiracy theories focus on governments rather than other groups (religious or revolutionary movements, terrorists, the world of high finance)? No one has properly attempted to answer this before. Second, will the circumstances of the early 21st century (with its surfeit of information and crisis of democracy) lead to an increase in suspicion of government, or will it be replaced by something else, perhaps a return to more traditional "conspiracy theories"? The project will investigate the relationship between government fear of popular conspiracies and popular fear of government conspiracies.