Many areas of scientific research will benefit from investment of £6 million to develop the UK's large-scale research facilities
Scientists from the UK and around the world will benefit from £6 million grant awards for large-scale science research facilities.
This significant investment is intended to ensure that the Council for Central Laboratories of the Research Councils's (CCLRC) large facilities will remain internationally competitive and capable of providing the technological infrastructure necessary for UK and international scientists to probe materials deeper, faster and more accurately than ever before.
Eight research grants have been awarded to collaborative teams led by academics from UK universities and the CCLRC.
Awards have been determined by the peer-reviewed quality of the proposals to create new research opportunities and to introduce new research communities to the CCLRC facilities - the Central Laser Facility (CLF), the Isis pulsed neutron and muon source, and the Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS).
The largest award is £2 million for the development of a new muon spectrometer on the Isis facility.
"Muons are a fascinating way of exploring materials.
"They only live for two millionths of a second, but that's long enough to give us unique insights into atoms and molecules," said project leader Philip King from the CCLRC Isis facility.
"The new instrument will significantly widen the range of experiments we can make on new organic materials and on semiconductors used by the electronics industry".
A grant of £1.8 million has been awarded in partnership with the Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council (BBSRC) to develop a novel laser spectrometer which will enable researchers to investigate DNA repair, protein folding and offer a new approach to detecting cancerous and pre-cancerous cells.
Colin Miles from BBSRC said: "This technique will enable CCLRC expertise in material and physical sciences to be extended to the BBSRC bioscience and medical communities.
"This builds on steps being taken by CCLRC and BBSRC to work in partnership to increase the amount of bioscience research undertaken on the facilities".
Four of the successful grants will be used to develop new instruments on the SRS in advance of the transfer of science programmes to the Diamond Light Source.
"These developments will ensure that the SRS can continue to provide scientists with state-of-the-art instrumentation during this very important overlap period between the closure of the SRS and the start up of Diamond", explained Professor Michael Chesters, director synchrotron science.
This is the second year that CCLRC has awarded funds in its Facility Development grant award scheme.
Given the quality of proposals received and demand from the research community, the CCLRC intends to build on initial success and continue the scheme into the foreseeable future.
A call for expressions of interest for the third round of the CCLRC Facility Development grant scheme has just been launched.
Information is available on the Facility Development home web page, accessible through the CCLRC website.
Expressions of interest will be reviewed by an external board of scientists and engineers from universities around the UK, and those applicants with proposals judged to be of sufficiently high quality and relevance to the CCLRC facility programme will be invited to submit a full proposal.
The closing date is 24 July 2005.
The grants funded are as follows.
Project: a new high-field muon spectrometer which will benefit research into magnetic and superconducting materials, studies of molecular dynamics and investigation of hydrogen behaviour in semiconductors, using muons as probe particles.
Facility: Isis Pulsed Muon Source.
Principal investigators: Philip King, CCLRC; Stephen Blundell, University of Oxford.
Total value: £2.1 million.
Project: Ultra (ultrasensitive lifescience time-resolved analysis) - a new vibration spectrometer for the life sciences.
The aim is to make improvements in sensitivity and spectral coverage well above those presently available world-wide, capitalising on CCLRC's ability to develop unique tuneable laser systems and detectors.
Facility: Central Laser Facility.
Principal investigator: Professor Michael George, University of Nottingham.
Total value: £1.8 million - funded 50% with BBSRC.
Project: an upgrade of the Isis powder diffraction instrument HRPD with state-of-the-art technology.
The new technology will provide ten times more neutrons so that minute changes in the atomic lattice of materials such as catalysts can be followed as they change over time.
Facility: Isis Pulsed Neutron Source.
Principal investigator: Professor Paolo Radaelli, CCLRC.
Total value: £1.5 million.
Project: development of polarisation characterisation facilities for synchrotron radiation instruments.
This facility will benefit the UK science community though their exploitation of the Synchrotron Radiation Source and ESRF - the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility at Grenoble in France, and to future users of 4GLS - the 4th generation light source, Diamond and other future UK facilities, and to the laser community.
Facility: Synchrotron Radiation Source.
Principal investigators: Frances Quinn, CCLRC; Professor Colin Latimer, Queen's University Belfast.
Total value: £0.5 million.
Project: enhancing nanoscience for synchrotron radiation using scanning tunnelling microscopy.
Facility: Synchrotron Radiation Source.
Principal investigator: Professor Ronan McGrath, University of Liverpool.
Total value: £320k.
Project: development of the third generation data acquisition system to meet the challenging requirements of instruments for the Isis second target which is currently being built.
Facility: Isis Pulsed Neutron and Muon Source.
Principal investigator: Julian Norris, CCLRC.
Total value: £290k.
Project: implementation of a four-crystal monochromator for the SRS.
Facility: Synchrotron Radiation Source.
Principal investigator: Barry Dobson, CCLRC.
Total value: £160k.
Project: three-dimensional residual strain and texture mapping in real engineering components.
This project is a significant step forward in developing a unique facility for studying real engineering components using synchrotron.
Facility: Synchrotron Radiation Source.
Principal investigator: Mina Golshan, CCLRC.
Total value: £105k
