A celebration of European Research Council success

On 25 February the University celebrated its European Research Council (ERC) grant success with an informal event in Darwin College.

The event was opened by Dr Tim Hopthrow, Associate Dean for Research and Innovation, Faculty of Social Sciences, with Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Karen Cox providing the welcome. During her speech Professor Cox thanked the ERC grant winners and those involved in the applications process for ‘their commitment, dedication and vision’.

She also described colleagues’ work as ‘a huge asset to the University‘ and ‘shifting the paradigms within and across disciplines, offering new insights that make people think differently about the world – its history, society, culture and science – and thereby pushing forward the boundaries of what we know‘.

Professor Philippe de Wilde, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation, provided the closing remarks.

During the two hour celebration, which was organised by Research Services, there were presentations by previous and recent grant winners.

The previous winners are:

Professor Adrian Podoleanu (School of Physical Sciences)

• Advanced Grant (2009): COGATIMABIO: Combined time domain and spectral domain coherence
  Proof of Concept (2015): AMEFOCT: Add-on module for optical coherence tomography with en-face view option gating for imaging and biosensing
  Proof of Concept (2016): AdaSmartRes: Adapter for a commercial grade camera or a smartphone to perform depth resolved imaging

Professor Anneli Albi (Kent Law School)

• Starting Grant (2011): CONSTEURGLOBGOV: The Role and Future of National Constitutions in European and Global Governance

Professor Tracy Kivell (School of Anthropology and Conservation)

• Starting Grant (2013): GRASP: The evolution of the human hand: grasping trees and tools

Professor Heather Ferguson (School of Psychology)

• Starting Grant (2014): CogSoCoAGE: Tracking the cognitive basis of social communication across the life-span

Professor Zoe Davies (School of Anthropology and Conservation)

• Consolidator Grant (2016): RELATE: Environmental Spaces and the Feel-Good Factor: Relating Subjective Wellbeing to Biodiversity

Recent winners are:

Dr Matt Skinner (School of Anthropology and Conservation)

• Consolidator Grant (2018): NewHuman: Pathways to humanity: Adaptive niche diversity at the origins of the human lineage

Professor Ayse Uskul (School of Psychology)

• Consolidator Grant (2018): HONORLOGIC: Cultural Logic of Honor and Human Social Interaction: A Comparative Investigation

Dr Jan Loop (School of History)

• Synergy Grant (2018): EuQu: The European Qur’an