Building a strong Fellowship community
02 Jul 2026
Celebrating our Research Fellows’ outstanding contribution to our University’s research ambitions and environment – and our inaugural Research Fellows of the Year.
Our Research Fellows have been celebrated for their extraordinary breadth of expertise, perspectives and ambition, and their key role in achieving our Manchester 2035 strategy.
Vice-President for Research, Professor Colette Fagan presented the awards to our inaugural Research Fellows of the Year.
The Fellowships Strategy Group (FSG) introduced Award to recognise and celebrate the outstanding contribution research fellows make to advancing the University’s research ambitions and environment.
This year, the winners are:
Dr Jack Benton (Humanities), a Leverhulme Fellow, for his commitment to methods development and interdisciplinary collaboration, which along with research funding and publication success marks him as an outstanding early-career researcher. His research has an international reach, and he actively contributes to the research community. Jack's innovative research project, centred around ‘Creating Urban Environments for Wellbeing: Advancing Methods and Theory’, aims to develop new tools and insights for understanding how changes in urban environments impact people’s wellbeing.
Dr Meghna Jani (Biology, Medicine and Health), an NIHR Advanced Fellow is an exceptional clinical academic whose work is improving medication safety and shaping practice nationally and internationally. She is invited to contribute to regulatory panels and clinical guidelines. She is highly active in public engagement, with her research recognised through a national award voted for by the public. Alongside this, she is a generous mentor and leader in the research community, supporting early-career researchers as co-chair of the BMH fellows’ forum.
Dr Jayadev Vijayan (Science and Engineering), a University Research Fellow with excellent publications, in top quality venues, with good reach. He has contributed to the research environment as Co-Director of the Centre for Quantum Science and Engineering, as well as supporting PGRs and ECRs. He engages with industry and has organised events for wider academic-industry interaction across his research area. Jayadev's research interests are broadly centred around using tools and techniques from across quantum physics, photonics and engineering to explore foundational science and develop quantum technology. Currently, he is interested in using these new capabilities in generating quantum and many-body resources to build practical quantum sensors for inertial sensing and gravimetry. He is also interested in leveraging the unique materials engineering facilities in Manchester to investigate optomechanics with doped quantum emitters.
Delivering Manchester 2035
Colette discussed the role all our Research Fellows and Independent Award Holders would play in delivering Manchester 2035: “Our 2035 vision calls on us to tackle the world’s most pressing problems through collaboration and genuinely interdisciplinary teams.
“Within our Research Fellows and Independent Award Holders, we have an extraordinary breadth of expertise, perspectives, and ambition, but it is through meaningful connection that this potential is fully realised.
“When we create space for collaboration across disciplines, departments, and career stages, we accelerate discovery, spark innovation, and build resilience into our research culture.”
Building our Fellowship community
The Fellowships Strategy Group (FSG) is focused on three strands of work: building a strong Fellowship community, enabling Fellowship success and progression, and investing strategically in our Fellowship portfolio.
This work has already started, following feedback from last year’s Research Fellows community event:
- representation for fellowship and independent award holders with a seat on research committee – the university-level decision making board;
- dedicated events for fellows and independent award holders to enable community building;
- and a single source of development information through the Fellows Sharepoint site.
There will also be support for onboarding of new Fellows; career planning through transparent probation and progression systems; and further opportunities to connect with fellowship and independent award holders.
Discover more
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