Senate report – major achievements and awards

30 Apr 2025

Congratulations to our colleagues for the recent major achievements and major funding, reported in the latest Senate report (April 2025)

Major achievements and awards secured by the University since the last Senate report include:  

Major awards and Fellowships

Dr Rob Harrison (School of Engineering) is leading a £5m hub funded by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to support nuclear decommissioning and waste strategies.   

Professor Andrew Irving (School of Social Sciences) has been awarded a £2.3m Wellcome Discovery Award to establish the world’s first ethnographic and participatory investigation into the interior lifeworlds of Motor Neurone Disease (MND). 

Professor Kimme Hyrich (School of Biological Sciences) is leading a £1.3m award from Versus Arthritis UK on musculoskeletal epidemiology. 

Colleagues in the Faculty of Science and Engineering are leading and partnering in three Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) projects: 

• Professor Patrick Cai (School of Natural Sciences) is leading a £3.9m project on engineering synthetic plant artificial chromosomes. 
• Dr Geoffrey Evatt (School of Natural Sciences) is participating in a project led by the University of Cambridge on managing our climate and weather through responsible engineering. 
• Dr Rob Wykes (School of Biological Sciences) is participating in a project led by the University of Glasgow on neural robots.  

Professor Melanie Giles (School of Arts, Languages and Cultures) has been awarded a £615,000 AHRC grant for a project ‘Chariots and Cynen: conservators, communities and craftspeople in creative archaeological practice’. 

Dr Kerrie Marie (School of Biological Sciences) has secured a CRUK Career Development Fellowship Award of £1.5m for research on deciphering the dynamics of melanoma plasticity.  

Awards and recognition

Professor Liz Richardson (School of Social Sciences) has been recognised as one of the top 25 thinkers by the Local Government Unit in recognition of her role as a thought leader in democratic and participatory politics and research. 

Professors Sarah Cartmell (School of Engineering), Andrew McBain (School of Health Sciences) and Jian Lu (School of Natural Sciences) have won the Bionow Project of the Year Award for their Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Saraco Industries Ltd.  

Dr Claudia Lindner (School of Health Sciences) has been selected for the Foundation Future Leaders Programme 2025 with The Foundation for Science and Technology. 

Our colleagues on the annual list of innovative women compiled by The Northern Health Science Alliance are: 

• Dr Anna Wilding (School of Health Sciences) 
• Professor Cath O'Neill (School of Biological Sciences) 
• Dr Dunni Druwa (School of Medical Sciences) 
• Professor George Moulton (School of Health Sciences) 
• Dr Holly Hope (School of Health Sciences) 
• Joanne Summers (Directorate of Research and Business Engagement) 
• Professor Kathryn Abel (School of Health Sciences) 
• Lily Mott (School of Health Sciences) 
• Dr Lisa McGarrigle (School of Health Sciences) 
• Dr Margaret Kingston (School of Medical Sciences) 
• Dr Sorrel Burden (School of Health Sciences) 
• Dr Susan Cochran (School of Health Sciences) 
• Professor Tine Buffel (School of Social Sciences) 

PGR Chloe Fox-Robertson (School of Environment, Education and Development) has been recognized in the Women in Fintech Powerlist for her research on gender inequalities within Financial Technology.  

A selection of other funding awards include: 

UKRI 

PI Dr Stian Soiland-Reyes (School of Engineering) and Co-I Professor Carole Goble (School of Engineering), TREvolution DARE UK Transformational Programme, £546,453. 

UKRI – AHRC  

PI Professor Melanie Giles (School of Arts, Languages and Cultures), Chariots and Cynen: conservators, communities and craftspeople in creative archaeological practice, £615,003. 

UKRI – EPSRC  

PI Professor Richard Winpenny (School of Natural Sciences) and Co-Is Dr Alice Bowen, Professor Eric McInnes (both School of Natural Sciences), Switches and Qubits, £663,159. 

PI Professor Jian Lu (School of Natural Sciences) and Co-I Professor Jeremy Derrick (School of Biological Sciences), Understanding molecular interactions between lipid droplets and flaviviruse, £551,780. 

UKRI – MRC  

PI Professor Giulio Cossu (School of Biological Sciences) and Dr Francessca Galli (School of Biological Sciences), A novel scaffold for systemic delivery of stem cells through the circulation, £837,247. 

PI Professor Angeliki Malliri (School of Medical Sciences) and Co-Is Dr Martin Baker (School of Medical Sciences), Dr Kathryn Simpson, Professor Caroline Dive (both CRUK MI), Investigating the role of RAC1 signalling in small cell lung cancer plasticity, £680,817. 

UKRI – NERC  

PI Professor Zhonghua Zheng (School of Natural Sciences) and Co-Is Professor Sarah Lindley (School of Environment, Education and Development), Professor Caroline Jay (School of Engineering) and Professor David Topping (School of Natural Sciences), Global-scale modelling of urban climate projection and adaptation based on local climate zones, £759,869. 

UKRI – STFC 

PI Dr Darren Graham (School of Natural Sciences) and Co-Is Professor Stewart Boogert, Dr Robert Appleby, Dr Oznur Apsimon, Dr Morgan Hibberd, Professor Roger Jones, Dr Guoxing Xia, Dr William Bertsche (all School of Natural Sciences) and Dr Michael Taylor (School of Medical Sciences), Cockcroft Core Grant Phase 5 2025-2028, £2.5m. 

UK Government 

PI Dr James Allan (School of Natural Sciences), Air Pollution Research, DEFRA, £742,364. 

PI Professor Philip Edmondson (School of Natural Sciences) and Co-I Professor Lee Margetts (School of Engineering), Breeder Agnostic Tritium Inventory Digital Twin System for the LIBRTI, UK Atomic Energy Authority, £676,041. 

PI Dr Upasak Das (School of Environment, Education and Development) and Co-I Mehebub Sahana (School of Environment, Education and Development), Exploring Policy Mobility for Local Solutions and Community Resilience through Natural Flood Management: A Comparative Study of Mersey River Basin, England, and Shilabati River Basin, India, British Council International Science Partnership Fund, £67,013. 

UK Government – Innovate UK   

PI Professor Chris Taylor (School of Health Sciences) and Co-Is Professor Magnus Rattray, Professor Angela Davies (both School of Health Sciences), Professor Nicholas Lord (School of Social Sciences), Professor Aline Miller, Professor Stephen Pettifer, Professor Daniel Dresner (all School of Engineering), John Holden (AVP Major Projects), TIC 2.0: Turing Innovation Catalyst Manchester Extension, £1.7m. 

PI Alec Davis (School of Natural Sciences) and Co-I Joao Quinta Da Fonseca (School of Natural Sciences), Implementation of Sustainable Large Additive in Aerospace, £517,112. 

UK Government – Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) 

PI Professor Patrick Cai (School of Natural Sciences) and Co-I Dr Joshua James (School of Natural Sciences), Engineering Synthetic Plant Artificial Chromosomes, £3.9m. 

PI Dr Geoffrey Evatt (School of Natural Sciences), Managing our climate and weather through responsible engineering, £625,605. 

Charities  

PI Professor Andrew Irving (School of Social Sciences) and Co-Is Dr Michael Atkins (School of Social Sciences) and Professor Stephen Pettifer (School of Engineering), Co-Creative MiND: The Inner Lifeworlds of MND, Wellcome Discovery Award, £2.3m. 

PI Dr Kerrie Marie (School of Biological Sciences), Deciphering the dynamics of melanoma plasticity, Cancer Research UK, £1.5m.  

PI Professor Kimme Hyrich (School of Biological Sciences) and Co-Is Dr Jennifer Humphrey Dr Meghna Jani, Dr Suzanne Verstappen (all School of Biological Sciences), Dr Alexander Thompson (School of Medical Sciences), Dr Lianne Kearsley-Fleet and Dr Stephanie Shoop-Worrall (both School of Biological Sciences), Musculoskeletal Epidemiology Better lives, Safer journey, Versus Arthritis, £1.3m 

PI Mark Williams (Cancer Research UK MI) and Co-I Robert Wynn (School of Biological Sciences), GRanulocyte Augmented Cord blood transplantation for poor risk leukaEmia (GRACE), Blood Cancer UK, £984,354. 

Industry 

PI Joel Turner (School of Engineering), Nuclear Fuels, Rolls Royce Ltd., £632,755. 

PI Dr Lin Ma (School of Engineering) and Co-Is Dr Masoud Babaei, Professor Vahid Joekar-Niasar (both School of Engineering) and Professor Kevin Taylor (School of Natural Sciences), Microstructure characterisation of shales and mudstones under subsurface conditions during carbon storage, PetroChina Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, £560,084. 

PI Professor William Parnell (School of Natural Sciences) and Co-Is Dr Raphael Assier, Dr Tom Shearer, Dr Gareth Jones (all School of Natural Sciences), Structural and Material Acoustics Research and Technology Hub 3, Thales Alenia Space UK Limited, £500,000.