The new projects are funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through an £80 million investment.
The investment will boost fundamental research, enhance UK leadership in science and technology, and deliver life-changing breakthroughs for society and growth.
The projects include:
- developing tailored neuro-signals for prosthetic arms to improve the sense of touch and quality of life for the 2 million upper-limb amputees worldwide
- creating new ‘biomarker’ tools to measure blood clot formation and breakdown in the same blood test, reducing burden on the NHS
- developing camera-based technology for British Sign Language recognition and translation for devices like Alexa to protect personal privacy and make tools more inclusive
- designing better school outdoor spaces to improve thermal comfort and heat health, delivering healthier lifestyles for children
From curiosity to discovery
Benefiting from the freedom to explore, the knowledge-extending projects will deliver ingenious ideas and innovations in fields vital to the UK and wider world, including:
- healthcare
- clean energy
- materials
- artificial intelligence (AI)
- quantum computing
Countless major breakthroughs
Such curiosity-led discovery science has led to countless major breakthroughs in the past, from fast-track vaccines to lithium-ion batteries powering the consumer electronics revolution.
Science Minister Lord Patrick Vallance, who has hailed it “the goose that lays the golden egg”, said:
We are backing 100 ambitious projects up and down the UK which could spark the beginning of a new generation of life-changing developments, from more comfortable and effective prosthetic arms to earlier detection and prevention of blood clots.
It is vital we support bright researchers to explore a new generation of discoveries.
Big investment, bold ambition
Sustaining our national capability makes the UK more secure and resilient to the challenges we face today and the unforeseen challenges of tomorrow.
The groundbreaking discoveries, game-changing capabilities, intellectual property and, potentially, new research disciplines and industries that emerge will help build a vibrant economy.
This major investment will harness and strengthen UK core expertise in disciplines such as:
- mathematics
- computer science
- chemistry
- physics
- engineering
Innovation and impacts
Demonstrating the effectiveness of a long-term funding vision, Geoffrey Hinton, ‘Godfather of AI’ and joint winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize for Physics, started out at The University of Edinburgh.
He was supported by EPSRC’s forerunner, the Science Research Council.
Professor Charlotte Deane, EPSRC’s Executive Chair, said:
Discovery science is the bedrock of innovation, feeding the pipeline of progress critical to prosperity, sustainability, security, competitiveness, quality of life and resilience to future challenges.
It’s always been a UK strength and EPSRC has always been at the forefront of maintaining and extending this national capability.
Utilising and enhancing expertise across the country, these new EPSRC-backed projects will generate a legacy of extraordinary new knowledge, with impacts felt across the UK and the globe.
UK-wide drive
The package of projects will harness the skills from across the country, with 39 higher education institutions receiving support.
Further boosting the UK’s world-class research and innovation ecosystem, the investment will help attract and develop talent and promote UK leadership in adventurous, creative, curiosity-led research focused on current challenges and future opportunities.
Examples of funded projects
Engineering
A finishing touch for prosthetic arms
A key limitation of prosthetic arms is their inability to provide feedback on, for instance, the texture and slipperiness of things that users touch.
Integrating an artificial but natural-feeling sense of touch would hugely help the world’s two million upper-limb amputees and boost their quality of life.
An EPSRC New Investigator Award will enable Dr Ben Ward-Cherrier to drive a University of Bristol engineering project to develop a proof-of-concept system meeting this need.
The aim is to generate tailored neuro-signals by combining novel touch sensors with nerve stimulators.
Underpinning a new breed of life-changing prostheses, this work could also deliver valuable benefits for robotics and teleoperation.
Developing new tools to tackle blood clots
Triggering strokes, heart attacks and deep vein thrombosis, blood clots are a major cause of death and disability.
Clot-busting drugs are often ineffective and can cause complications, and better treatment requires improved understanding of blood-clotting and clot-breakdown processes in patients.
An EPSRC Standard Research Grant will enable Professor Karl Hawkins and colleagues at Swansea University to develop ‘biomarkers’ allowing clot formation and breakdown to be measured efficiently in the same test on the same blood sample.
Success will help pharma firms develop novel therapeutic strategies to tackle blood clots, improving outcomes for patients and reducing the burden on the NHS.
Taking the heat out of outdoor play
Children spend 30% of their time at school and 30% of that time in playgrounds.
But design of such spaces is insufficiently child-centric in terms of thermal comfort and heat health.
Climate change further complicates the challenge of keeping children safe while encouraging outdoor activity.
Supported by an EPSRC Standard Research Grant, Professor Marialena Nikolopoulou of the University of Kent is leading a collaboration to produce new mathematical models and fresh guidelines that address this issue.
Better design guidance on schools’ open spaces will inform policymakers, planners and building professionals, and help to deliver active, healthy lifestyles for children.
Information and communications technology (ICT)
Helping sign language keep up with the times
Camera technology has reshaped our lives, offering better communication, enhanced security and new possibilities.
But serious concerns surround personal privacy, emotional wellbeing and the impact of constant surveillance.
Many people, including sign language users relying on camera-based sign language recognition technology), experience altered behaviour, self-censorship and emotional strain.
Funded by an EPSRC New Investigator Award, Dr Shelly Vishwakarma is leading a University of Southampton ICT initiative to develop a privacy-preserving radar-based prototype for British Sign Language recognition and translation.
By incorporating this innovative technology into devices like Alexa, the aim is to reduce the digital divide, ensuring sign language users are not excluded from using these tools.
Securing more value from digital images
Digital imaging plays a pivotal role in the modern world, not least by providing data informing decision-making in healthcare, defence, agriculture, disaster recovery, pollution monitoring and other fields.
But the accuracy of this data and minimising uncertainties surrounding it remains a big challenge.
At Heriot-Watt University, Professor Marcelo Pereyra will use an EPSRC Open Fellowship to tackle this problem by strengthening the mathematical and computational foundations of tomorrow’s digital imaging technologies.
Making evidence generated through digital imaging more robust and reliable will not only aid decision-making in multiple spheres, it will also assist the entire scientific domain.
Ensuring cybersecurity in the quantum era
In today’s digital world, keeping communications secure is paramount.
But a key component of protocols harnessed by apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp is vulnerable to attack from quantum computers.
Despite breakthroughs in tackling the problem, integrating these advances into real-world ICT poses a major challenge.
Funded by an EPSRC New Investigator Award, Dr Benjamin Dowling is heading a team at King’s College London to develop a universally applicable computing framework that makes such integration possible.
Better protection of political, financial, commercial, personal and other information will deliver benefits in fields from online shopping and banking to national-level security.
Mathematical sciences
Releasing the full potential of game-changing gels
‘Polyelectrolyte’ gels, which change size and shape in response to their environment, could help to deliver advances in robotics, drug delivery, water purification and energy storage.
But the ability to control these changes is critical and requires clearer understanding of the physics underpinning the gels’ behaviour.
Supported by an EPSRC New Investigator Award, Dr Matthew Hennessy is spearheading a University of Bristol project harnessing sophisticated mathematical models to generate new insights into how these gels behave, from nanometre to centimetre scale.
By enabling improved design and optimised use, this work will aid development of gels effective in a variety of vital applications.
Physical sciences
Delivering suitable shells for polymer nanoparticles
With diameters a thousand times less than the human hair, polymer nanoparticles are having a big impact in areas such as medical imaging and drug delivery.
Nanoparticles made from smart polymers that respond to their environment offer extra potential but must be coated in the right type of shell to realise this.
An EPSRC New Investigator Award will enable Dr Helen Willcock at Loughborough University and mathematical science colleagues at the University of Lincoln to use computer simulations and practical experiments to explore how such shells interact with their environments.
This research makes it possible to predict how the particles’ surfaces will behave, and will aid design of safe, effective smart polymer nanoparticles, for use in drug delivery and medical imaging.
Further information
Flexible approach to funding discovery science
Support for the projects was awarded following an open, applicant-led process.
To maximise the funding’s effectiveness, a range of opportunities are being applied, including New Investigator Awards and research networks as well as Standard Research Awards.
Top image: Advanced Research Centre Glasgow University. Credit: UKRI