Two 含羞草视频 researchers have been awarded prestigious Future Leaders Fellowships from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), receiving funding for projects worth £2.5 million collectively.

Dr Kate Mathers, who completed her PhD in the Department of Geography and will shortly be returning to 含羞草视频, and Dr Ignacio Martin-Fabiani – who is currently a Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow based in the School of Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering – were today announced as recipients of the fellowships.

Through the Future Leader Fellowships, UKRI aims to support new and innovative research leaders with links across different sectors and disciplines by awarding early-career researchers with funding of between £400k-£1.5 million across four years. Dr Mathers will receive UKRI funding for her £1.1 million project and Dr Martin-Fabiani’s research will be supported with funding for his £1.4 million project.

This grant will support the recipients with their challenging and ambitious projects as well as their career development, covering the costs of equipment and team members’ wages amongst other needs.

Dr Martin-Fabiani’s Fellowship will help him to overcome the economic and societal challenges associated with the paint industry for coatings used in both healthcare settings and for renewable technologies.

Pathogenic bacteria has been proven to be one of the leading causes of healthcare-associated infections, killing thousands of patients and costing the NHS millions. Therefore, more effective antibacterial coatings are urgently needed to reduce bacterial accumulation on surfaces.

Although solar panels have the ability to convert a significant proportion of sunlight into electricity, their efficiency can be dramatically reduced due to dust and pollen accumulated on panels, particularly in arid regions.

Dr Martin-Fabiani hopes to create a platform technology inspired by the skin of insects that survive floods in the rainforests to develop the next generation of sustainable coatings; targeting the issues with healthcare-associated infections and solar panel efficiency reductions by designing structures that will impart self-cleaning properties to the coatings.

Nanomaterials that kill bacteria – such as copper or zinc oxide nanoparticles – will be added to the coating formulation to tackle healthcare infections, and, to increase the efficiency of solar panels, nanomaterials that have heightened resistance to wear and abrasion in very dry climates will be added.

He will collaborate alongside industrial paint partners to prepare pilot formulations to enable this innovative product development to proceed.

Talking about the announcement, Dr Martin-Fabiani said: "I feel extremely honoured and humbled to have been awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship. The flexibility that this scheme provides will enable me to work on some the most challenging ideas that I have been brewing, in particular aiming to build bridges between state-of-the-art research and innovations in paints and coatings.

“I’m very thankful to all of the academic and industrial partners involved, as well as to all the colleagues that helped to get a proposal of this magnitude all the way through! I am truly excited to get the project started."

Sir Mark Walport, Chief Executive of UK Research and Innovation, commented: “The Future Leaders Fellowships are UKRI’s flagship talent programme, designed to foster and nurture the research and innovation leaders of the future.

“We are delighted to support these outstanding researchers and innovators across universities, research organisations and businesses."