Research capacity building in STEM subjects

We have supported the following initiatives with a view to enhancing research capacity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects.

Capacity-building awards in integrative mammalian biology

A consortium of funding partners including HEFCE, the Scottish Funding Council, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Medical Research Council, Pfizer and GSK have pledged up to £12 million to fund up to four capacity building awards in the UK. Funded initiatives will focus on research and training methods involving specific research techniques where national capacity is particularly low.

More about the integrative mammalian biology awards

New blood clinical senior lectureship awards

We are working in partnership with the Department of Health on an initiative to develop high-quality capacity, and secure long term sustainability and enhanced outcomes in research and teaching, at senior lecturer level, in areas of clinical medicine and dentistry of national strategic importance. This is further to a report from the UK Clinical Research Collaboration sub-committee on clinical academic careers, chaired by Dr Mark Walport, published in March 2005.

The funders, working with higher education institutions and NHS trusts throughout England, have supported five cohorts of senior clinical lecturers with a total of 188 personal awards of five years' duration each.

More about the clinical senior lectureship awards

Science and innovation awards

Funding has been awarded by HEFCE, the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Science and innovation awards support research capacity development in sub-disciplines identified by the research councils in the context of their work on the health of disciplines in 2004. Since 2004 there have been 5 rounds of awards.

The first three rounds have provided funding for HEIs to carry out a range of work, including statistics, discrete mathematics and its applications, new tools for nanotechnology, quantum coherence and plasma physics.