The Royal Society and Wolfson Foundation announce first Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship awardees

The Royal Society and Wolfson Foundation have announced the first recipients of the Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship Scheme. The £8 million scheme, which was launched earlier this year, supports UK universities and research institutions to recruit and retain outstanding senior research scientists, particularly researchers from outside the UK.

The full list of awardees are, in alphabetical order:

Dr Karin Baur
Surface categories and mutation
University of Leeds
(Recruited from Mathematics and Scientific Computing, University of Graz)

Professor Barbara Conradt
Control of apoptosis during animal development
University College London
(Recruited from Department of Biology II, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich)

Professor Paul Evans
Material Specific 3D X-ray Imaging for Security and Medical Applications
School of Science and Technology, Nottingham Trent University

Professor Martin Heeney
Synthesis and Application of Conjugated Graft Co-polymers 
Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London

Dr Grant Hughes
Exploiting the mosquito microbiome for novel mosquito control strategies
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
(Recruited from Department of Pathology, University of Texas)

Professor Mirko Kovac
Robotics Ecosystems for Future Infrastructures
Aeronautics, Imperial College London

Professor Reidun Twarock
Geometry as a key to the virosphere: Unmasking the fundamental roles of geometry in virus structure, evolution and pathology
Department of Mathematics, University of York

Professor Jens Zinke
Taking the pulse of the tropical oceans through the coral’s lens
University of Leicester
(Recruited from Department of Paleontology, Freie UniversitÓ“t Berlin)

Dr Julie Maxton CBE, Executive Director of the Royal Society, said, "A big part of the UK’s success as a global scientific powerhouse is that UK-based researchers are drawn from across the world.The Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship Scheme has an important role to play in supporting universities to make strategic research appointments, particularly when recruiting scientists from outside of the UK." 

"Along with the Wolfson Foundation, we are very pleased to be announcing our first cohort of Wolfson Fellowship scientists."

Paul Ramsbottom, Chief Executive of the Wolfson Foundation, said, "There has never been a more important time for UK universities to proclaim that they are global organisations – recruiting the highest quality talent from across the world. These awards are an opportunity for them to do exactly that."

The Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship Scheme aims to:

• Strengthen research in the UK’s best university departments and research institutions in fields considered to be strategically important by the institution
• Enable UK universities and research institutions to attract outstanding researchers from overseas in strategic areas of research
• Help maintain the strength of the best research departments in UK universities and research institutions by ensuring that they can retain their most talented scientists
• Provide flexible funding to excellent research leaders, including established scientists, to conduct high-quality research

The funding covers all areas of the life and physical sciences, including engineering, but excludes clinical medicine.

The next round for the Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship Scheme applications is now open and closes on 7 November 2018. Further details about the Awards, including information on how to apply and the assessment criteria, are available on the Royal Society’s website.