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£5m funding boost for ground-breaking science and maths projects

Professor Boris Gaensicke is investigating the final fate of planetary systems.The University of Warwick has been awarded £5 million in prestigious European funding for a wide range of research including work on white dwarfs and solar weather.

The European Research Council awards have been given to four researchers from across the disciplines of physics, chemistry and mathematics.

They are designed to support ground-breaking, high-risk projects that open up new directions in their respective research fields.

Professor Boris Gaensicke and Professor Valery Nakariakov from the Department of Physics have been granted European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Investigator Awards, designed for established research leaders.

In addition, Dr Oleg Pikhurko from Warwick Mathematics Institute and Professor Giovanni Costantini from the Department of Chemistry have been awarded ERC Starting Investigator Awards, which aim to support the next generation of research leaders.

Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research (Science & Engineering), Knowledge Transfer & Business Engagement Professor Tim Jones said: “We are extremely pleased that four researchers at the University of Warwick have been selected for these competitive awards.

“ERC funding has a high level of prestige attached to it as these awards are designed to foster pioneering researchers who are pushing back frontiers in their fields.”

Professor Boris Gaensicke was awarded £1.8 million for a project called WDTracer: White Dwarfs as Tracers of Stellar, Binary and Planetary Evolution.

This project will produce an all-sky catalogue of white dwarfs and use this sample to investigate the evolution of single and binary stars and the final fate of planetary systems.

Professor Valery Nakariakov was awarded £1.2 million for a project which aims to advance our understanding of the physical conditions and processes operating in the hot plasma of the atmosphere of the Sun.

This knowledge is vital for forecasting of extreme space weather events, such as solar flares.

Professor Giovanni Costantini was awarded £1.2 million for a project which aims to develop a method to deposit and visualise complex functional molecules which could be of use for healthcare or nanotechnology.

And Dr Oleg Pikhurko was awarded £900,000 for mathematical research into the field of extremal combinatorics.

ENDS




Further Information

For further information please contact University of Warwick press officer Anna Blackaby on 02476 575910 or 07785 433155 or a.blackaby@warwick.ac.uk



Further Information

For further information please contact University of Warwick press officer Anna Blackaby on 02476 575910 or 07785 433155 or a dot blackaby at warwick dot ac dot uk