Projects

Started

Equipment

PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Chemistry)
PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Physics)

Not Cross-cutting

Julie Turner
Loughborough University

Standard

EPSRC

31 December 2024

01 July 2026

18 months

£597,556

Unknown

East Midlands

NC : Infrastructure

Julie Turner, Loughborough University

Fasil Dejene, Loughborough University
Ishara Dharmasena, Loughborough University
Naëmi Leo, Loughborough University
Helen Nowell, Loughborough University
Chetna Prajapati, Loughborough University
Tanja Radu, Loughborough University

This Core Equipment Award will enable Loughborough University to purchase nine items of multiuser equipment underpinning our engineering and physical sciences research and active EPSRC funding portfolio. The equipment will enhance and extend the reach of recent institutional investments in our STEM infrastructure and equipment, supporting key research areas under Loughborough’s Research and Innovation strategy ‘Creating Better Futures. Together’ and strongly aligning to one of our three core strategic themes ‘Climate change and Net Zero’. The equipment will be carefully embedded within dedicated spaces of our facilities ecosystem to maximise usage, ensuring efficient staffing support and provision of consumables resources across the different engineering and physical sciences disciplines and fields. Adopting this centrally co-ordinated and institution-wide approach to core equipment will facilitate new research collaborations within academia and with industry partners. The equipment requested in this application will optimise our internal capability and breadth of capacity and will additionally increase our ability to support academic, postdoctoral and technical staff. The training needs of our doctoral researcher community will be fully supported through prioritised time allocation on dedicated equipment and provision of training and development workshops, as well as opportunities to work alongside academic and technical mentors for all Early Career Researchers and students. The selected equipment includes an enhancement of our mass spectrometry capability which is needed to support our growing environmental research activities spanning multiple Schools and research groups across the University, ranging from Chemistry and Physics to Physical Geography, Chemical Engineering, the Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology (CREST) and the Water Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC). Our multi-user facility for thin film deposition and lithography will be substantially expanded and enhanced through the purchase of a new Reactive Ion Etcher and a maskless Microwriter. This will support the thin film and lithography infrastructure established in the Physics Department extending resolution from ~200 nm to 20 nm and will enable our upcoming early career researchers working across our Physics, Chemistry and Engineering departments to flourish. The award will also support growing demand for our multi-user access facility in thin film and lithography as well as creation of a cross-university ‘Advanced Smart Textile Facility.’ Together these investments will enable accelerated scale-up of current research and innovation endeavours and provide a set of Research Technical Professional-led platforms to support collaborative research across the university, alongside bespoke researcher training and broader career development pathways

14/01/26