LIBERAL DEMOCRAT MEP BILL NEWTON DUNN CELEBRATES RECORD SCIENCE AND RESEARCH FUNDING

Bill Newton Dunn, Liberal Democrat MEP for the East Midlands has celebrated record European funding for science and research. The European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant (CoG) has awarded over £480 million (£480,000,000) over five years to 300 top scientists to develop their best ideas.

In our region, Professor Stephen Liddle of Nottingham University has won a grant of £2 million for his team's work on synthetic organometallic actinide projects, and Nottingham University is advertising new studentships to expand this work.

Bill Newton Dunn commented:

"With funding for research hard to come by, this money will enable our impressive scientists and researchers to move forward at a key point in their careers, expand their teams and develop new and existing research ideas. It is a vote of confidence in the scientific work being carried out across our countries."

A Royal Society Research Fellow, Steve Liddle has been Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at Nottingham University since last year and has published over 110 research articles, reviews and book chapters. His ERC proposal in the 'Physical Sciences and Engineering' category for research into "Non-acqueous uranium chemistry - structure, synthesis, bonding, reactivity, magnetism and spectroscopy" beat 3,600 other applications. He is also known for his work on The Periodic Table of Videos, on YouTube (www.periodicvideos.com), which feature educational illustrative descriptions about the periodic table.

UK institutions won 62 ERC CoG grants, the most of the 28 European Union countries. Anyone with over 7 years' experience with a scientific track record "showing great promise" could apply. Peer review evaluation by panels of renowned scientists from around the world chose the winners, with 'excellence' as the sole selection criterion.

For further information contact:

Ralph Pryke - ralphpryke@yahoo.co.uk - 01205 722693 (landline)

and

Prof S.T.Liddle School of Chemistry, University of Nottingham NG7 2RD, Stephen.liddle@nottingham.ac.uk