Supporting world-class labs for early career researchers at The University of Manchester

自2004年成立以来，曼彻斯特大学一直致力于建立其世界级研究的声誉，并在世界大学排行榜上迅速上升。它现在在全球排名前40位。我们的目标是吸引，发展和培养优秀的研究人员的职业生涯，并成为员工在各个职业阶段的首选地点。这包括为早期职业研究人员提供指导和支持，以及最先进的设施和设备。现在，我们建议使用我们的EPSRC资本奖来支持科学与工程学院的早期职业研究人员的职业生涯，通过在与曼彻斯特大学战略重点一致的领域提供最先进的设备。我们会分两轮竞投拨款。第一个奖项已经完成，第二个奖项将在该奖项开始六个月后举行，目标是2018年获得著名的曼彻斯特大学总统奖学金的早期职业研究人员。我们在第一轮初步投资中选择的项目包括：*最先进的空气质素测量，将提供一个流动设施，以新方法测试空气质素和废气排放。例如，它可以导致低排放的家用炉灶，并使我们能够与工业伙伴合作实现零排放的汽车发动机，或者计算飞机滑行，起飞和降落的机场碳足迹。*解决世界水危机，帮助我们使用新型离子交换膜开发高效的新技术，从占地球水98%的海水或微咸水中生产负担得起的饮用水。*在网络安全领域发展临界质量，其目的是开发工具来发现物联网（IoT）设备中的软件漏洞，以确保物联网应用和环境的安全、可靠和正确运行。有潜力开发商业产品，供消费电子、汽车工业和金融市场等领域的公司使用。*石墨烯纳米毛细血管的新应用，使石墨烯在分离分子和DNA/蛋白质测序方面的潜力得到探索。这可能会产生更强大、更快速、更便携的DNA测序诊断设备。

Since its creation in 2004, the University of Manchester has focussed on building its reputation for world-class research, and has risen rapidly in world university league tables. It now ranks well within the top 40 institutions in the world. Our stated aim is to attract, develop and nurture the careers of excellent researchers, and become the location of choice for staff at all career stages. This includes providing mentoring and support for early career researchers, together with state-of-the-art facilities and equipment.Now we propose to use our EPSRC Capital Award to support the careers of early career researchers in the Faculty of Science and Engineering, by providing state-of-the-art equipment in fields aligned with University of Manchester strategic priorities. We will allocate the grant in two competitive bidding rounds. The first of these is complete, and the second will be held six months after the start of the award, targetted at early career researchers recruited in 2018 to highly prestigious University of Manchester Presidential Fellowships. The projects we have chosen for initial investment in round 1 are:* State-of-the-art air quality measurement, which will provide a mobile facility for testing air quality and emissions in new ways. For example, it could lead to lower emission domestic stoves, and will allow us to work with industrial partners towards zero emissions vehicle engines, or to calculate airport carbon footprints from aircraft taxiing, take-off and landing.* Tackling the world's water crisis, helping us to use novel ion exchange membranes to develop efficient new technologies for removing salt to produce affordable drinking water from seawater or brackish water, which comprises 98% of Earth's water.* Developing critical mass in cybersecurity, where the aim is to develop tools to find software vulnerabilities in the Internet of Things (IoT) devices, in order to ensure that IoT applications and environments are safe, secure, and operate correctly. There is potential to develop commercial products to be used by companies in the areas of consumer electronics, the automotive industry and the financial markets.* New applications of graphene nanocapillaries, allowing the potential of graphene in separating molecules and DNA/protein sequencing to be explored. This could result in more powerful, fast and portable diagnostic devices for DNA sequencing.