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

自2004年创建以来，曼彻斯特大学一直专注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。它现在跻身于世界前40所大学之列。我们宣布的目标是吸引、发展和培育优秀研究人员的职业生涯，并成为所有职业阶段工作人员的首选地点。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资本奖来支持科学和工程学院早期职业研究人员的职业生涯，在符合曼彻斯特大学战略重点的领域提供最先进的设备。我们将在两轮竞争性招标中分配赠款。第一个奖项已经完成，第二个奖项将在奖项开始六个月后举行，目标是2018年招募到享有盛誉的曼彻斯特大学总统奖学金的早期职业研究人员。我们在第一轮中选择的初步投资项目是：*最先进的空气质量测量，这将提供一个移动设备，以新的方式测试空气质量和排放。例如，它可能导致更低排放的家用炉灶，并将使我们能够与工业合作伙伴合作，开发零排放汽车发动机，或者计算飞机滑行、起飞和降落时的机场碳足迹。*应对世界水危机，帮助我们利用新型离子交换膜开发高效的新技术，从占地球98%的水的海水或咸水中生产负担得起的饮用水。*发展网络安全的临界质量，目标是开发工具来查找物联网(IoT)设备中的软件漏洞，以确保IoT应用程序和环境安全、可靠、并正确运行。有可能开发供消费电子产品、汽车工业和金融市场领域的公司使用的商业产品。*石墨烯纳米毛细管的新应用，使石墨烯在分离分子和DNA/蛋白质测序方面的潜力得以探索。这可能导致更强大、更快速和更便携的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.