EPSRC Capital Award emphasising support for Early Career Researchers

开发用于太阳能转换的新的医疗保健技术和材料将产生重大的社会效益，并将直接解决EPSRC的优先事项，即建立一个健康和有弹性的国家。因此，加强英国在这些领域的研究基础非常重要。利物浦大学将利用资本奖加快一大批具有高潜力的早期职业研究人员(ECR)在这些领域的活动。我们的目标是采购利用现有投资的适合用途的设备，并使我们ECR最雄心勃勃的研究计划得以实现，这些计划的目标包括：开发全新类型的光伏设备，实现人工光合作用的材料，推进表面净化的新技术，以及发现新的抗菌材料。为我们的ECR提供最先进的设备，以解决这些技术的基础机制，将为我们的团队提供新的能力，并使我们的研究人员能够开发出具有学术和社会影响的世界级实验室。该设备将被安置在ECR LED激光实验室中，并具有快速瞬变光谱的新能力，主要是激光诱导荧光和瞬时吸收光谱。这也将为学术界带来更广泛的好处，在催化、传感和先进制造方面的应用也能够从设备中获得洞察力。为了确保最大限度的使用，这将是通过大学共享设施计划管理的共享设备。设备共享和协作科学是我们提案的核心，因为它提供了接触广泛用户基础的途径，导致了针对现有问题的新方法的开发，并最终将加速我们最有前途和最有才华的早期职业研究人员的职业发展。

The development of new healthcare technologies and materials for solar energy conversion would have significant societal benefits and it will directly address EPSRC priorities of enabling a Healthy and Resilient Nation. It is therefore important that the UK's research base in these areas is strengthened. The University of Liverpool will use the capital award to accelerate the activities of a large cohort of high potential early career researchers (ECRs) in these fields. Our aim is to procure fit-for-purpose equipment that leverages existing investment and will enable our ECRs' most ambitious research programmes whose aims include: the development of entirely new classes of photovoltaic devices, realising materials for artificial photosynthesis, the advancement of novel technologies for surface decontamination and the discovery of new antimicrobial materials. Providing our ECRs with state-of-the-art equipment to address the underpinning mechanisms of these technologies will deliver new capabilities for our team and allow our researchers to develop world-class laboratories that achieve both academic and societal impact. The equipment will be housed in an ECR led laser laboratory and have new capabilities in fast transient spectroscopy, primarily laser induced fluorescence and transient absorption spectroscopy. This will also have wider benefits to the academic community with applications across, catalysis, sensing and advanced manufacturing also being able to gain insight from the equipment. To ensure maximum usage this will be shared equipment, administered through the Universities Shared Facilities Scheme. Equipment sharing and collaborative science is at the core of our proposal as it provides access to a wide user base, leads to the development of novel approaches to existing problems and ultimately will accelerate the career development of our most promising and talented early career researchers.