NESTA gives researchers room to experiment together

28/04/2008

"There are many challenges that cannot be solved by experts from one discipline alone. Crucible aims to overcome this by connecting different types of researchers in a way that will stimulate exciting new collaborations and spark new ideas."

Thirty up and coming researchers from across the world of science and social science came together this weekend for the first of four innovation Labs being run by NESTA (The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts). The labs are designed to act as spring boards where researchers can take risks, and embark on new collaborations across a range of disciplines.   

The Crucible programme, now in its fifth year, aims to inspire innovation by bringing together early career researchers from different disciplines, to develop new ideas and explore the wider potential that collaboration can bring to their work.  

Crucible 2008 includes university-based researchers in as varied subjects as structural biology and nanotechnology; industry people from corporations such as Proctor & Gamble and ColorMatrix Europe; and fellows from institutes and universities from Dundee to Sussex, as well as the MRC Centre for Developmental Neurobiology.  

One of the exceptional participants to attend the Labs this year is Hua Dong, a lecturer at Brunel University, and co-founder of the Human Centred Design Institute. Dong has recently published a book on the topic ‘Design for Inclusivity’.  

Also attending is Alison Holt, an ecologist and researcher from the Catchment Science Centre at the University of Sheffield. Alison is currently setting up a consultancy to deliver advice to public and private sector businesses on how to reduce the environmental and social impacts of their activities based on recent research she conducted into the science of decision-making. Commenting on her participation the programme Holt said:  

“I am very excited to be participating in Crucible 2008. It’s an excellent opportunity to combine my knowledge and expertise with that of researchers from fields that I may never have had the chance to work in. I’m sure that the innovative new ideas we generate could go some way to shaping future advances”.  

In the fourth lab participants are encouraged to explore ways in which they might be able to work together. They are then offered the chance to bid for grants of up to £20,000 from a £50,000 pot to continue with their projects.  

One of the collaborations to come out of the 2007 Labs is between Dr Pragaya Agarwal and Dr Polly Dalton, who have developed a research concept that involves testing the affects of in-car satellite navigation devices on drivers’ attention span.  

Helen Gresty, Executive Director of Innovation Programmes at NESTA, said: 

“There are many challenges that cannot be solved by experts from one discipline alone. Crucible aims to overcome this by connecting different types of researchers in a way that will stimulate exciting new collaborations and spark new ideas. This sort of research increases our ability to provide radical solutions to today’s most pressing social and economic challenges.” 

NESTA spokespeople are available for comment and interview. To arrange to speak to someone from NESTA please contact Catherine Anderson on 02074382609 or Catherine.anderson@nesta.org.uk.

Crucible 2008 Participants: 

Dr Carlos Amador - Procter & Gamble 
Carlos Amador currently works for Procter & Gamble within the Process Modelling and Simulation Group. He has a degree in chemical engineering from Salamanca University, and a PhD in multiphase flow in micro reactors from University College London  

Dr Gordon Barr - University of Glasgow 
Gordon Barr is a researcher in the Chemistry Department at the University of Glasgow, where he specialises in the development of methods and software that applies cluster analysis and other statistics to problems in crystallography and chemistry.  

Dr Elizabeth Blackburn - University of Birmingham 
Elizabeth Blackburn is a Lecturer in Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Birmingham. She has a degree from Cambridge University and a Ph.D. from the Université Joseph-Fourier, Grenoble, France.  In 2006 Elizabeth received the Best Young Scientist of the Year Award from the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. 

Dr Jim Bown - University of Abertay Dundee 
Jim Bown has a PhD in individual-based modelling of complex ecosystems and is currently developing a computational model of the spread of hospital acquired infections and other healthcare-related problems. He is also leading a new type of research group that combines a broad mix of disciplines to address real-world problems such as urban planning for sustainability. 

Dr Rebecca Butler - Medicinal chemist in respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases. 
Rebecca Butler has a degree in Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry from University of Newcastle upon Tyne and a synthetic chemistry PhD from the University of Nottingham. She has also carried out Post Doctoral research in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Prof. K. Barry Sharpless. 

Dr Nick Collins - University of Sussex 
Nick Collins is a composer, digital musician, and lecturer in computer music at the University of Sussex. He is also first editor of the Cambridge Companion to Electronic Music and a co-editor of The SuperCollider Book; SuperCollider is a powerful programming language for realtime audio and music. 

Dr Rebecca Crallan - Smith & Nephew 
Rebecca Crallan is a cell biologist and works as innovation manager for medical device company Smith & Nephew. Her work involves encouraging the next generation of new and exciting ideas for the business and nurturing early-stage concepts within the company’s research portfolio.     

Dr Oliver de Peyer - Medical Research Council National Institute of Medical Research 
Oliver de Peyer is a postdoctoral researcher at the MRC National Institute of Medical Research where his research topics have included Structural Biology, GM plants, and Astrobiology. Oliver has also worked as a Planetary Biology Intern at the NASA Ames Research Centre in California, and as a delegate to the 2001 Wellcome Trust seminar to develop Bioethics in the National Curriculum. 

Dr Anna Dempster - Birkbeck College, University of London 
Anna Dempster is a Lecturer in Management in the School of Management and Organizational Psychology at Birkbeck College, University of London. She received her Ph.D. in Management from Cambridge University's Judge Business School and is currently researching how firms in the creative industries manage uncertainty and risk over time. 

Dr Hua Dong – Brunel University 
Hua Dong is a lecturer at Brunel University, and a founding member of the Human-centred Design Institute. She has a PhD from University of Cambridge and has worked at the Cambridge Engineering Design Centre and the Royal College of Art as a postdoctoral Research Associate.  

Dr Bridgette Duncombe – Edinburgh University 
Bridgette Duncombe has a degree in Chemistry with European Studies, and a DPhil.in Chemical Physics from Sussex University. She was a Science Engineering and Technology Ambassador in 2007 and acts as treasurer for the Edinburgh and SE Scotland section of the Royal Society of Chemistry. 

Dr Clare Fitzsimmons – Newcastle University 
Clare Fitzsimmons completed a PhD at the physics/chemistry/environment interface in 1998 and in her post-doc years her growing addiction to SCUBA prompted her to combine her environmental, scientific and recreational interests, and branch out into marine research. 

Dr Melissa Grant – University of Birmingham 
After completing her PhD Melissa Grant held a postdoctoral position at the University of Birmingham School of Dentistry where she lead a project, sponsored by Unilever, to find novel chemicals for improving oral health. She has also become involved in teaching in the school and was a runner-up in the intra-university Big Idea’s Competition. 

Dr Jamie Harle - The Open University  
Jamie Harle is a lecturer in physics at The Open University in Milton Keynes, and an honorary research fellow at the Department of Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering at UCL Eastman Dental Institute. He studied physics at Imperial College London, and an MSc and DPhil in medical physic at Oxford University. 

Dr Richard Holland – University of Leeds 
Richard Holland has a PhD from Oxford and also studied at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His attempts to address the problems of navigation during migration have encompassed the fields of Engineering, molecular biology, biochemistry, physics geophysics and atmospheric physics. 

Dr Alison Holt - University of Sheffield 
Alison Holt is an ecologist by training, and has just begun a post-doctoral research position in the Catchment Science Centre at the University of Sheffield. She is also setting up a consultancy to deliver advice to public and private sector businesses on how to reduce the environmental and social impacts of their activities.  

Dr Karen Johnson - Durham University 
Karen Johnson is a lecturer in Civil Engineering at Durham University, she trained as a hydrogeologist, graduating with an MSc from University College London, and completed her PhD in mine water treatment with Professor Paul Younger at Newcastle University. Karen’s research has a strong emphasis on using ‘wastes’ as resources. 

Dr Christine Leeming - ColorMatrix Europe  
Christine Leeming has a degree from University of Durham and a PhD from the University of York. Her industrial career began at Mölnlycke Health Care, where she developed new technologies for use in the surgical glove industry. Christine now works at ColorMatrix Europe where she is involved in developing a range of innovative solutions to solve the challenges faced by the plastics industry. 

Dr Stefan Maier - Imperial College London 
Stefan Maier is a Reader in the Department of Physics at Imperial College London. His research focuses on combining modern nanotechnology with photonics, in order to develop ways to control light waves over very small length scales, far below the resolution limit of conventional microscopes. 

Dr Tess Phillips - University of Manchester 
Tess Phillips has a degree and PhD from Cambridge University, and is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Manchester.  Her research interests are synthetic organic chemistry and its applications in drug discovery.

Dr Paul Piwek - The Open University
Paul Piwek is a lecturer at the Open University's Centre for Research in Computing. His main research interest is in automated information presentation. Currently, he is collaborating with colleagues at the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo on a system that takes text and turns it into a dialogue between computer-animated characters 

Dr Muireann Quigley - University of Manchester 
Muireann Quigley is a Lecturer in Bioethics in the Centre for Social Ethics and Policy, and the new Institute for Science, Ethics, and Innovation in the School of Law at the University of Manchester. Prior to this she worked as a Research Fellow in Bioethics and Law and her main teaching interests are in medical ethics. 

Dr Ismael Rafols - University of Sussex 
Ismael Rafols is a research fellow at SPRU, an institute of Science and Technology Policy at the University of Sussex. His research goal is to help design policies that support environments fostering the cognitive diversity necessary for creative and socially relevant science.    

Dr Jenny Read – Newcastle University
Jenny Read studied physics at University College, Oxford, before becoming fascinated by the emerging field of neuroscience. She completed a mathematical biology training fellowship at the Wellcome Trust and is now working on a Royal Society research fellowship using "3D" vision as a model of human perception. Her work was recently supported by a New Investigator Award from the Medical Research Council 

Dr Chrissie Rogers - Keele University 
Chrissie Rogers is a Sociologist and Lecturer in Education Studies at Keele University. She is a member of the Life Course Studies Research Institute (Keele) and the AHRC Centre for Law, Gender and Sexuality. Chrissie completed her PhD at the University of Essex and is keenly interested in theories on disability, qualitative research, and different ways of ‘doing’ Sociology. 

Dr Maxim Ryadnov - University of Leicester 
Maxim Ryadnov is a Chemistry Lecturer from the University of Leicester. He completed his PhD studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences (Puschino) before joining the group of Dek Woolfson at Sussex University. He co-developed a new type of protein matrices for regenerative medicine, and his current research aims at exploring novel molecular architectures to address unmet needs in biomedicine. 

Dr Paul Shepherd - University of Bath 
Paul Shepherd is a Research Fellow in the Architecture & Civil Engineering Department of the University of Bath. He previously worked as an Analyst with the engineering company Buro Happold, and on a wide variety of exciting projects including the Emirates Stadium for Arsenal FC in London and the new Irish National Stadium at Lansdowne Road, Dublin. 

Dr Karoline Wiesner - University of Bristol 
Karoline Wiesner is a Lecturer in the School of Mathematics and the Centre for Complexity Sciences at the University of Bristol. Her particular research interest is identifying levels of organisation, and building a theory of structural complexity in quantum systems.  In 2007 Karoline won the Award for Excellence in Postdoctoral Research from the University of California Davis. 

Dr Jonathan West - Institute of Analytical Sciences, Dortmund 
Jonathan West works at ISAS, the institute of analytical sciences in Dortmund, in the area of miniaturisation, a topic which runs throughout the sciences and engineering fields. He is currently working on a diverse set of biology-orientated challenges including stem cell systems for regenerative medicine. 

Dr Matthew Molineux – Leeds Metropolitan University 
Matthew Molineux joined Leeds Met at the start of March 2004 to develop the Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy group. His research interests are the occupational impact of chronic illness, occupational science, and occupation-based education and practice.