Previous successful applicants

In support of the University's commitment to Research Excellence, three new Research Professors were appointed in 2011 after successfully applying to the first round of this Competition.

Medical Humanities Research Centre

Steven King, Professor of Economic and Social History will lead the Medical Humanities Research Centre. The core vision for the Centre is the creation of an inter-disciplinary research Centre which brings together colleagues and disciplinary perspectives from across the spectrum including: museum studies, history and literature, through sociology, mass communication and management studies, to medicine, bio-engineering, and the biological sciences.

Broadly, the Centre will be concerned with the ways in which patient/individuals/families have sought to confront illness, disability and decay and their understandings, representation and consumption of the scientific and medical knowledge that underpins therapeutic practice over the period between the seventeenth and the twenty-first centuries.

Centre for Landscape and Climate Research

Heiko Balzter, Professor of Physical Geography will lead the Centre for Landscape and Climate Research, which will establish a novel and innovative intellectual framework to understand interactions of the water cycle. It will undertake fundamental research that helps solve the problems of global biodiversity loss, water scarcity and flooding, and threats to food security.

This new research field will draw together geography, ecology, hydrology, physics and chemistry with social science to understand changing landscapes and the ecosystem services they provide.

Neuroscience Research Centre

Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, Professor of Bioengineering will lead this Research Centre, which aims to develop a world-leading interdisciplinary research programme to get major insights into the understanding of brain functioning. One of its main areas of research will be the study of how neurons give rise to complex brain functions.