EPSRC Provide 3.8 million Pounds to Further Materials Research

It may still be six months to Christmas but The University of Warwick and University of Liverpool have just received a £3.8 million pound XMaS present from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

However on this occasion XMaS doesn’t stand for Christmas but for “X-ray Magnetic Scattering”. The money will further wide-ranging research not only on materials such as magnets, superconductors and tomorrow’s electronic devices but it will also be used to study the corrosion of museum artefacts, the development of fuel cells and even the decay of teeth. The research is carried out on the “XMaS” beamline facility based at the giant synchrotron in Grenoble. XMaS was designed and constructed over a decade ago and is run by Malcolm Cooper of the University of Warwick and Chris Lucas of the University of Liverpool. Five years ago Malcolm and Chris celebrated a £3.4 million pound grant to run the facility up to autumn 2007 and now they are celebrating again with its future assured until 2012.

Since 1991 this project, which is vital to the research of over a dozen groups of UK scientists, has received £12.3 Million in funding which is one of the largest streams of support from EPSRC for a single project.