Two University of Liverpool researchers have been successful in the latest round of the European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator grants.
Professor Brianna Heazlewood, from the Department of Physics, and Dr Ceren Kabukcu, from the Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, have both been awarded ERC Consolidator Grants amounting to £3.85M in total.
An expert in Chemical Physics, Professor Heazlewood has been awarded £2.45million.
Her ERC project aims to transform our understanding of key chemical processes involving radicals-extremely reactive atoms and molecules that play a major role in the chemistry of the atmosphere, interstellar space, plasmas, and combustion.
She will develop new ways to study radicals in the gas phase and at surfaces, allowing their behaviour and reactions to be examined in unprecedented detail.
Ultimately, the project seeks to close critical knowledge gaps, strengthen complex chemical models, and open new possibilities across fields ranging from climate science through to studies of space and advanced materials.
Dr Heazlewood's project is entitled 'Transforming the study of Radicals In Chemical Kinetics and beYond (TRICKY).
Dr Ceren Kabukcu is an archaeobotanical scientist with an interest in exploring the complex two-way relationships between people, climate and the environment and how these are manifest in the plant use practices of prehistoric societies.
Dr Kabukcu's Consolidator Grant will fund her Plant-Pro project, which aims to explore the plant protein components of diets before farming through archaeobotany, experimental archaeology and biomolecules.
The project will investigate the deep antiquity of plant cooking practices at key hunter-gatherer occupations, with an aim to understand how harnessing ingredients rich in plant proteins and oils may have provided behavioural adaptations to changing environments and shifts in food resources. This will be done with the broadest possible evidence base (all types of plant remains & residues, signs of plant processing left on grinding implements, biomarkers & sedimentary DNA from surrounding soils) and backed up by comprehensive experimental replication studies. All of this, the development of cooking with plants, and specifically cooking with wild legumes and nuts pre-dates farming by several tens of thousands of years, which Dr Kabukcu describes as the real revolution in our subsistence history.
Dr Kabukcu said: "I am very happy to have secured this competitive, prestigious funding for a project many years in the making, which represents the culmination of numerous collaborations built across borders. The deep-time perspective adopted by Plant-Pro will document the development of plant management strategies in the periods preceding the dawn of farming, and open new avenues of scientific research into plant dietary proteins predating the transformations in culinary cultures traditionally associated with the so-called agricultural revolution."
Their awards are part of a total investment of €728 million from the EU's Horizon Europe programme to support 349 mid-career researchers conduct cutting-edge research.
President of the European Research Council, Professor Maria Leptin, said: "To see all this talent with groundbreaking ideas, based in Europe, is truly inspiring. This bold research may well lead to new industries, improve lives and strengthen Europe's global standing. This was one of the most competitive ERC calls ever, with record demand and also many excellent projects left unfunded. It is yet another reminder of how urgent the call for increased EU investment in frontier research has become."
