Dr Bipin Pandey from the University of Nottingham has been awarded a prestigious 2026 Philip Leverhulme Prize for his pioneering research into how plants sense and respond to compacted soils—conditions that pose major challenges to root growth and crop productivity.
Chosen from over 400 nominations, the Trust offered five prizes in each of the following subject areas: Biological Sciences, History, Law, Mathematics and Statistics, Philosophy and Theology, and Sociology and Social Policy.
These prizes commemorate the contribution to the work of the Trust made by Philip, Third Viscount Leverhulme and grandson of William Lever, the founder of the Trust. They recognise and celebrate the achievements of outstanding researchers whose work has already attracted international recognition and whose future careers are exceptionally promising.
Each prize is worth £100,000 and may be used for any purpose that advances the prize winner's research.
Dr Pandey's Prize will support the development of an independent, interdisciplinary research programme investigating how plant roots sense and respond to the physical and chemical properties of their surrounding soil environment. The research integrates plant molecular biology, soil physics, biomechanics, advanced imaging and spatial and single-cell transcriptomics to understand how roots adapt their growth to heterogeneous and stressful soil conditions.
Soil texture sensing will investigate how differences in soil particle size, pore structure, hydration and oxygen availability influence root development. Genetically encoded sensors, spatial transcriptomics, X-ray Computed Tomography and biophysical modelling will be combined to identify how physical soil properties are translated into biological signals.
The team will also examine how roots perceive and respond to mechanical constraints, including soil compaction, by integrating live imaging, genetically encoded mechanosensors and measurements of cell-wall mechanics. Root soil volatile sensing will also investigate how gaseous signals, including ethylene and other volatile molecules, enable roots to detect changes in soil moisture, density and oxygen availability and adjust their development accordingly.
This prize will enable high-risk, exploratory research and the development of experimental and computational platforms that extend beyond the scope of existing project-specific funding. The longer-term objective is to establish a mechanistic framework for understanding root-soil interactions, generating fundamental insights into plant root environmental sensing and informing future approaches to improving crop resilience in challenging soil conditions.
Professor Sacha Mooney, Head of the School of Biosciences said: "Huge congratulations to Bipin on receiving this prize. He is an exceptional researcher, whose research is solving fundamental issues in plant biology and soil science helping to future proof crop production against the rapidly changing climate. Since establishing his independent laboratory at Nottingham in 2021, Bipin has made several significant discoveries at the interface of the root biology/soil physics disciplines, and we are very excited to see where this next stage of research will go."
Professor Anna Vignoles, Director of the Leverhulme Trust, said: "This year marks the twenty-fifth year of the Philip Leverhulme Prizes. For a quarter of a century, this scheme has attracted extraordinarily high-calibre researchers, and selecting only thirty winners is always challenging. We are immensely grateful to the reviewers and panel members who help us in our decision making, and we are extremely proud to support these researchers through the next stage of their careers. The array of topics covered by their work is striking, from hyperbolic geometry to the philosophy of physics, educational stratification to the evolution of plant mutualism."
