We are happy to announce that an academic from our department, Dr Sayan Bhattacharya, is among the winners of ERC Consolidator Grants 2024. According to the European Research Council: "These grants, totalling €678 million, aim to support outstanding scientists and scholars as they establish their independent research teams and develop their most promising scientific ideas. The funding is provided through the EU's Horizon Europe programme."

Sayan Bhattacharya has been awarded a €2million ERC Consolidator grant for a 5-year project entitled "Towards a Dynamic Algorithms Centric Theory of Linear Programming" (DYNALP). The project aims to build a new theory exploring the interplay between two key concepts, Linear Programming and Dynamic Algorithms, which, in turn, will pave the way towards attacking outstanding open questions in the field of Theoretical Computer Science.

In the 2024 round, this was the only project from the United Kingdom that was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant in Computer Science and Informatics (PE6 panel). The press release contains more information about the ERC funding programme.

We are pleased to announce that two of our academic staff members, Dr Jonny Foss and Dr Ian Saunders, have been awarded professional fellowships by Advance HE, recognising their commitment to educational excellence.

Many congratulations to Henry Sinclair-Banks for passing his PhD viva today, which was one of the shortest and best in the long memories of the examiners, Dr Richard Mayr from the University of Edinburgh, and our own Professor Ranko Lazic.