Departmental news

ANNOUNCING: A RENEWED COLLABORATION WITH UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK – Coventry Biennial

Plans to grow the University of Warwick Innovation Campus Stratford-upon-Avon at Wellesbourne have taken an important step forward. Stratford-on-Avon District Council has approved a plan to guide the long-term growth of the Campus.

Press release (4 July 2023)

The Warwick Wows celebrate amazing work, projects, and achievements at the University. The Law School’s Dr Alison Struthers won the award for her work on the School Tasking Project, an exciting outreach project enabling young people to learn about interesting aspects of the law and making it more accessible for them.

Dr Alex Baker has won a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship to explore "Robust Nanoprobe Tools to Dissect Glycan Binding of Snake Venoms". Read more...

Researchers at WMG, University of Warwick’s Forensics & Advanced Characterisation of Batteries Group, have secured £1.5m funding for materials analysis in multiple format batteries.

The funding, from the University of Warwick’s Academic Equipment Fund and the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, will be used to purchase a Plasma Focused Ion Beam (PFIB) microscope. The microscope is key to the accelerated development of new battery chemistries, providing unique access to the critical interfaces within battery cells that dictate best performance. This will be instrumental in developing new materials for better batteries, regardless of their end use application.

This PFIB will be the first specifically configured microscope dedicated to battery research in the world, allowing researchers at WMG to inform battery manufacturing, answer key scientific questions and link with industry and growing supply chains.

There is increased recognition in the battery community that the integration of new chemistries needed for the UK Government’s 2030 electric vehicle battery targets will require integrating new manufacturing processes with advanced microscopic characterisation. The PFIB has been specifically designed to address the critical challenges of studying alkali-based battery systems and will provide unique insights needed for the development of next generation batteries.

The performance of battery materials is dictated by the stability, efficiency and functionality of the interfaces, i.e. the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) at the anode and oxygen-induced cathode-electrolyte interface (CEI) at the cathode. Attempts to analyse these interfaces, in order to determine structure and chemistry, is seriously compromised using conventional techniques by the extreme air-sensitivity, beam sensitivity and the high volatility of certain species present. The specially configured PFIB microscope will address these issues.

WMG is one of seven HVM Catapult centres in the UK and is the lead centre for transport electrification. Investment in this PFIB is part of a range of equipment investments by the HVM Catapult and the University of Warwick to maintain WMG’s leading position in battery technology.

The PFIB has already secured interest from the Faraday Institution and from the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Lord Bhattacharyya Education Programme. Starting in the Autumn, a student will use this for a project entitled “The development of a new multi-modal capability for investigating the performance-controlling interfaces and microstructures that underpin operation of battery materials.”

The Lord Bhattacharyya Education Programme provides up to 90 bursaries annually for local students from lower socio-economic backgrounds. The objectives for the scheme include encouraging a greater number of young people from a more diverse range of backgrounds, raising their aspirations and skill levels. Moreover, it supports the growth of a science and engineering skills base for the UK.

The project will make extensive use of the new system to develop strategies for studying the degradation of buried interfaces and structure dynamics in state-of-the-art high Ni NMC cathodes as a function of cycle ageing i.e., the evolution of the cathode-electrolyte interphases. The platform provides some unique opportunities for developing powerful new ways to characterise these controlling interfaces and will form the basis for the project. Preliminary research will commence in October 2023. The project will be advertised online for interested applicants to apply – the studentships page, Jobs.ac.uk, FindAPhD.com and the Doctoral College website.

Find out more about WMG’s electrochemical research here: Electrochemical Materials (warwick.ac.uk)

The new PFIB microscope will be based in WMG’s Advanced Material Manufacturing Centre (AMMC).

Dr Evelina Liarou has won a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship to explore the visualization of fundamental chemical reactions that govern the formation and behaviour of soft matter. Learn moreLink opens in a new window.

Professor Edmund Rolls is pleased to announce the publication of his 16th book, Rolls,E.T. (2023) Brain Computations and Connectivity. Oxford University Press: Oxford. Open Access.

Brain Computations and Connectivity provides a computational framework for understanding brain function in health and disease. The book also describes many discoveries on the computational functions of many brain regions.

The book includes research performed with many members of the Department of Computer Science including Professor Jianfeng Feng. The Gatsby Foundation is thanked for a grant towards the cost of enabling this book to be Open Access. A link to the book is available here.

Warwick Economics alumnus Andy Haldane has been made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the King’s Birthday Honours 2023.

Andy Haldane graduated from Warwick with an MA in Economics in 1989 and joined the Bank of England the same year, where he went on to become Chief Economist. He stepped down from his role at the Bank of England in July 2021 to become Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA).

Haldane co-founded Pro Bono Economics in 2009 following the global financial crisis, with the aim of using economics to help charities and social enterprises improve the impact of their work. In 2014 he was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine.

Haldane has returned to the University to speak at events hosted by the Department of Economics and CAGE Research Centre throughout recent years, including the Warwick Economics Alumni Event in October 2022 and CAGE’s public policy event 'Bold Policies for Uncertain Times' in February 2023.

He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Warwick in 2019.

Today, published in Microbiome, Dr Beatriz Lagunas and colleagues at the Universities of Warwick and Justus Liebig (Germany) have shown a new way to boost plant nutrient uptake and growth. This could reduce the need for fertilisers, an input to agriculture which can be harmful for the environment. Fertilisers can run into waterways, or get broken down by microbes in the soil, releasing the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide into the atmosphere.

Press release (3 July 2023)