University of Warwick physics lecturer Dr Rachel Edwards has just received a Christmas present worth over a million pounds to fund her work as a young researcher.

The European Research Council (ERC) has recently made awards to what it considers to be the brightest young and coming researchers to help them create their own research teams.

Dr Rachel Edwards has been awarded around 1.6 million euros (just over £1 million) to create a new research team around her work in "non-contact ultrasonics", and will use ultrasound to test the integrity of such things as railway lines and pipe networks, as well as investigating the properties of new materials.