Three researchers from the University of Oxford have been named among the first recipients of the Royal Society Faraday Discovery Fellowships. The fellowships, funded by the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), provide up to £8 million over ten years for selected researchers to pursue original research and develop leading research groups in the UK.
Sir Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society, said: “This exciting first cohort of Royal Society Faraday Discovery Fellowship fellows are using cutting-edge techniques to explore questions at the frontiers of human knowledge…These 10-year fellowships give researchers space to pursue new knowledge, build their research groups and develop close collaborations around the world that will ensure the UK continues to develop and attract the next generation of scientific talent and bring benefits to the whole country.”
Lord Vallance, UK Science Minister, commented: “Turbo-charging our world-class institutions with the very best research talent will be critical to unlocking breakthroughs that could help protect our food chains, put AI to work in the economy, and tackle climate change. That's why DSIT has backed the Royal Society with £250 million in long-term funding to support the work of mid-career researchers who are at the top of their game.”
Among Oxford’s recipients is Professor Timothy Behrens from the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences. His fellowship is held jointly between Oxford and UCL. Professor Behrens said: “This Faraday Discovery Fellowship will allow us to make a sustained attack on one of the most interesting questions to face our species - the mechanistic basis of our own intelligence. Having ten years of stable funding will allow us ask the deepest, most ambitious questions that we can think of. I am feeling very lucky indeed!”
Professor Behrens researches complex human behaviours such as reasoning and planning. He explained that his group aims to discover how models representing relationships between objects and events are formed in our brains by measuring neuronal connections and comparing them with computational neuroscience theories.
Professor Andrew Goodwin from Oxford’s Department of Chemistry was also awarded a fellowship. He said: “I am thrilled and honoured to receive this prestigious grant, which very much builds on the achievements, creativity, and insight of the many talented students, postdocs, and collaborators with whom I have worked over the years. This a truly precious opportunity to tackle some very deep questions in our field.”
Professor Goodwin focuses on designing solid materials using disorder as a strategy for enhancing performance. His project will investigate materials with “responsive disorder,” where changes occur due to stimuli like heat or electricity. These studies could lead to new applications in areas such as computing.
The third recipient is Professor Andrea Vedaldi from Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science. He stated: “Oxford and its Visual Geometry Group, which I co-lead, have been at the forefront of machine learning and computer vision research for more than three decades. This fellowship offers unique long-term support and will enable us to sustain and expand our impact over the next ten years. I am grateful and honoured that my project was selected by the Royal Society and I look forward to beginning this new journey.”
Professor Vedaldi’s research will focus on developing Spatial AI—artificial intelligence capable of spatial reasoning—to address limitations seen in current systems like chatbots when dealing with real-world understanding.
Further details about these fellowships can be found on the Royal Society website.