European Research Council Consolidator Grant award

Congratulations to Dr Stewart McWilliams who has been awarded a European Research Council Consolidator Grant.

The European Research Council (ERC) awards consolidator grants each year to mid-career researchers who want to consolidate their independence by establishing a research team and continuing to develop a successful career.  Funding will create jobs for postdoctoral fellows, PhD students and other staff working in the grantees' research team, and enable grant recipients to tackle some of the current big scientific questions.

Dr Stewart McWilliams has been successful in receiving a consolidator grant to support his research in Transport in the Interior of the Earth from Modelling and Experiments.

Stewart studies high pressure and high temperature states of matter in the laboratory to address questions of scientific and technological interest. He is interested in materials relevant to natural systems such as planetary interiors and to technologies such as energetic materials and inertial confinement fusion.  He works on developing and using ultrafast methods to create, sustain, and study extreme states.  These techniques use the diamond-anvil cell (static compression) and laser-driven shock compression (dynamic compression) to generate particular extreme states. Stewart is based in the School’s Institute for Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, and is part of the University’s Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions.

The 327 laureates awarded the 2020 ERC Consolidator Grants will carry out their projects at universities, research centres and companies in 23 different countries across Europe, including 50 projects in the United Kingdom.  The funding, worth in total €655 million, is part of the EU’s current research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020.