Fellows mentioned
Record £7.6m funding for emerging scientific leaders
Charlie Gaskell
9 minutes
In its largest-ever funding initiative for early-career researchers, the Academy of Medical Sciences is investing £7.6 million to tackle urgent health challenges from Alzheimer’s disease, cancer and obesity to addiction and climate change impacts on health.
The record investment will support 62 exceptional scientists across 41 UK institutions who are pioneering innovative approaches to improve human health and wellbeing. Each researcher will receive £100,000-£125,000 through the Academy’s Springboard programme, alongside mentoring and career development support to help establish their independent research careers.
With generous support from the UK Government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, Wellcome and the British Heart Foundation, this year’s record-breaking funding round marks a decade of Springboard awards and brings the total investment in the next generation of research leaders to £43.8 million since the scheme launched in 2015.
The programme supports researchers across the full spectrum of biomedical sciences, from molecular biology to public health, with an impressive geographical spread across the UK. Projects funded this year will drive progress in critical health areas, including antimicrobial resistance, fertility, ageing and artificial intelligence (AI) applications for disease prediction and prevention.
Among this year’s awardees are researchers working on innovative approaches to some of society’s most urgent health problems:
Dr Charlotte Pennington from Aston University has received £123,000 to study the brain mechanisms behind teenage drinking behaviours. With alcohol misuse costing the UK economy £27 billion annually and affecting 44% of teenagers, her research uses advanced brain imaging to understand why adolescents who pay more attention to alcohol in their environment may develop drinking problems. Working with local schools and alcohol charities, her findings will help develop practical prevention tools.
Dr Charlotte Pennington said: “I’m really excited to have received this prestigious award that will enable me to conduct crucial research into the psychological processes that underpin adolescent alcohol consumption. Alcohol is the leading cause for ill health, disability and mortality within the United Kingdom. Determining the processes that drive consumption behaviours at any early age will lead to targeted prevention and intervention strategies to improve population health.”
University of Sheffield’s Dr Emma Lucas has secured £125,000 to investigate how common pain medication might affect women’s fertility and early pregnancy. Her pioneering research addresses a significant gap in medical knowledge created by the historical exclusion of pregnant women from clinical trials. Focusing on non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like ibuprofen and aspirin, which millions of women take regularly without clear guidance on their effects during conception, this research could have far-reaching implications for women struggling with fertility issues. Her findings may help doctors provide better guidance about pain medication use when trying to conceive and potentially lead to more effective treatments for women undergoing fertility treatments like IVF.
Dr Emma Lucas said: “I’m thrilled to receive the Springboard award and incredibly grateful for the support of the Academy, and to the panel and expert reviewers for the decision to fund my work. The award will help me to address a critical knowledge gap on the effects of using common medications around the time of conception and genuinely provide a springboard for me to establish my lab in this area.”
Dr Mattias Malaguti from the University of Edinburgh has been awarded £125,000 to explore previously invisible battlefields between healthy skin cells and emerging cancer cells. His research examines whether normal skin cells naturally fight off early cancerous mutations or unwittingly create an environment that helps cancer thrive. The study could transform understanding of how cancers initially form and potentially lead to new preventative treatments that enhance the body’s natural defences against early cancerous changes.
Dr Mattias Malaguti said: “I am profoundly thankful to the Academy of Medical Sciences for this Springboard award. This support will not only facilitate the establishment of my research programme at the interface of medical research and engineering biology, but it will also provide critical mentorship and training to ensure sustainability is woven into the programme's very foundation. I am tremendously excited by this opportunity, and I am committed to leveraging this award to create lasting impact in the field.”
Dr Emily Hume from Northumbria University has secured £100,000 to develop a digital solution to transform the lives of patients waiting for lung transplants. With average waiting times stretching to 18 months, these critically ill patients often experience significant physical decline that impacts their survival chances both before and after surgery. Her research will test whether a digital intervention combining activity monitoring, an interactive online platform and remote professional support can help vulnerable patients maintain physical functions while waiting for new lungs. This could potentially enhance post-transplant outcomes and reduce healthcare costs.
Dr Emily Hume said: “I am delighted to receive the Academy’s Springboard funding, which will help to develop a digital solution to support patients on the waiting list for lung transplant. By empowering them to stay active during long waiting times, this research aims to improve their quality of life, enhance post-transplant outcomes and address an important gap in transplant care.”
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine’s Dr Rosie Steege has been awarded £125,000 to investigate how climate change is affecting the sexual and reproductive health of vulnerable young people in Bangladesh. Her groundbreaking research focuses on adolescents displaced by urban informal settlements due to climate disasters in one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries.
Dr Rosie Steege said: “Alongside partners at the BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health Bangladesh, I am thrilled to receive this Springboard award. In Bangladesh, community voices affected by climate change are largely in programme and policymaking for affected groups. The knowledge and experiences of adolescents living in poverty are particularly neglected. This award will centre the voices and lived experiences of adolescents who have been forcibly displaced due to the climate crisis, in relation to their sexual and reproductive health and rights. Partnering with adolescents to develop a conceptual framework, this study will inform locally-developed responses to the climate crisis that centre their nuanced experiences within national policy, practice and teaching curricula.”
Professor James Naismith FRS FRSE FMedSci, Vice-President (Non-Clinical) at the Academy of Medical Sciences, said: “This record investment demonstrates our unwavering commitment to supporting the next generation of research leaders. By backing these talented early-career researchers, we’re not only addressing today’s urgent health challenges but also strengthening the UK’s position as a global leader in medical research. The breadth and ambition of projects funded by the Academy’s Springboard programme is remarkable – from understanding teenage drinking behaviours to investigating why women are disproportionately affected by Alzheimer’s disease. Each Springboard awardee brings fresh perspectives and innovative approaches that will ultimately translate to improved health outcomes for patients and the public. The Academy is proud to provide the financial resources and career development support needed to help these outstanding scientists establish their independent research careers.”
UK Science Minister Lord Vallance FMedSci said: “Research supported by the Springboard programme can help to address some of the most pressing health challenges, like antimicrobial resistance and cancer, by giving early-career researchers across the UK the opportunity to test their ideas.
“Through this programme we are supporting the next generation of researchers to lead their own groundbreaking research so that the UK can continue to be a pioneer in medical science.”
Michael Dunn, Director of Discovery Research at Wellcome, said: “The Academy’s Springboard programme is an excellent example of how we can best nurture early career researchers, with financial support and mentoring, to help deliver bold and exciting science across a hugely diverse set of research fields.
“We’re pleased to continue our support for a programme that matches Wellcome’s ambition for discovery science, looking to the long-term by establishing a pipeline of talented researchers to become the next generation of leaders in R&D, and ultimately generate knowledge that will transform our understanding of health.”
Professor Bryan Williams, Chief Scientific and Medical Officer at the British Heart Foundation, said: “We’re pleased to continue our long-standing partnership with the Academy of Medical Sciences and support more scientists to establish themselves as independent researchers. In the UK we lose too many talented scientists at this pivotal stage due to lack of opportunity to launch their careers. That’s why partnerships like this are so critical, to help us retain the best and the brightest early-career researchers and set them on a path to becoming our future research leaders.”
The Springboard programme exemplifies the Academy’s work to support greater security and career development opportunities for health researchers, as highlighted in its Future-proofing UK Health Research report. By providing substantial funding and access to mentoring over two years, the programme has been helping emerging research leaders establish their independent research careers and contributing to a sustainable pipeline of research talent in the UK for the past decade.
The application process for the next Springboard round has begun. Prospective candidates should contact their institution’s Springboard Champion for information on how to register their interest for the internal triage process. Each eligible institution will nominate up to four candidates by the end of April 2025, and selected individuals will then be invited to complete the Academy’s application form.
Full list of Springboard awardees for the latest round:
- Dan Ma, Aston University
- Charlotte Pennington, Aston University
- Ines Castro, Brunel University London
- Carly Bliss, Cardiff University
- Mathew Clement, Cardiff University
- Martha Canfield, Glasgow Caledonian University
- Penny Hancock, Imperial College London
- Oliver Watson, Imperial College London
- Tim Harvey-Samuel, Keele University
- Robert Seaborne, King's College London
- Simon Cleary, King's College London
- Rosie Steege, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
- Amanda Pearce, Loughborough University
- Can Zhao, Manchester Metropolitan University
- Kevin Whitley, Newcastle University
- Brian Ortmann, Newcastle University
- Monika Winter, Northumbria University
- Emily Hume, Northumbria University
- Cuifeng Ying, Nottingham Trent University
- Elena Torlai Triglia, Queen Mary University of London
- Aoife Rodgers, Queen's University Belfast
- Emma Kenyon, Swansea University
- Takanori Furukawa, Teesside University
- Candice Quin, University of Aberdeen
- Edward Carter, University of Bath
- Alex Wadley, University of Birmingham
- Kevin Wilkinson, University of Bristol
- Alexander Frankell, University of Cambridge
- Kasparas Petkevicius, University of Cambridge
- Eleanor Raffan, University of Cambridge
- Maxim Igaev, University of Dundee
- Ting-Yu Lin, University of Durham
- Francesco Boselli, University of Durham
- Matthew G. Pontifex, University of East Anglia
- Katharine Mylonas, University of Edinburgh
- Mattias Malaguti, University of Edinburgh
- Rebekah Tillotson, University of Edinburgh
- Rosie Walker, University of Exeter
- Arianne Babina, University of Glasgow
- Jennifer Malcolm, University of Glasgow
- Alena Pance, University of Hertfordshire
- Fani Papagiannouli, University of Kent
- Sana Hannan, University of Lancaster
- Aikaterini Gatsiou, University of Lancaster
- Alexander Garvin, University of Leeds
- Sharib Ali, University of Leeds
- Abhinav Koyamangalath Vadakkepat, University of Leicester
- Kirsty McMillan, University of Liverpool
- Marisa Merino, University of Liverpool
- Pedro Papotto, University of Manchester
- Chloe Peach, University of Nottingham
- Jennifer Ashworth, University of Nottingham
- Sophie Joanisse, University of Nottingham
- Rachel Clifford, University of Nottingham
- Alex Bye, University of Reading
- Jenny Lord, University of Sheffield
- Emma Lucas, University of Sheffield
- Liku Tezera, University of Southampton
- Richard Meek, University of Southampton
- Jaclyn Pearson, University of St Andrews
- Daniel Turnham, University of the West of England, Bristol
- Lucy Crompton, University of the West of England, Bristol
-ENDS-
This announcement was covered by trade outlets such as Mirage News, PharmaFile, European Pharmaceutical Manufacturer, Labmate Online, MyScience, Samedan, Europawire, Science X, Business News Wales, Health Tech Digital, regional outlets Glasgow Times, Business Durham, MediWales and in Research Professional (Funding Profile, Funding Insight).