UK Research and Innovation works in partnership with universities, research organisations, businesses, charities, and government to create the best possible environment for research and innovation to flourish. We aim to maximise the contribution of each of our component parts, working individually and collectively. We work with our many partners to benefit everyone through knowledge, talent and ideas.
Operating across the whole of the UK with a combined budget of more than £7 billion, UK Research and Innovation brings together the seven research councils, Innovate UK and Research England.
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'Virtual lab' technology enables a major breakthrough in Bionanoelectronics
We’re one step closer to being able to replace dysfunctional parts of the brain with AI chips, thanks to collaboration between a UKRI-funded researcher in England and EU-funded researchers in Italy and Switzerland.
The work was led by Professor Themis Prodromakis at the University of Southampton, who was funded by the Engineering 
and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) which is part of UKRI. He worked with colleagues in Padova and Zürich.
They enabled brain neurons and artificial neurons to communicate with one another over the internet through a hub of artificial synapses made using cutting-edge nanotechnology.
To do this, they integrated for the first time three key emerging technologies (brain-computer interfaces, artificial neural networks and advanced memory technologies) by creating a virtual lab and using an innovative electronic testing platform developed by Professor Prodromakis with earlier EPSRC funding and commercialised by ArC Instruments.
The breakthrough lays the foundations for the Internet of Neuro-electronics and neuroprosthetic technologies that could replace dysfunctional parts of the brain with AI chips.
Major step towards large-scale quantum technologies
Researchers at the University of Bristol in the UK have developed the first integrated photon source – a major step toward large-scale quantum technologies – working with colleagues at the University of Trento in Italy.
Professor Anthony Laing’s group in Bristol were able to resolve challenges previously limiting the ability to scale-up integrated quantum photonics, including the lack of on-chip sources able to generate high-enough quality single photons. 
The innovation was demonstrated recently in a Nature Communications article. The development of quantum technologies promises to have a profound impact across science, engineering and society. Quantum computers will be able to solve problems that current supercomputers are not able to, enabling revolutionary applications such as the creation of new drugs and materials. The research was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) which is part of UKRI, and the European Research Council.
UKRI-supported scientists have collaborated in a European programme investigating the potential of space technologies to monitor damage caused by geohazards to the continent’s rich variety of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
The British Geological Survey, part of UKRI’s Natural Environment Research Council, has worked with its counterparts in Italy, Spain and Cyprus to use this data to protect Europe’s most precious cultural assets.
The EU’s PROTHEGO (Protection of European Cultural Heritage from Geohazards) project explored the use of Sentinel-1 radar data, and data from other contributing missions, to monitor deformation of the Earth’s surface potentially caused by geohazards.
The aim was to deliver geohazards information in a way that the people who manage these sites could use. 
To do this, PROTHEGO developed tools that allow managers of UNESCO sites to understand which geohazards presented a potential threat, so that they can mitigate against them.
PROTHEGO’s approach also made it possible to see small amounts of ground deformation around the Alhambra in Granada, one of the most important monuments of the Moorish period in Spain, as well as along the Aurelian Walls in the historic centre of Rome. Like many other UNESCO sites, these both have vast historical importance.
The Sentinel images need substantial IT infrastructure and expertise to process the information and produce usable outputs for site managers. The UK took a leading role in this development effort, and contributed approximately £250,000 towards PROTHEGO’s total €650,000 budget, via the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Find out more about PROTHEGO here: http://www.prothego.eu/
UKRI’s Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit at University College London led the UK and EU arm of the international study into the effectiveness of the drug remdesivir on patients hospitalised with Covid-19.
It was part of the Adaptive Covid-19 Treatment Trial (ACTT-EU/UK) trial, funded by National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the USA and supported by UK government, which took place in about 75 hospitals globally, starting in April 2020. Other sites in Spain, Denmark and Germany were coordinated by the University of Copenhagen and the trial also took place in USA, Japan, South Korea, Greece and many other countries.
The randomised controlled trial, which has recruited more than 1000 patients globally, aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the anti-viral drug remdesivir as a treatment for Covid-19. Remdesivir was originally developed to treat Ebola and Marburg virus infections.
Preliminary results published in the New England Journal of Medicine, https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2007764, showed the speed of recovery for hospitalised Covid-19 patients treated with the drug was 32% faster than for those patients who had the placebo.
Specifically, the average time to recovery was 11 days for patients treated with remdesivir compared with 15 days for those who received placebo.
Results also suggested a survival benefit, with a mortality rate of 7.1% for the group receiving remdesivir versus 11.9% for the placebo group.
Based on the results of this trial, the US's Food and Drug Administration authorised emergency use of remdesivir for treating patients who are hospitalised with COVID-19 on 01 May 2020.
Read more about the preliminary results here: https://www.ukri.org/news/preliminary-results-of-covid-19-drug-treatment-trial-found-to-improve-recovery/
And read more about the wide variety of ways in which UKRI funding is helping to tackle Covid-19 and the health, economic and social issues it’s created, here: https://www.ukri.org/research/coronavirus/
Research funded by UKRI’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) has helped the European Commission introduce food safety laws to reduce acrylamide formation in food.
Acrylamide is a probable carcinogen which forms in foods made from potatoes, cereals and beans (including coffee) when they are cooked at temperatures over 120°C.
Professor Nigel Halford and Dr Tanya Curtis at Rothamsted Research, an institute strategically funded by BBSRC, used a series of BBSRC grants to study acrylamide formation. 
The research involved industry collaborations including with Kellogg’s, Nestlé and Tesco and their findings informed the European Commission’s regulations around food growing, storage and manufacturing practices.
A BBSRC Follow-on Fund Pathfinder award supported the establishment of start-up company Curtis Analytics Ltd, which now employs seven people and provides testing services for to help food manufacturers reduce acrylamide in their products.
Read the full story here: https://bbsrc.ukri.org/documents/improved-food-safety-through-policy-change/
UKRI’s Future Leaders Fellowships support talented individuals needed to ensure a vibrant environment for research and innovation in the UK. The scheme welcomes researchers and innovators from across Europe and the world. We are open to applicants from across business, universities, and other organisations.
Each fellow receives an investment of up to £1.5 million over four years, with the ability to extend to up to seven years, enabling them to benefit from outstanding support to develop their careers, and to work on difficult and novel challenges.
Meet some of our Future Leaders Fellows below:
Sonja Vernes, University of St Andrews
Mammalian vocal communication as a model for human language; from genes and brains to behaviour
Sonja is co-founder of Bat1K, the global initiative to sequence the genomes of all 1300 living bat species. Her fellowship is exploring the behavioural abilities bats need in order
to learn new vocalisations and the neurobiological, molecular and genomic factors
contributing to these abilities.
James Aird, University of Edinburgh
Connecting the lifecycles of galaxies and their central black holes
James is closely involved in preparations for Athena, the European Space Agency’s next large X-ray observatory, due to launch in 2031.
Eleanor Brooks, University of Edinburgh
Better Regulation for Better Health
Eleanor’s research is concerned with the political determinants of health and focuses upon the European Union’s health policy. Eleanor is a scientific advisor to the European Public Health Alliance in Brussels.
Anna Kristina Hultgren, The Open University
English as a Medium of Instruction in European Higher Education: Challenges and Opportunities for Europe and the UK
Anna’s fellowship brings together linguistics and political science to consider why many European higher education institutes now teach in English. Her work will strengthen collaboration between the UK and Europe in the area of English-language teaching.
Maxwell Hansen, University of Edinburgh
New Physics meets the Strong Force
Maxwell’s fellowship combines cutting-edge high-performance computing with an advanced theoretical framework to inform experiments challenging the Standard Model. He leads a team in calculating decay rates crucial for interpreting D (charmed meson) decays being measured by the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb)
experiment at CERN.
To read more about the Future Leaders Fellowships and find out how to apply: www.ukri.org/flf
Further information on the UKRI Future Leader Fellowships can be found on our website or contact us at fellows@ukri.org
Further information on UK participation in Horizon2020 can be found on our website or contact us at EUGrantsFunding@UKRI.org
For general international queries please contact international@ukri.org
