It's All Gone a Bit Graphene

A graphene Fiona Bruce

There was news last month of Manchester building a second graphene hub. Now read on.

The set of the Antiques Roadshow, October 2525. Everyone is dressed in graphene, and are sitting around graphene tables under graphene parasols. A graphene Fiona Bruce presents. 

Bruce: Welcome to Antiques Roadshow. You join us this week in the beautiful surroundings of Graphene Palace, an early twenty first centre mansion in the Palladian style, but the first building in Britain to be built entirely from graphene.
Audience: gasps of disbelief
Bruce: I know, I know, it's hard to believe now, but in the early twenty first century little was known about graphene, and a huge amount of research effort and time was spent in finding out more about it. It was seen as the wonder substance.
Audience: laugh incredulously
Bruce: It was thought to be the next big thing. Little did our forebears know that it would become so ubiquitous and essentially worthless. But let's go over to our experts to find out what graphene objects have been brought to us today.
The camera pans around to a table where a graphene Eric Knowles is examining a pot.
Knowles: So tell me, how did you come by this pot?

Supporting the Cinderellas of Science

Vitae: Healthy and delicious

Last week I went to the Vitae Conference in Manchester. Many of you have probably not heard of Vitae. It sounds like some kind of healthy sunflower-based butter substitute advertised by people wearing white and laughing as they eat toast and give each other piggybacks. But actually Vitae fulfils an increasingly important function in modern higher education. It offers succour to those cinderellas of science, fixed term researchers.

Schizophrenia and the Funding of Regional Universities

Hull: one of 'Wave 2 Growth Hubs'

In February the Government announced that it was offering £32m to 20 regional cities in the UK to support economic growth and development. The cities, which included areas as diverse as Milton Keynes, Hull, Stoke and Sunderland, were offered the funding in return for a promise to 'improve a serious local economic problem'.

AHRC: A Final Check before Submitting

Check that you've got something written
next to your tickboxes...d'oh!

The AHRC's Morag Sullivan gave us a startling statistic at yesterday's AHRC event: between a quarter and a fifth of all applications submitted to the AHRC are rejected by the office for commonsensical and easily avoided oversights.

So, if you’re planning to apply to the AHRC shortly, make sure you’ve got the following ‘i’s dotted and ‘t’s crossed:

·         Does the proposal fit within AHRC’s remit?

·         Is the primary classification in the AHRC subject area?

·         Have appropriate key words been selected?

·         Does the proposal meet the scheme aims?

·         Are all required attachments present?

·         Are the page limits for each attachment right?

·         Are there surplus attachments?

·         Are costs listed under the correct cost heading?

·         Are they explained in the Justification of Resources?

·          Do costs match across different documents?

·         Is the Technical Summary complete?

·         Is the Early Career Researcher eligibility statement completed?

·         Do you have the necessary employment contract to apply?

·          Is the start date within correct timeframe?

·         Do the hours worked match the hours charged?

·          Is the RA of postdoctoral standing?