Prestigious research grants for two university academics

Two top research grants totalling more than half a million pounds have been awarded to academics at St Andrews University.

Professor Colin Kidd of the School of History and Professor Philip Lightfoot of the School of Chemistry have received the funding from the Leverhulme Trust to support their future work.

Professor Kidd has been awarded a grant of up to £470,556, to be spent over 36 months, for his research project titled After The Enlightenment: Scottish Intellectual Life, 17901843, which will be carried out in collaboration with professors Aileen Fyfe, Knud Haakonssen and Richard Whatmore, as well as three post-doctoral fellows.

Professor Lightfoot has been awarded a grant of up to £118,374 over 24 months for his work titled A New Family Of Layered Perovskite Materials With Diverse Functionality.

Perovskites are a diverse class of chemical compounds that display a range of important properties, such as electrical conductivity, magnetism and energy storage capabilities.

They are used in a wide range of everyday devices, such as mobile phones, computer memories and solar cells.

Professor Lightfoot said: “Our work seeks to understand the remarkable properties of perovskites by analysing their atomic scale composition and structure.

“This new grant from the Leverhulme Trust offers exciting opportunities to expand on our previous work in this field and use new chemistry to design and prepare original examples of perovskites with improved properties for a variety of applications.”