This month sees the launch of a new £4.66 million EPSRC Programme Grant, 'Chemical applications of velocity and spatial imaging', awarded to Professors Mike Ashfold, Andrew Orr-Ewing and Jeremy Harvey in the School of Chemistry at Bristol and colleagues Professor Mark Brouard and Drs Claire Vallance and Stuart Mackenzie in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford.

This ambitious five-year project seeks to extend dramatic Oxford-led advances in particle imaging technology (enabled, in part, by a previous Bristol-Oxford Programme Grant) and to demonstrate opportunities offered by this new technology in several areas of mainstream chemistry. Specific research themes include:

• Revealing the intimate mechanisms of chemical reactivity – via experiment and theory, and linking closely with complementary condensed phase studies in Chemistry at Bristol (enabled by Professor Orr-Ewing’s ERC Advanced Grant), the results of which are expected to find impact in broad areas of synthesis, catalysis, etc;
• Developing new methodologies in analytical science – demonstrating and evaluating imaging-enabled advances in the mass spectrometric analysis of biomolecules, and in the spatially resolved analysis of, for example, bioarrays, tissue samples and surfaces, with molecular (mass) specificity.

Professor Tim Gallagher, Dean of Science at Bristol, said: ‘Hats off to this team! Securing a second prestigious EPSRC Programme Grant is fitting testimony to the success and impact of the research enabled by their previous "New horizons in chemical and photochemical dynamics" award. Coming hard on the heels of Professor Orr-Ewing’s European Research Council Advanced Grant and the award of competitive fellowships to Drs Michael Grubb (Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship) and Gareth Roberts (Ramsay Fellowship), the Laser Chemistry, Spectroscopy and Dynamics Group in Chemistry is ideally positioned to seize the new and exciting collaborative opportunities that the grant will enable, and to grow its internationally leading research further.’

Professor Tim Softley, Head of Chemistry at Oxford, said: ‘Huge congratulations to all six team members on securing this prestigious grant. As one of the investigators in the previous "New horizons in chemical and photochemical dynamics" Programme Grant, I am fully aware of the opportunities afforded by such flexible, longer-term research support. Indeed, funding flexibility allowed by that grant was a crucial element in the Oxford-RAL collaborations leading to the new PImMS cameras that are central to many of the new and exciting ambitions within the new "Chemical applications of velocity and spatial imaging" grant. I wish all involved in this new Programme Grant a hugely rewarding and productive five years.’