Paymaster General visits Cambridge to see success of EU research funding

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 10:31:13 +0000

̽��ֱ��visit provided the Minister with an opportunity to meet with senior academics to discuss the success of EU funding streams, such as Horizon, and collaboration with EU institutions, and how this has enabled decisive breakthroughs at Cambridge.

Professor Erwin Reisner, Professor of Energy and Sustainability, greeted the Minister at the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry and demonstrated a history of the Chemistry Department’s scientific breakthroughs, before welcoming him to the Reisner Laboratory. During their tour of the Laboratory, Mr Thomas-Symonds also met with Professor Reisner’s team of researchers, some of whom are in receipt of funding from the EU’s prestigious Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship programme.

Professor Reisner, who has a successful history of securing ERC and Horizon funding awards, then introduced his own work, which focuses on the development of concepts to make fuels, chemicals and plastics from the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

Mr Thomas-Symonds also received an insight into their research through a series of demonstrations. PhD student Beverly Low supervised him in the Lab’s glovebox, preparing a sample for the solar reforming of biomass waste. Her colleague Andrea Rogolino showed how the team use sunlight to produce hydrogen from biomass waste.

Professor Erwin Reisner said: “ ̽��ֱ��Minister showed great talent in the lab – he handled a glovebox very well and prepared a sample to produce hydrogen from biomass using solar energy. ̽��ֱ��visit provided us an opportunity to emphasise the importance of a close alliance with our friends and colleagues in Europe.”

After his tour of the Reisner Lab, the Minister attended a roundtable discussion with Cambridge ERC grant-holders and ̽��ֱ�� leaders. He was joined by academics from across disciplines and heard from those in receipt of funding from a variety of EU funding streams.

̽��ֱ��Minister spoke to Professor Chiara Ciccarelli (Professor of Physics), Professor Erwin Reisner (Professor of Energy and Sustainability), Professor Marcos Martinón-Torres (Pitt-Rivers Professor of Archaeological Science) and Professor David Fairen-Jimenez (Professor of Molecular Engineering and co-founder of successful Cambridge spinouts).

̽��ֱ��roundtable was chaired by leading Professor of EU Law, Professor Catherine Barnard, and also included the ̽��ֱ��’s Director of Research Services, Dr Andrew Jackson.

Following his visit to the Department of Chemistry, the Minister delivered the Mackenzie-Stuart Lecture, at the ̽��ֱ��’s Centre for European Legal Studies.

̽��ֱ��Rt Hon Nick Thomas-Symonds MP, the Paymaster General and Minister with responsibility for EU relations, visited Cambridge on Thursday 13 March.

Photo credit: Nick Saffell / Cambridge ̽��ֱ��

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Paymaster General visits Cambridge to see success of EU research funding