Dr Maria Asplund, junior professor Dr Lena Henningsen, and Professor Dr Lars Pastewka of the University of Freiburg, Germany, have been chosen to receive funding from the European Research Council (ERC).

The ERC has presented the researchers with a starting grant of just under €4.5m for new projects.

Asplund, of the Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK), is receiving almost €1.5m for the project ‘SPEEDER’.

Electrical fields can control how cells move at the edges of a wound, and thus influence how well skin injuries heal. However, there has not been a material suitable for use to stimulate the cells. The SPEEDER project aims to develop a supercapacitive polymer that can store and release a particularly high amount of energy, enabling electrical fields to be maintained over an extended period of time. The researchers are planning to incorporate the material as active components in an electronic dressing. This could be used in severe cases to speed up the healing process and prevent the wound becoming chronic.

Henningsen, of the Institute of Chinese Studies, is also receiving a grant of almost €1.5m for her project ‘The Politics of Reading in the People’s Republic of China (READCHINA)’.

READCHINA will use the perspective of reading practices to investigate the intellectual, literary and societal transformation that has taken place in China since the 1940s.

Pastewka of the Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK) is also receiving an ERC grant of almost €1.5m for his project ‘Emergence of Surface Roughness in Shaping, Finishing and Wear Processes (ShapingRoughness)’.

Detailed knowledge of why surfaces are rough is presently lacking. Pastewka will use computer simulations to study microscopic processes during mechanical deformation to discover the mechanisms underlying formation of roughness and predict specific topographies of machined surfaces.

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