ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
The ESRC's Professorial Fellowship scheme is funding five of the UK's top social scientists to allow them to develop their research agendas.
Award winner: M. Keating
Institution: University of Aberdeen
Value: £361,828
Rescaling Europe: territories, representation and public policy
Award winner: R. Jessop
Institution: University of Lancaster
Value: £455,443
Great transformations: a cultural political economy of crisis management
Award winner: J. Humphries
Institution: University of Oxford
Value: £195,666
Memories of industriousness: the Industrial Revolution and the household economy in Britain, 1700-1878
Award winner: C.J. Skinner
Institution: University of Southampton
Value: £396,282
Enhancing the use of information on survey data quality
Award winner: R.K. Gibson
Institution: University of Manchester
Value: £424,686
The internet, electoral politics and citizen participation in global perspective
BIOTECHNOLOGY AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL
Four UK-based research projects studying the spread of the swine flu pandemic are sharing £6.5 million from a collaborative scheme by the BBSRC, the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Award winner: Peter Openshaw
Institution: Imperial College London
Value: £2.7 million
Mechanisms of Severe Acute Influenza Consortium (MOSAIC)
Award winner: James Wood
Institution: University of Cambridge
Value: This shares £1.7 million with the project listed below
Epidemiological and evolutionary investigations of pandemic H1N1 influenza virus in pigs and associated occupational risks
Award winner: Ian Brown
Institution: Veterinary Laboratories Agency, Weybridge
Value: This shares £1.7 million with the project listed above
Transmission, infection dynamics and immunopathology of pandemic H1N1 virus in pigs and comparability to human infection
IN DETAIL
Award winner: Andrew Hayward
Institution: University College London
Value: £2.1 million
FluWatch
Studying a cohort of 10,000 individuals from 4,000 households, this project will scrutinise the duration and severity of swine flu symptoms. Researchers will look at access to care and treatment, the efficacy of antivirals, the uptake and effectiveness of the pandemic vaccine delivered through the National Health Service and population-behaviour changes through the pandemic and during illness. The results will be compared with findings from the original FluWatch programme so researchers can assess whether T-cell responses to previous influenza strains offer protection against the H1N1 strain.