Cardiff to boost its research

Cardiff University has announced a multimillion-pound recruitment drive to attract new research stars.

It is looking for 12 research fellows in six interdisciplinary areas: medical technologies; social and economic change and health; translational research in health priority areas; bioinformatics and biostatistics; risk, health and science communication; and innovative manufacturing.

The fellowships, advertised in The Times Higher this week, are backed by a £1.5 million grant from Research Councils UK's Academic Fellowship Scheme.

The move follows Cardiff's merger with the University of Wales College of Medicine, which has brought the university new funding and fresh opportunities for interdisciplinary research.

David Bembo, assistant director for research development, said Cardiff was keen to capitalise on its strong post-merger position. "We are interested in the absolute quality of candidates - the posts are not allocated to specific schools but to broad areas, so we can cast our net wider," he said.

Cardiff has also earmarked £5 million to fill its "link chairs" to head new interdisciplinary research centres in biological chemistry, medical communication, genomics and proteomics.