Warwick and Queen Mary award academics £230,000 for new collaborative studies

### Rachel Callear

**A total of £230,000 has been awarded to thirteen collaborative projects between academics at Warwick and Queen Mary, University of London. The projects received a maximum of £30,000 each and are from three to nine months in duration.**

The collaborations involve Warwick academics in the Life Sciences, Physics, History, Sociology, Psychology and PAIS departments as well as Warwick Business School and Warwick Medical School.

One such project is called _Combining the Needle with the Haystack: The challenge in Plant Genomics_, in which Warwick’s Professor Jim Benyon will work with Professors Andrew Leach and Richard Nichols from Queen Mary.

In this collaboration they hope to examine alterations in the chromosomes of cabbages under stress in order to learn more about fundamental biology, as well as striving towards the development of crops which are more resistant to disease and harsh weather conditions.

Warwick’s Professor Sandra Chapman and Queen Mary’s Professor David Burgess will examine space plasma in relation to nuclear fusion energy research in a joint project under the working title of _Kinetic simulation of nonlinear structures in magnetic confinement fusion plasmas_.

Their research will use high performance computing to investigate the formation of plasma structures on the edge of fusion plasmas which play an important part in energy transport.

The two universities formed a mutually beneficial partnership in March 2012, with emphasis particularly in flagship and innovative research. As part of the partnership, two new awards were established to encourage collaborative research.

The EPSRC-funded Sharing Facilities Awards aim to support short-term projects between Warwick and Queen Mary researchers and the Joint Institutional Pump-Priming Awards to support collaborative research projects in any discipline to make joint research grant applications to external funding bodies.

Warwick and Queen Mary also collaborate on outreach activities for schools, including a joint residential summer school in July 2013.