International and Europe Office welcomes Rutherford Fellows

A lunch meeting was hosted on 4th October 2018, by Prof Nora de Leeuw, Pro Vice-Chancellor International & Europe, together with the Deans of International for the College of Physical Sciences and Engineering and the College of Biomedical and Life Sciences to welcome the Rutherford Fellows to Cardiff University.

The Rutherford Fund Strategic Partner Grants programme is funded by Universities UK, and was awarded to the Systems Immunity URI in January 2018. The programme has enabled a total of five early career researchers from Monash University, Melbourne to spend up to 12 weeks each in Cardiff University working on key research areas with URI members.

Research to be undertaken is including Dendritic cell biology, Viral immunity / transcriptomics, Lipid immunity and Complement biology. The fellowships are greatly enhancing the partnership with Monash University led by Prof Jamie Rossjohn, by enabling research to be undertaken under current and new joint collaborative projects.

The fellowships will also enable the newly forming networks to be better equipped to apply for larger grants offered by e.g. the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), Medical Research Council, Natural Environment Research Council, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Wellcome Trust, Arthritis Research UK, and Cancer Research in the UK, and others such as Horizon 2020 and the Human Frontier Sciences Program that support international collaborations with leading researchers.

Travelling in the opposite direction, a call was disseminated to the Systems Immunity URI faculty in early 2018, and 4 of our members have since been awarded funds to enable them to travel to Melbourne to collaborate with our colleagues at Monash University in 2018/19.