The University of Lincoln is one of only six UK universities to be awarded a £5m Leverhulme International Professorship grant, which makes it possible to have Professor Len Barbour take up the post of Leverhulme International Professor of Materials Insight and Innovation.
The grant will be delivered over five years, and will allow Professor Barbour to identify new materials which could be used across a range of industries to support their low-carbon efforts. A key research strand for the University is energy and net zero; making meaningful contributions to reduce carbon emissions and the appointment of Professor Barbour will support this endeavour and enhance the institution’s research excellence.
Joining from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, Professor Barbour obtained his PhD from the University of Cape Town. He said: “I’m delighted to be joining the University of Lincoln to assemble a new and fast-moving and topical research group which will focus on facilitating advances in the fundamental understanding and design of materials which have so far been unimaginable – opening up new avenues for materials research. A particular aim of the research will be to develop new materials with innovative and potentially useful properties, shedding light on their structure-property relationship at the molecular level.”