EPSRC Core Equipment Award 2022/23

The University of Cambridge will buy two major pieces of research equipment with this £1 million-plus grant, chosen through an internal competition to maximise their impact on research excellence. This funding fills a gap in the university's existing equipment portfolio. While Cambridge already invests in capital equipment, these two items—selected through a competitive review process—represent strategic priorities where new hardware will unlock research avenues that current tools cannot support. The university is contributing its own funds for items exceeding the EPSRC's maximum limit, signalling institutional commitment. If the equipment performs as expected, the primary impact will be on researchers: PhD students, early career scientists, and established groups will gain access to first-rate shared facilities. In the medium to long term, this should enable new discoveries and strengthen the university's overall research capacity. The abstract does not specify what the equipment does or which fields it serves, so the practical applications—whether in materials science, biology, engineering, or other disciplines—remain undefined. This is fundamentally an infrastructure investment: it makes future breakthroughs possible without promising any particular one.