This prize is awarded to an established individual or group of researchers who can demonstrate sustained, internationally significant achievements in any field of research.
Lars Chittka’s research on the perception and intelligence of social insects at QMUL has established him as the UK's lead researcher in animal behaviour. His work has revealed many previously unimaginable feats of bees' miniature brains, for example that they can count, recognise human faces, learn concepts, use tools by observation, and are most likely sentient. His team have made multiple breakthroughs in exploring the neural underpinnings of these capacities. Over 22 years at QMUL I have published over 230 articles, including 5 papers in Nature, 9 in Science, 3 in PNAS, 23 in Current Biology and 9 in PLoS Biology. His achievements have been recognised by the election as a fellow to the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina), a lifetime fellowship of the AAAS (American Academy for the Advancement of Science), a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award and an ERC Advanced Grant.
Professor Chittka’s work represents a remarkable body of research at the intersection of two distinct disciplines, but beyond his academic achievements the panel chose him as the overall winner for his commitment to communicating his findings engagingly and persuasively, and for using his research to tackle some of the most intractable challenges facing the world at this time. His work poses profound challenges for how we understand sentience, personhood and ecological citizenship, and he has been fearless in taking these questions to the public stage.
Caroline Roney (SEMS, S&E). Dr Caroline Roney is a Reader in Computational Medicine and a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow in the School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary University of London. Dr Roney’s pioneering research using digital twins – a virtual representation of a real-life human organ – has earned her a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship. Highly Commended by panel for the incredible impact she has already had on her field and clinical practice as a mid-career researcher, and for her outstanding commitment to interdisciplinary work at QMUL as a DERI Fellow.
Rachael Mulheron (Law, HSS). Rachael Mulheron is Professor of Tort Law and Civil Justice at the Department of Law, Queen Mary University of London, where she has taught since 2004. She undertakes extensive law reform and governmental implementation work in England, in her academic capacity. Highly Commended by the panel for her research into Damages Based Agreements reform, the framework which governs the highly contentious field of no-win, no-fee civil litigation, which has directly enabled a recently introduced Bill in the House of Lords.
Louise Barber; Tessa Wright; The Ilangovan Lab