UEA’s grant and funding success – August 2026

By: Communications

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Understanding the health and support needs of fathers involved in repeat care proceedings and infant removal

This project will build community engagement with fathers with lived experience of local authority care proceedings and infant removal, to better understand their health and support needs.

The human and economic costs of such care proceedings are enormous, but whilst services are developing for mothers, there is no real equivalent for fathers.

Through consultation and co-production with fathers, collaboration with voluntary organisations, social work and health care professionals working in perinatal services, the project aims to improve father inclusion and develop the support offer for fathers before, during, and after care proceedings.

This project is supported by NHS Norfolk and Suffolk’s Research Capability Fund and will form the foundation of a larger application to the NIHR in 2027.

The evolutionary predictability of sex- and age-specific fitness

UEA project lead: Dr Karl Grieshop

Co-leads: Dr Anders Bergström, Prof Tracey Chapman

Researchers in the School of Biological Sciences (BIO) at UEA have been awarded a new curiosity-driven "blue skies" research project by the UKRI's Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), with an application value of £759,923 (fEC £949,904).

The project is led by Dr Karl Grieshop together with co-leads Dr Anders Bergström and Prof Tracey Chapman.

It aims to establish the how repeatable the molecular targets of natural selection have been across 10 species of fruit flies over the past 70 million years of their evolution, with special attention to how this differs across sexes and age classes.

If evolution has had repeatable molecular targets in the past, then it will have predictable molecular targets in the future, which can be leveraged to promote human health and biodiversity.

Royal Society Bakerian Prize Lectureship

UEA project lead: Prof Karen Heywood

Prof Karen Heywood OBE FRS, from UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences, has been awarded the Royal Society's Bakerian Medal and Lecture, one of the premier awards presented by the UK's national academy of sciences.

The Bakerian Medal and Lecture is awarded annually for sustained, outstanding achievements in the physical sciences and is accompanied by a medal and a £10,000 prize.

Learn more: UEA academic awarded prestigious Royal Society honour

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