Professor Andrew Orr-Ewing of the School of Chemistry has won a Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award, one of the Royal Society’s most prestigious awards.

Only 25 awards are made each year and they are given by the Royal Society ‘to individuals of proven outstanding ability to undertake independent, original research’.

Jointly funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the Office of Science and Technology, the Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Awards scheme aims to give universities additional support to attract key researchers, with great potential or outstanding achievement, to this country or to retain those who might seek to gain higher salaries elsewhere.

Professor Orr-Ewing is in good company, since another member of the School of Chemistry’s academic staff, Professor Varinder Aggarwal, received a Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award last year.