Dr Dan Evans, Senior Lecturer in Soil Science at 探花精选, has been awarded a prestigious Future Leaders Fellowship from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which will provide his work with 拢1.5million of funding.
The Future Leaders Fellowship scheme exists to provide long-term support to talented people in universities, businesses and other research and innovation environments. It allows those institutions to support early career researchers with the aim of developing the next wave of world-class research and innovation leaders.
鈥淩eceiving this fellowship from UKRI is a huge honour,鈥� said Dr Evans. 鈥淔unding like this is the foundation for long-term, complex research that allows us to tackle global issues which is exactly what my research here focuses on.鈥�
Tackling real-world problems through research
Dr Evans鈥檚 project is called 鈥楾oday鈥檚 Carbon in Tomorrow鈥檚 Soils: unlocking new opportunities for climate action with soil parent materials.鈥� It will examine the factors that affect the long-term storage of organic carbon in soil parent materials. This layer, which sits directly beneath the soil profile and is the material from which soils form, has never been included in soil carbon budgets before now.
In an already completed, award-winning, research project Dr Evans has shown that soil parent materials can hold a significant amount of carbon, representing a potentially game-changing approach to boosting the amount of carbon which is captured and stored underground.
鈥淚magine trying to squeeze everything you own into a single-room house,鈥� explains Dr Evans. 鈥淔or years, soil scientists have been trying to put more carbon into soils. But soils are thinning, and that 鈥榬oom鈥� is shrinking. Now imagine discovering a hidden basement beneath the floor, which significantly expands that storage capacity. Under the soil is an untapped opportunity to store and lock carbon long-term.鈥�
However, some types of bedrock release carbon as well as store it.
鈥淪hale, for example, releases 鈥榩etrogenic carbon鈥� - ancient carbon locked in when these rocks first formed - back into soils. So, a part of my Fellowship will investigate the extent to which climate change and land management affects this release of carbon, and the implications for achieving Net Zero.鈥�
Professor Leon Terry, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at 探花精选, said 鈥淢assive congratulations to Dan on being awarded this prestigious Fellowship. Recognition like this really underlines 探花精选鈥檚 position as a thriving hub for internationally leading research.鈥�
