Belfast Boasts New Physics Center

Queen’s University in Belfast is setting up a new physics center with £10 million ($14.4 million) that it recently netted in competitive bidding by Northern Ireland’s two universities. Funding for the International Research Centre for Experimental Physics (IRCEP) comes out of a £40 million initiative called SPUR (support for university research), financed equally by the region’s Department of Higher and Further Education, Training, and Employment, and by university and private donors.

The IRCEP was selected because of the department’s excellent research, its “major opportunities and ideas for expansion of research, and the most impressive range of collaborative research with institutions in many other countries,” says UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Chair Anthony Ledwith, who served on the SPUR judging panel. SPUR also funded projects involving sonic arts, virtual engineering, and policy at Queen’s University, and molecular biosciences and Irish cultural heritage at the University of Ulster.

The IRCEP will build on Queen’s University’s existing strengths in condensed matter physics and materials science, plasma and laser interaction physics, and atomic and molecular physics. “It’s an absolutely fantastic opportunity for us,” says physics chair Kenneth Bell. “The three research divisions are physically separated. This will let them come together and allow them to do collaborative research.”

Most of the money will go for a new building abutting the current physics department. There won’t be new faculty jobs. But, with the IRCEP meant to strengthen international collaborations as well as interdepartmental ones, there will be some funding for bringing in graduate students and visiting professors from abroad. “One of the difficulties we have is that we are very parochial. We are conscious all the time that we need to look outwards,” says Bell.