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Seven of the UK’s brightest emerging physicists have been awarded the prestigious Ernest Rutherford Fellowship by STFC.

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Backed by a £6 million investment, these new fellows will investigate fundamental questions in physics, from the origins of gravitational waves to new physics beyond the Standard Model.

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has awarded a new cohort of seven emerging UK science leaders with its Ernest Rutherford Fellowship for 2025.

Making landmark contributions

Regarded as one of the UK’s premier awards for early-career physicists, the fellowship supports individuals poised to make landmark contributions in:

• particle physics
• astronomy
• nuclear physics

The fellowships will also help them to develop their careers and push the boundaries of their field.

Challenging modern physics

The £6 million investment will enable the fellows to undertake studies across some of the most challenging questions we face in physics today.

That work will include research into gravitational waves, looking at physics beyond the Standard Model.

It will also try to understand the properties of the quark-gluon plasma, a state of matter believed to have existed shortly after the Big Bang.

Supporting the next generation

The fellowship is designed to reward talented researchers at UK universities and encourage bright minds to come to, or remain in, the country and contribute to the UK’s scientific ambitions.

Now in its 15th consecutive year, the programme has supported more than 100 early-career researchers and has significantly bolstered UK physics research capability.

Previous awardees have gone on to take permanent, senior positions at world-leading UK research institutes and each new cohort provides an exciting glimpse into the future of UK physics.

An impressive legacy

Professor Grahame Blair, Executive Director of Research Programmes at STFC, yesterday said:

One of the joys of reading through the proposals of our latest Ernest Rutherford fellows is learning what excites the researchers who are aiming to make tomorrow’s big physics breakthroughs.

We receive many, exceptionally high-quality applications for this fellowship and it is exceedingly difficult each year to decide on the successful awardees.

STFC are very proud of the achievements of all our previous fellows and we look forward to following the progress of this latest cohort as they reaffirm the UK’s place as a leader in physics and astronomy research.

Congratulations to the 2025 Ernest Rutherford fellows and good luck in your research endeavours.

Empowering future leaders

Dr Nils Hermansson Truedsson, a theoretical physicist at The University of Edinburgh, yesterday said:

The Ernest Rutherford Fellowship will allow me to undertake highly ambitious work, establish my own independent research programme and thereby develop to become a scientific leader.

Dr Jaime Norman, a nuclear and particle physicist at the University of Liverpool, yesterday said:

I am thrilled to be awarded this prestigious fellowship and to be launching this exciting research programme at the University of Liverpool.

Quark-gluon plasma is a fascinating form of exotic matter and studying it will deepen our understanding of the universe’s earliest moments and how the visible matter we see today came into being.

Dr Joseph Davighi, a theoretical physicist at the University of Cambridge, yesterday said:

I am honoured to be awarded this prestigious Fellowship and very excited to embark on the next five years of my research, developing and testing new solutions to some of our biggest puzzles in particle physics, largely centred on the nature of the Higgs boson.

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