Scientists squeeze millions out of the JIF

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Arguably, in science there can be few more exciting objectives than explaining how the brain works, stores and transforms the information required for adaptive behaviour. The enormous growth of interest in neuroscience over the last decade has been based on the new avenues of research created by molecular biology, by behavioural and evolutionary approaches and by advanced instrumentation and computer technology, which have impacted the whole field - from physiology to pharmacology, psychophysics and robotics.

The next decade will undoubtedly see dramatic advances in scientists' understanding of how the brain works. The most significant of these advances will almost certainly be at the interfaces between existing sub-specialities of neuroscience: cell and molecular neurobiology, psychopharmacology, sensory-motor physiology, physiology, psychophysics, studies of animal adaptive behaviour, computational modelling, artificial intelligence and robotics.

All of these are strongly represented at Sussex, but until now researchers in BIOLS have operated independently, in scattered laboratories. Now all that is set to change, with the announcement this week that the Sussex Centre for Neuroscience has been awarded up to £3.7 million from the Joint Infrastructure Fund (JIF) to refurbish 30-year-old laboratories and create a flexible and modern laboratory environment for the study of neuroscience.

The refurbished laboratories will provide accommodation for three major areas of research:

• computational and evolutionary neuroscience (combining two internationally recognised centres of excellence - the Centre for the Study of Evolution and the Centre for Computational Science and Robotics)

• synaptic plasticity and behaviour

• sensory mechanisms and attention, building on research strengths in vision and hearing.

Welcoming news of the award, Professor Mike Land said: "This refurbishment will provide an infrastructure that is specifically engineered to promote interaction, collaboration and interdisciplinarity, with sufficient flexible space for growth and new initiatives."

The funding partners in the Joint Infrastructure Fund have also supported a bid for £1.7 million to establish a multi-disciplinary Centre for the Measurement of Particle Electric Dipole Moments (EDMs) in CPES. The search for EDMs is one of the most important areas of particle physics because of the strong constraints it imposes on elementary particle theory.

The new centre will bring together two groups of researchers, who work on experimental particle physics and on optical and atomic physics. These two groups share a strong common interest in non-accelerator based particle physics and, according to Professor Ed Hinds, constitute probably the strongest group in the world working on particle electric dipole moments.

"We plan to use this money to renovate our laboratories and electronics workshops", said Professor Hinds. "We also plan to modernise our optical, electronic and mechanical equipment, and to build new facilities. These improvements in technical infrastructure will promote a broad, coherent programme of non-accelerator based particle physics at Sussex using the full range of modern techniques."

Only 45 grants from a total of 214 applications were approved in this round of bids for money from the Joint Infrastructure Fund. Dr Robert Howells, Director of Science Programmes at the Wellcome Trust, said: "The scientific standard of the applications was high and competition for funding intense, so it has been possible to fund only those bids of the most outstanding quality."