ANNUAL REVIEW 2014 2 3 CONTENTS Page 04 Introduction 06 Chairman’s foreword 08 History of the Leverhulme Trust 11 Funding the Trust offers 12 Director’s report 13 Distribution of funds in 2014 14 2014 in numbers 15 Summarised financial information Page 16 Awards in Focus 18 Losing time and temper: how people learned to live with railway time 20 Unlocking friction: unifying the nanoscale and mesoscale 22 Highland encounters: practice, perception and power in the mountains of the ancient Middle East 24 Kinship, morality and the emotions: the evolution of human social psychology 25 Sidonius Apollinaris: a comprehensive commentary for the twenty-first century 26 Promoting national and imperial identities: museums in Austria-Hungary 28 Alice in space: contexts for Lewis Carroll 30 DNA: the knotted molecule of life 31 Seabirds as bio-indicators: relating breeding strategy to the marine environment 32 At home in the Himalayas: rethinking photography in the hill stations of British India 34 Making a mark: imagery and process in the British and Irish Neolithic 35 Assembling the ancient islands of Japan 36 Pierre Soulages: Radical Abstraction 38 Early Chinese sculpture in the Asian context – art history and technology 40 ‘A Graphic War’: design at home and on the front lines (1914–1918) 42 Cultural propaganda agencies in colonial Cyprus and their policies 44 Act big, get big: bone cell activity scaling among species as a skeletal adaptation mechanism 46 Black Sea sketches: music, place and people 48 Why chytrids are leaving amphibians ‘naked’ 50 ‘The Walrus Ivory Owl’ Page 52 What Happened Next 54 Dr Chris Jiggins 56 Dr Hannes Baumann 58 Dr Lucie Green 60 Professor Giorgio Riello 62 Professor Kim Bard 64 Professor Martin Hairer 65 Dr Robert Nudds 66 Professor Rana Mitter Page 68 Awards Made 5 INTRODUCTION The Leverhulme Trust was established by the Will of William Hesketh Lever, one of the great entrepreneurs and philanthropists of the Victorian age. Since 1925 we have provided grants and scholarships for research and education; today, we are one of the largest all-subject providers of research funding in the UK, distributing approximately £80 million a year. We award funding across academic disciplines, supporting talented individuals in the arts, humanities, sciences and social sciences to realise their personal vision in research and professional training. As well as substantial grants for research projects, we offer fellowships for researchers throughout their academic careers, grants for international collaboration and travel, and support for the fine and performing arts. Our approach to grant-making is distinctive. Our awards are made in the responsive mode, with the choice of topic and research design left with applicants. We look for work of outstanding merit, which is original, important and has significance beyond a single field. We particularly value research that crosses disciplinary boundaries or that is willing to take risks in its pursuit of new knowledge or understanding. 6 INTRODUCTION CHAIRMAN’S FOREWORD It is a pleasure for me to report that the a further significant contribution to Trust is in robust financial health and UK academia and scholarship, and our also that 2014 was a record-breaking aspiration is to encourage innovative year for us, with over £80 million spent, research capable of creating a step-change the most ever in almost 90 years of in the field, by establishing centres of Leverhulme Trust history. excellence in their chosen areas. Up to In last year’s Review I announced £10 million over ten years will be available the launch of a new scheme of for each centre, and I am very much Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships looking forward to seeing how universities to support graduate students in the UK. approach our call for ‘disruptive thinking’, Our intention had been to award up which can transform our understanding to ten grants, each worth £1 million to of a topic of significance to contemporary the successful institutions, funding 15 societies. I’ll report back on the successful PhD students at each university. The bids in next year’s Review. scheme attracted over 100 applications, As ever, I must express my great and we were so impressed by the range of thanks to fellow Board members and innovative and exciting plans proposed to the many peer reviewers, assessors that we awarded 14 grants, at a total cost and panel members who give their time of almost £15 million. With matched and the benefit of their wisdom to the funding provided by a number of the Trust, by helping us to fund research of universities, over 300 of our brightest the highest calibre. Thanks are also due postgraduate students will be supported. to the Trust’s Director, Gordon Marshall, We look forward to running the and to his small but incredibly hard- scheme again in 2017 and to following working staff, who keep the wheels the progress of the first cohort of of the Trust moving so efficiently. They Leverhulme Doctoral Scholars as they have absorbed the work involved with start their studies. an increasing flow of proposals and the Looking ahead, 2015 promises development of major new programmes to be an exciting year: we will run with their usual enthusiasm. I and my our Leverhulme Arts Scholarships fellow Trustees are immensely grateful. competition for the second time, offering The number of researchers supported bursaries and innovative teaching awards by the Trust since it was founded in 1925 to specialist arts training organisations. must be many thousands, and it would be Up to £10 million will be available to fascinating to track their career paths. support some of the most talented young Our What Happened Next section gives people across the whole spectrum of the a snapshot of some of the outcomes from fine and performing arts. past Leverhulme grant holders, and 2015 will also see the launch of I hope you enjoy reading these. the new Leverhulme Research Centres. The Trust Board has considered ways Niall FitzGerald KBE in which Leverhulme funds could make Chairman of the Leverhulme Trust Board INTRODUCTION 7 I am very much looking forward to seeing how universities approach our call for ‘disruptive thinking’ which can transform our understanding of a topic of significance to contemporary societies 8 INTRODUCTION HISTORY OF THE LEVERHULME TRUST INTRODUCTION 9 A committed philanthropist throughout his life, on his death in 1925 Lord Leverhulme left a proportion of his holdings in Lever Brothers for certain trades charities and to provide ‘scholarships for … research and education’. It was thus that the Leverhulme Trust came into being Born in 1851, William Hesketh Lever executive positions at Unilever. made his fortune through the manufacture This arrangement was requested by and marketing of soap and cleaning Lord Leverhulme himself, and over products. In the space of only a few the following decades this has ensured years his company Lever Brothers grew that the culture of decision-making at to become a household name, and its the Trust remains free from disciplinary products, which included Sunlight Soap interest, able to draw upon the wide and Lux, were sold around the world. experience brought by its trustees, The title ‘Lord Leverhulme’ was conferred and fully alert to the role of education upon Lever in 1922. A committed and research in modern life. In making philanthropist from the beginning, when decisions about funding, the Trustees Lord Leverhulme died in 1925, he left seek the advice of a range of peer a share of his holdings in his company reviewers and expert panels or to provide for specific trades charities, committees who offer an assessment and to offer ‘scholarships for … research of the academic merit and significance and education’. The Leverhulme Trust of applications. was established to carry forward these charitable aims. In 1930, Lever Brothers Trustees merged with Margarine Unie to form Mr N W A FitzGerald, KBE FRSA Unilever – one of the world’s major (Chairman) multinational companies – and the shares Sir Iain Anderson, CBE FRSE held by the Leverhulme Trust became Mr A C Butler shares in Unilever PLC. Mr P J P Cescau Dr A S Ganguly CBE The Trust Board Mr R H P Markham Leverhulme Trustees have historically Mr P G J M Polman been recruited from staff holding senior Mr S G Williams 10 INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION 11 FUNDING THE TRUST OFFERS Research Projects researchers to allow them to undertake doctoral students at that institution, with Research Project Grants are available a programme of original research. five scholarships to be offered in every year for any research topic, with the choice Major Research Fellowships are of the three-year grant. The awards are of theme and research approach left for two or three years, and allow well- offered in any subject area that applicant entirely to applicants. Up to £500,000 established academics in the humanities universities have identified as a research over five years is available for research and social sciences to complete a specific priority. This scheme normally runs and salary costs. piece of significant original research. every three years. Research Leadership Awards Emeritus Fellowships provide Philip Leverhulme Prizes recognise support researchers with an established up to £22,000 over up to two years for early-career researchers whose work university career who wish to build senior researchers who have recently has already had a significant international a research team to address a distinct retired from an academic post to complete impact, and whose future research career research problem. Between £800,000 a research project and prepare the results is exceptionally promising. Nominations and £1 million over a period of up to for publication. are accepted for work across 18 broad five years is available.