Four projects successful in Research Development Fund

A total of just over £119,000 from the Research Development Fund (RDF) has been awarded to four projects in the competitive annual round of funding.

The RDF (formerly known as the RETF) was specifically targeted at mid-career researchers this year, with the aim of supporting their development, as well as promoting innovative, ambitious projects that have the potential to secure future funding bids.

Professor Parveen Yaqoob, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation, said: “Congratulations to all the researchers who have been successful in this round of funding, which was targeted to mid-career researchers in response to the Research Culture Survey that we published earlier this year.

“We received many high quality applications, and the funded projects represent the breadth, innovation and significance of the research being undertaken here at the University.”

Funding awards

Arpita Bose (Psychology & Clinical Language Sciences): Quantification of Age-related Language Decline in South Asian Languages

Predictable patterns of linguistic changes are used to detect early signs of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) in English-speaking populations.

However, research is sparse in populations for whom English is not the primary language. This is particularly problematic for the UK, where ethnic minorities constitute 18% of the population, leading to delayed or inaccurate diagnoses.

This study will undertake a comprehensive investigation into age-related language changes in Bengali and Urdu-Hindi speaking populations to generate unique language-specific diagnostic markers of AD in two of the largest South Asian minority communities in the UK. It will address urgencies in brain health, ageing and disability, through early and accurate diagnostics of Alzheimer’s in under-served communities.

Deepa Senapathi (Sustainable Land Management): Quantifying climate-driven risks to GB crop flowering using a novel combination of remote sensing, AI image recognition and citizen science

This project brings together climate science, remote sensing data and citizen science, as well as image recognition and machine learning to gain a more detailed understanding of climate-driven changes in when crops flower.

Through combining data from our citizen science initiative, Fruitwatch, with UKCP18 climate scenarios, it will predict the flowering cycles of Britain’s fruit crop on a previously unseen scale.

The team will also use cloud computing, land-use data, and image recognition to quantify climate-driven changes in crop flowering timing of valuable crops like oil seed rape, contributing to the further development of Climate resilient and Nature-Positive Farming Systems.

Eva Feredoes (Psychology & Clinical Language Sciences): Developing a precision multi-modal non-invasive brain stimulation intervention for age-related memory decline

This research will introduce an advanced and novel methodology for pre-symptomatic detection and prevention of memory decline and dementia.

It will develop a unique and highly-sensitive memory assessment tool alongside state-of-the-art neuroimaging to map and modulate brain networks for memory. It will implement the latest personalised non-invasive brain stimulation protocols to induce neural plasticity within key memory brain networks.

Through a Visiting Scholar position at Stanford University, Eva will join several world-leading labs in the field and bring back new techniques to establish Reading as an international hub in therapeutic neuromodulation as well as forging a valuable partnership with Stanford.

Christos Pliatsikas (Psychology & Clinical Language Sciences): Bilingualism as a protective factor in progressive neurodegeneration

Bilingualism has been suggested to benefit the brain and cognition in older age. In particular, sustained experiences like living in a bilingual environment increase the volume of brain regions related to cognitive and language control, and episodic memory.

As these are also targeted by diseases like Alzheimer's, it has been argued that bilingualism can ‘reinforce’ these regions, helping to counteract progressive neurodegeneration. However, current evidence is limited and inconclusive.

This project will develop an experimental protocol for testing cognition and the brain in bilingual patients over a month-long research stay.