Thursday, 04 September 2025
A plant scientist from the University of Nottingham has been awarded €1.5m for research to explore how roots navigate the underground world while coping with uncertain oxygen supply.
Vinay Shukla is a PhD who is joining Nottingham’s School of Biosciences from the University of Oxford and has been selected to receive a prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting grant for his research.
Roots are like scuba divers without a tank; every breath is a struggle for survival. Plants may make oxygen in their leaves, but their roots need to breathe too, and that’s not easy underground. Roots rely on little pockets of air in the soil, and when it rains heavily or the soil gets compacted, oxygen quickly runs out.
The ‘Breathing Underground’ project will look at how roots deal with this challenge. Multi-modal sensors will be used to create 3D maps of oxygen inside roots. In parallel, Dr Shukla will explore how low oxygen shapes their growth, and how roots navigate the underground world while coping with uncertain oxygen supply.
This work could help us understand how to make crops cope better with flooding and poorly oxygenated soils.
The funding is one of 478 Starting Grants awarded to early career researchers across Europe. The funding – totalling nearly €761 million – supports excellent research across diverse fields, from life sciences and physics to social sciences and humanities. It will help researchers at the beginning of their careers to launch their own projects, form their teams and pursue their most promising ideas.
I’m honoured & excited to be receive this ERC Starting Grant, which will allow me to explore one of the most fundamental yet overlooked aspects of plant life: how roots breathe underground.
Dr Shukla added: "By revealing how oxygen availability shapes root growth and survival, my team and I hope to uncover principles that can ultimately help us build more resilient crops. With climate change increasing flooding and extreme weather, understanding how plants adapt below ground is not only scientifically fascinating but also vital for food security.”
President of the European Research Council, Prof. Maria Leptin, said: “All these bright minds and the plethora of brilliant ideas that they will go after really inspire me, and so does their scientific creativity. It also gives hope that Europe empowers them and backs them. Yest, we could do more! Only 12% of all proposals in this competition are being funded, even if many more are excellent. More investment in this type of science is needed for Europe to reach its full potential.”
Starting Grants amount to €1.5 million per grant for a period of five years. However, additional funds can be made available to cover costs related to moving from a country outside the EU or associated countries, the purchase of major equipment, access to large facilities or major experimental and fieldwork-related costs.
Notes to editors:
About the University of Nottingham
Ranked 97 in the world and 17th in the UK by the QS World University Rankings, the University of Nottingham is a founding member of Russell Group of research-intensive universities. Studying at the University of Nottingham is a life-changing experience, and we pride ourselves on unlocking the potential of our students. We have a pioneering spirit, expressed in the vision of our founder Sir Jesse Boot, which has seen us lead the way in establishing campuses in China and Malaysia - part of a globally connected network of education, research and industrial engagement.
Nottingham was crowned Sports University of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024 – the third time it has been given the honour since 2018 – and by the Daily Mail University Guide 2024.
The university is among the best universities in the UK for the strength of our research, positioned seventh for research power in the UK according to REF 2021. The birthplace of discoveries such as MRI and ibuprofen, our innovations transform lives and tackle global problems such as sustainable food supplies, ending modern slavery, developing greener transport, and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
The university is a major employer and industry partner - locally and globally - and our graduates are the third most targeted by the UK's top employers, according to The Graduate Market in 2024 report by High Fliers Research.
We lead the Universities for Nottingham initiative, in partnership with Nottingham Trent University, a pioneering collaboration between the city’s two world-class institutions to improve levels of prosperity, opportunity, sustainability, health and wellbeing for residents in the city and region we are proud to call home.
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