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Portsmouth cosmologists have won £1.4m to fund further research into the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang and the emergence of structure in our Universe.

The Science and Technology Facilities Council grant will fund theoretical cosmology research at Portsmouth for the next five years, and recognises the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation as one of the country’s top research groups.

The aim is to better understand what the universe is made of and the nature of gravity.

The Institute, at the University of Portsmouth, is home to researchers surveying the present Universe and seeking to understand its origins.

David Wands, Professor of Cosmology at the Institute, said: “Nationally, there is fierce competition for funding, especially at the present time. Many UK groups face cutbacks, but Portsmouth has been able to maintain funding for our work because we are addressing some of the big questions in science today.

“You could say the Big Bang was the ultimate physics experiment and we are studying what happened in the immediate aftermath. It was in that fraction of a second when structure first appeared in the Universe, ultimately forming the stars and galaxies we see today.

“The Universe contains dark energy and dark matter, as well as radiation and the ordinary matter, which makes up stars, planets and people. The different amounts and nature of these constituents are revealed in the distribution of matter that we see in the Universe today.

“We aim to push back the boundaries of scientific understanding, especially in extreme conditions that you cannot recreate on earth, to better understand the basic forces of nature.”

Theoretical cosmology is worth funding for many reasons, not least because basic science underpins the development of high technology, he said.

“In the Victorian age scientists developed an understanding of electricity and magnetism. It was the ‘blue skies’ research of its day and what they discovered forms the building blocks for all modern technology.”

Scientists at the Institute will teach on the university’s new applied physics degree course starting this autumn. They also contribute to teaching on other courses including mathematics, engineering and computing.