A GLASGOW professor is to be the first to receive Glasgow Science Centre's Inspiring Innovation award tonight.

Professor Sir James Hough, a leading figure in the historic detection of gravitational waves, has worked at the University of Glasgow since he began his undergraduate studies in 1963.

He became Professor of Experimental Physics in 1986 at the University of Glasgow and was director of the university's Institute for Gravitational Research from 2000 to 2009. He is now the Associate Director.

Dr Stephen Breslin, Glasgow Science Centre’s chief executive, said: “The award is a celebration of the achievements of individuals or groups who have made a pioneering contribution to science and technology and who embody all of the qualities that Professor Sir James Hough possesses such as risk-taking, problem solving, creativity, communication, critical thinking and collaboration.

“James Hough’s incredible achievement in being part of the detection of gravitational waves was long considered almost impossible to accomplish. In fact, just 10 years before their discovery in 2015, a well-known bookmaker was offering odds as long as 500/1 for gravitational waves to be detected by 2010.

Sir James said: “I’m delighted to be picking up the first Inspiring Innovation Award from Glasgow Science Centre. It is a real honour to be recognised in my home city for the work I have done at the University of Glasgow over more than five decades and the LIGO collaboration’s first detection of gravitational waves.

“Since that first detection, the Advanced LIGO and Italy-based Virgo detectors have picked up signals from many more black hole collisions along with the first signals from the inspiral of a pair of neutron stars. That first detection opened up a whole new way to explore and understand the cosmos, and I’m thrilled to be among the first cohort of gravitational wave astronomers along with my colleagues around the world.”