"Our school has been involved in European projects for many years. We must also point out that the Lycée le Dantec is also involved in bilateral cooperation.Le Dantec school is located in an area where many networking and telecommunications companies have set up for years and we have been collaborating with Orange Labs and Nokia among others. The Anticipa technopole is an industrial agency in charge of promoting the local economy (more than 200 firms concentrating 10000 industrial jobs. One of its purpose is also to promote a good relationship between schools and firms. (refer to ""Campus des métiers et des qualitifications - technologies et usages du numérique"")This is one of the reasons why we started to provide technical and vocational teaching in ICT in support of general education.However, our numerous projects developed with other European countries (the UK, Germany, Spain, Poland…) have enriched our language exchanges but have not promoted our students’ mobility in other European countries for lack of contacts with companies abroad. Our goal is to keep encouraging and sharing teaching and training innovation as well as fostering long-term collaboration with companies or associations willing to offer internship opportunities to our students.Our teaching has reached a new stage and we do not wish our students in technical education not to benefit from this evolution.. It’s time for us now to create the best conditions to provide a European visibility to our programmes which will make it easier to include internships abroad in our syllabuses.We intend to gather a team of staff members able to explore various possiblities of cooperation and to use networks to share their experience and to establish partnerships with other European schools willing to make us reach the final goal of this project.We will promote these staff members as experts who will encourage and lead the way for their colleagues. They will have to find agreements with companies or schools likely to host our students during their internships.Our goal is to reach 10 % of our students doing their internship abroad in three years when it is currently about 2 per cent. Our leadership team should also acquire and enhance the necessary skills to create and follow Erasmus + projects as well as support to student mobility. They will therefore be able to ensure the management of the activities, to prioritize them and to maintain a level of consistency with the whole project going on after the lifetime of the projects."

The increasing demand for low and zero carbon buildings in the UK has provided significant challenges for the energy intensive materials we currently rely on. At present somewhere between 20% and as much as 60% of the carbon footprint of new buildings is attributable to the materials used in construction; this is predicted to rise to over 95% by 2020. If the UK is to meet agreed 80% carbon reduction targets by 2050 it is clear that significant reductions in the embodied carbon of construction materials is required. What also seems clear is that current materials and systems are not capable of delivering these savings. The drive for an 80% reduction in carbon emissions, a decreasing reliance on non-renewal resources and for greater resource efficiency, requires step changes in attitude and approach as well as materials. Improvement in construction systems, capable of providing consistently enhanced levels of performance at a reasonable cost is required. Modern developments in construction materials include: eco-cements and concretes (low carbon binders); various bio-based materials including engineered timber, hemp-lime and insulation products; straw based products; high strength bio-composites; unfired clay products utilising organic stabilisers; environmentally responsive cladding materials; self healing materials; smart materials and proactive monitoring; hygrothermal and phase change materials; coatings for infection control; ultra thin thermally efficient coatings (using nano fillers); ultra high performance concretes; greater use of wastes; and, fibre reinforcement of soils. However, very few of these innovations make the break through to widespread mainstream use and even fewer offer the necessary step change in carbon reductions required A low carbon approach also requires novel solutions to address: whole life costing; end of life (disassembly and reuse); greater use of prefabrication; better life predictions and longer design life; lower waste; improved quality; planned renewal; and greater automation in the construction process. As well as performance, risk from uncertainty and potentially higher costs other important barriers to innovation include: lack of information/demo projects; changing site practices and opposition from commercial competitors offering potentially cheaper solutions.. A recent EPSRC Review has recognised the need for greater innovation in novel materials and novel uses of materials in the built environment. The vision for our network, LIMES.NET, is to create an international multi-disciplinary community of leading researchers, industrialists, policy makers and other stakeholders who share a common vision for the development and adoption of innovative low impact materials and solutions to deliver a more sustainable built environment in the 21st Century. The scope of LIMES.NET will include: adaptive and durable materials and solutions with significantly reduced embodied carbon and energy, based upon sustainable and appropriate use of resources; solutions for retrofitting applications to reduce performance carbon emissions of existing buildings and to minimise waste; climate change resilient and adaptive materials and technologies for retrofitting and new build applications to provide long term sustainable solutions. In recognition of their current adverse impacts and potential for future beneficial impacts, LIMES.NET will focus on bringing together experts to develop pathways to solutions using: renewable (timber and other plant based) construction materials; low-impact geo-based structural materials; cement and concrete based materials; innovative nano-materials and fibre reinforced composites. Through workshops and international visits the network will create a roadmap for multidisciplinary research and development pathways that will lead to high quality large research proposals, and an on-going virtual on-line centre of excellence.

It is critically important to provide social science insights to support the transition to a sustainable and biodiverse environment and a net zero society. We are in a biodiversity crisis, with profound implications for humanity and nonhuman nature. Severe cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are urgently needed to restrict global temperature increases. This multi-faceted crisis, alongside disruptions such as COVID-19, demands the skills, insights and leadership of social scientists in relation to research, policy-making and action. However, environmental solutions are often framed as technological or ecological fixes, underestimating social dimensions of policy and practice interventions. Social science research is rarely agile and responsive to societal needs in very short time frames, and there is an urgent need for stronger community organisation and coordination. We need to increase the accessibility, agility and use of social science, as well as to further develop the skills necessary to contribute to interdisciplinary research, enabling the co-production of knowledge and action. Advancing Capacity for Climate and Environment Social Science (ACCESS) is a team of world-leading social science and interdisciplinary experts led by the Universities of Exeter and Surrey with the Universities of Bath, Leeds & Sussex and the Natural Environment Social Research Network (Natural Resources Wales, NatureScot, Natural England, Environment Agency and Forest Research). The ACCESS core team is complemented by a wider network of expertise drawn from academic and stakeholder partners across UK devolved nations and internationally: Strathclyde University, Queens University Belfast, Cardiff University, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, Manchester University, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, University of Sydney and stakeholder partners including the Welsh Government, Scottish and Southern Energy, the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management, National Trust, Academy for Social Sciences, Community Energy England, Winchester Science Centre and Devon and Surrey County Councils. ACCESS is structured around three cross-cutting themes (Co-production; Equality, Diversity and Inclusion; Sustainability and Net Zero) that underpin four work packages: 1. Map, assess and learn from the past experiences of social scientists in climate and environment training, research, policy and practice; to develop and test new resources to impact interdisciplinary education, research and knowledge mobilisation, catalysing change in policy culture, institutions, businesses and civil society (Work Package (WP)1); 2. Empower environmental social scientists at different learning and career stages by providing training and capacity building, including masterclasses, placements, mentoring and collegiate networks to enhance leadership and knowledge exchange skills (WP2); 3. Innovate by creating new ideas and testing new approaches; scope future transformative social science and enable rapid and timely deployment of social science capacity in response to key events or emergencies (WP3); 4. Champion and coordinate environmental social scientists across the UK and internationally by providing an accessible knowledge/data hub and innovative public engagement tracker; building new networks, enabling coordination and collaboration; supporting policy and decision-making (WP4). ACCESS' depth and breadth of expertise coupled with the range of innovative resources produced will deliver transformational leadership and coordination of environmental social science. ACCESS will become the key trusted source of environmental social science for UK governmental and non-governmental agencies, business and civil society. In so doing, ACCESS will ensure that social science insights become more visible, valued and used by non-social science academics and stakeholders, supporting the transition to a sustainable and biodiverse environment and a low carbon society.

On face value, community seems like a simple word: one that we all understand. But, if we start to ask questions about how we or others might think about their own communities, or the idea of community in a wider sense, we begin to realise that it is far from straight forward. Instead, it can stand for a complex range of social, political, religious and economic networks of people, places and concerns. How we think about it is shaped by our own life experience. The project concerns two different communities who are working together to create a new community. The research team will be collaborating with Devon County Council's Children in Care Scheme [DCCCCS], and the young people they work with, to better understand a crucial moment in these young peoples lives: the time when they leave care to live as independent adults. Young people who are in care have been ejected by their communities. They have left their birth families and, through the process of being fostered, are often removed from the immediate community they grew up in. This leads to changes in schools, the ending of friendship groups and links with birth family members. These transitions are problematic, and tend to be a chaotic period of time. When these same young people then leave foster care to live independently this rite of passage is particularly challenging. Their disrupted and often traumatic early lives mean they are operating from an insecure emotional base, and struggle to build positive and safe relationships in new communities. Moreover, for most of these children, leaving care is a very final event with no option to return 'home' if they face challenging situations. In response, their tendency is to seek out others who share their life experience. This often results in communities who share powerful and potentially overwhelming emotional needs, and who can find themselves unable to give or receive what is needed. These new communities can often be unstable and become a place of conflict. During this time, in addition to issues caused by a lack of independent living skills, research has shown care leavers commonly experience three difficulties in securing their independence: isolation from former communities, accommodation breakdown due to problem behaviour and wider problems around mental/emotional health which impacts on their ability to cope with independent living. In this situation the young people's notion of community, and how they find a new community to move into is tested, often to the point of collapse. This case study will work with both groups to better understand the processes at work and facilitate a proactive evaluation of that is taking place. It will then become the spine of a review which seeks to enable the academy and policy makers to gain a clearer understanding of how vulnerable, young people think about community and how this shapes how they see themselves. This project will have four phases to examine what is happening during this transition to independence. (1) It will interview both the young people and DCCCCS team members about their understanding of community and contextualise this by critiquing contextualising documentation used by policy makers (a process that will be repeated in the second, third and fourth phases). (2) It will use this data to facilitate a series of workshops and seminars facilitated by Exstream Theatre Company (specialists working with 'at risk' youth) tailored to meet the differing needs of (i) the young people and (ii) the DCCCCS team. These will lead to (i) a performance and (ii) a report tailored towards service providers about the idea of community. (3) A two-day seminar will brings the two groups together: the young people will perform their work, the DCCCCS team will present on their paper and collectively we will reflect on our experience, evaluate the process and plan for future collaborations. (4) We will reflect upon and share our findings via the review and papers.

Recent flooding events such as those of winter 2013/14 in the South West of UK have highlighted the importance of having greater resilience in our transport infrastructure. The failure of bridges or even a reduction in service during and in the aftermath of floods can lead to significant direct and indirect costs to the economy and society, and hamper rescue and recovery efforts. For example, 29 bridges collapsed or were severely damaged during the 2009 floods in Cumbria leading to nearly £34m in repair and replacement costs, and significantly larger economic and societal costs. This research aims to enhance the resilience of our transport infrastructure by enabling practitioners to assess the risks to bridges from debris accumulation in the watercourse, a leading cause of bridge failure or damage during floods both in the UK and world-wide. It will address an important industry need as there is currently no guidance available for practitioners to evaluate the hydrodynamic effects of debris blockage at bridges and in particular, at masonry bridges, which are most susceptible to debris blockage. Floating debris underneath or upstream of a bridge can significantly increase downstream flow velocities, which can worsen scour around piers and abutments. It can also increase water levels on the bridge and thereby cause large lateral and uplift pressures, which are especially problematic for masonry bridges since they rely on self-weight of masonry and fill to transfer load. This project will aim to understand and characterize the hydrodynamic effects of debris blockage through a combination of laboratory experiments in flumes and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling. It will then develop a risk-based approach for assessing the scour, and uplift and lateral forces at individual bridges due to debris blockage during flood conditions, and incorporate this approach within existing guidance for the assessment of bridges under hydraulic action. The project will be carried out by a multi-disciplinary research team with a strong track record of generating impact, and assisted by an industry consortium composed of major stakeholders involved in UK bridge management.