<< Background >>The initial Euroculture programme was launched 25 years ago to offer a higher education response to lack of expertise observed to find strategies to deal with societal challenges related to the increase of multi-cultural societies in Europe as a result of several refugee crises, but also growing tensions within societies related to minorities. University experts conclude that an interdisciplinary approach would be the best answer to respond to these challenges. The need is felt more than ever.<< Objectives >>Offer and sustain a really transnational and interdisciplinary programme based on the concept of European Studies, combining political culture, cultural studies, social and political studies and religious studies. To enrol appr. 90 to 100 students per cohort. To educate these students for playing strategic roles in society, both as researchers, policy makers and experts in dealing with highly complicated societal issues as graduates.<< Implementation >>The programme based on the most current insights have been implemented according to plan. Although, the programme is based on the concept of a social community of learners, in the period 2020-2022 substantial parts had to be offered online or hybrid format. This has been done successfully asking a lot from all involved, staff and students. The learning outcomes of the programme as well as the overall concept could be respected.<< Results >>Objectives of the application and programme have been met, both in the number of applicants and enrolled number of students, success rate and the high quality of the programme. The enrolled number of students is slightly lower than planned and hoped for, but still rather substantial (84-91). A substantial percentage of students has been awarded the degree with highest distinction (cum laude). It is our initial impression that graduates have been able to find relevant employment in a short time.

The 120 ECTS European master ‘Euroculture: Society, Politics and Culture in a Global Context’ takes the citizen perspective as its point of departure and interculturality as the focus of the programme and in the programme. The aim is to understand how multiple and different perspectives (social, cultural and religious) on Europe and the European Union have developed and what they imply for social stability and social integration. Europeanization was once interpreted as leading to more unity, ‘an ever closer union’. Yet now we see that multiple Europes have come into existence, which has resulted in a diffracted Europe. In an integrated approach, implemented at all 12 partner universities, Euroculture studies the origins and impact of social, cultural and religious dispositions, conflicts and exchange in and on today’s multi-cultural societies in Europe. It is a highly integrated innovative, interdisciplinary and truly joint programme, which leads to a joint degree. Euroculture is engaged with European Studies by providing a space for cooperation between more mainstream research on the one hand and a variety of sociological, historiographical, post-structuralist, and post-colonial perspectives on Europe on the other. This has enabled Euroculture to contextualise the emergence and development of European institutions historically and in relation to broader socio-political and cultural processes. Euroculture can be understood as a critique of any form of disciplinary orthodoxy, and as such it continues to challenge mainstream European studies with novel questions and modes of inquiry. Euroculture’s unique methodology, that treats theoretical and analytical work, classroom teaching and engaged practice as integral parts of critical inquiry, has significantly contributed to its ability to continuously enhance the scholarly discussions. Students can specialise in either research or a more professional orientation. Throughout the interdisciplinary programme the language of instruction is English. Students spend the 1st semester in one of the eight European institutions and the second term in another European institution. At the end of the 1st year, there is a Summer School which lasts a week and brings together all students of one cohort and many staff from all institutions involved. In the 3rd semester, students either follow the professional track by doing a work placement which results in a thesis outline, or they opt for the academic track which involves a research secondment, and results in an outline for the thesis. In the 3rd semester, students can choose to study at a non-European institution. This applies especially for the students choosing the academic track. In the 4th semester, students write a project proposal and the thesis at one of the European institutions. Thesis supervision and grading is provided by staff from the two European institutions where the students have studied the 1st and 2nd semester and award their joint degree.

Organic semiconductors are becoming a very powerful electronic technology for applications in flexible displays and low-cost printed circuits. Their charge transport physics and ultimate performance limits are however not well understood. The objective of the proposed project is to establish an intense collaboration between the Osaka and Cambridge organic electronic groups in order to arrive at an in-depth understanding of the relationship between the device physics of conjugated polymers and molecular crystals. We will perform a broad range of directly comparable experiments on the two systems using techniques that are already available in the Osaka and Cambridge groups to understand similarities and differences in the charge transport physics of the two systems. This will include performing the first Hall effect and magnetoresistance measurements on high-mobility polymer semiconductors to compare with measurements already performed in Osaka on molecular crystals. A particularly interesting question is that of polaronic relaxation processes in molecular crystals, and we will perform the first spectroscopic measurements of charge-induced optical absorptions in molecular crystals and compare with those already performed on polymers in Cambridge. The core of the research work outlined above will be carried out by two PhD students, one registered in Cambridge, the other one registered in Osaka. Both students will interact with each other very closely, and will spend significant time during their PhD working in the other location. The two PhD students working on the project will have available the widest possible spectrum of experimental characterisation techniques, and the project will provide an excellent training environment for them to become leaders in future UK-Japan research collaborations.

We are living through a revolution, as electronic communications become ever more ubiquitous in our daily lives. The use of mobile and smart phone technology is becoming increasingly universal, with applications beyond voice communications including access to social and business data, entertainment through live and more immersive video streaming and distributed processing and storage of information through high performance data centres and the cloud. All of this needs to be achieved with high levels of reliability, flexibility and at low cost, and solutions need to integrate developments in theoretical algorithms, optimization of software and ongoing advances in hardware performance. These trends will continue to shape our future. By 2020 it is predicted that the number of network-connected devices will reach 1000 times the world's population: there will be 7 trillion connected devices for 7 billion people. This will result in 1.3 zettabytes of global internet traffic by 2016 (with over 80% of this being due to video), requiring a 27% increase in energy consumption by telecommunications networks. The UK's excellence in communications has been a focal point for inward investment for many years - already this sector has a value of £82Bn a year to the UK economy (~5.7% GDP). However this strength is threatened by an age imbalance in the workforce and a shortage of highly skilled researchers. Our CDT will bridge this skills gap, by training the next generation of researchers, who can ensure that the UK remains at the heart of the worldwide communications industry, providing a much needed growth dividend for our economy. It will be guided by the commercial imperatives from our industry partners, and motivated by application drivers in future cities, transport, e-health, homeland security and entertainment. The expansion of the UK internet business is fuelled by innovative product development in optical transport mechanisms, wireless enabled technologies and efficient data representations. It is thus essential that communications practitioners of the future have an overall system perspective, bridging the gaps between hardware and software, wireless and wired communications, and application drivers and network constraints. While communications technology is the enabler, it is humans that are the producers, consumers and beneficiaries in terms of its broader applications. Our programme will thus focus on the challenges within and the interactions between the key domains of People, Power and Performance. Over three cohorts, the new CDT will build on Bristol's core expertise in Efficient Systems and Enabling Technologies to engineer novel solutions, offering enhanced performance, lower cost and reduced environmental impact. We will train our students in the mathematical fundamentals which underpin modern communication systems and deliver both human and technological solutions for the communication systems landscape of the future. In summary, Future Communications 2 will produce a new type of PhD graduate: one who is intellectually leading, creative, mathematically rigorous and who understands the commercial implications of his or her work - people who are the future technical leaders in the sector.