The UK has made considerable progress decarbonising its power sector. However, decarbonising space-heating has been much more challenging. Currently, space-heating accounts for ~1/3 of the country's CO2 emissions. This must change to achieve Net Zero Two main low-carbon heating solutions are being considered: 1) direct heating from hydrogen combustion in boilers and 2) electrically-driven heat-pumping. Although both are promising, there are serious challenges to overcome. National Grid and other gas network operators have confirmed the technical feasibility of distributing hydrogen through the existing gas infrastructure, which connects >23 million properties. Hydrogen boilers are not commercially available yet, but they are well underway. Hydrogen can be made from renewable electricity; however, a big downside is that when combusted in boilers, the amount of energy we recover is only ~60% of what we spent making it. It is not a very efficient process. Electric heat pumps have a much higher efficiency. The amount of heat they provide can be as much as 3x the amount of electricity they consume. So, for every 1kWh of electricity used, a heat pump will give 3kWh of heat. This in stark contrast to the 0.6 kWh that would be obtained if the same 1kWh of electricity was used to make hydrogen, and that hydrogen was combusted in a boiler. Although it seems like using electric heat pumps is the way to go, there is a major problem. The electricity grid does not have the capacity to support their use in any significant fraction of UK homes. The reason for this is the huge energy demand for heating purposes. During winter, the peak demand in the gas network is more than 4x than the peak demand in the electricity grid. But also, during the first few hours of each day, the gas network experiences power-ramps that are 10x greater than what the electricity grid sees. The electricity grid does not have the capacity to provide the same levels of energy and power as the gas network. The upgrades required to enable the electricity grid to take on the gas network's duty are too expensive to be viable. It is precisely these challenges that are holding back the UK's transition to low-carbon heating. This postdoctoral fellowship addresses this issue by investigating and developing a deep understanding of a novel set of technologies called 'High-Performance Heat-Powered Heat-Pumps (HP3)'. These innovative heating systems combine the best attributes of the two main low-carbon options being considered (hydrogen boilers and electric heat pumps) and at the same time, removes their drawbacks. The widespread adoption of HP3 systems will enable the gas network to distribute hydrogen to homes across the country and therefore to continue to supply the enormous demand for energy during winter. HP3 systems deliver a greater benefit per unit of H2 consumed in comparison to hydrogen boilers. This will help the gas network to supply hydrogen to even more homes but also, consumers will enjoy reduced bills. By keeping the gas network in service, the use of HP3 systems will avoid placing an overwhelmingly large load on the electricity grid that would be created if the country adopted electrically-driven heat-pumping. This fellowship will develop detailed computational models to simulate the operation of HP3 systems in order to understand the effect that different design and operational variables have on their performance. Special focus will be given to exploring ultra-high operating pressures at this can lead to reductions in the overall cost of the units. A laboratory prototype will be developed and tested to demonstrate the functionality concept. This work has real prospects to be transformational in two different ways: (i) triggering a step-change in the UK 'boiler industry' towards more sophisticated and much higher-value products and (ii) accelerating the achievement of Net Zero by improving affordability.

CONTEXT - Prevalence of students with autistic spectrum conditions (ASC) varies in European countries, from 4.4 - 19.7 per 1,000, aged 7-9 years.The UK Govt. autism strategy - ‘Fulfilling and rewarding lives’ (2014) has a particular focus on promoting innovation in service provision. Legislation provides for new duties and services including a disability support system that covers education (e.g., the ‘Children and Families Act 2014’).Up to 71% of students with ASC attend mainstream schools, and it is important to provide them with an environment adjusted to their needs, and free of any emotional trauma. However, research shows that mainstream schools are frequently fully neither educated nor equipped to deal with the needs of an autistic child, and give the necessary support. Without individualised support, it is highly unlikely that a pupil with ASC will make the academic and social progress that they should.60% of the teachers in England do not feel they have had the adequate training to teach children with autism, and that this situation is not improving (‘Ambitious About Autism’). 40% of children with ASC have been bullied (Autism Education Trust). A staggering 70% of parents are not satisfied with the level of understanding of autism in their child’s school.‘Autism Europe’ states that Education must be adapted, to allow: assessment to determine needs and strengths, fully informing and involving families, training to help pre-empt or manage challenging behaviour, individual education and support plans, opportunities to learn skills and engage in socially inclusive situations, and education and support to help prevent secondary consequences of their difficulties such as anxiety disorders and depression.OBJECTIVESTo address these challenges, our project will transfer and further refine an innovative AI-driven tool to help teachers, support staff, parents and carers to better understand the behavioural and cognitive processes related to the emotional state of students with ASC in classrooms. Research has shown that engagement increases when activities are tailored to personal needs and learners’ emotional states, and that effectiveness of the learning process is directly correlated with learners' engagement in learning activities. Our innovative digital tool will infer the level of engagement of students with autism, and predict and pre-empt ‘meltdown’ moments. Teachers, support staff, parents and carers can then use this information (presented via a well-designed dashboard) to:•Provide personalised learning pathways and support according to the specific needs of each child with autism.•Improve the understanding of autism both within school, and in the wider community.•Provide a learning environment free of emotional trauma. •Increase the likelihood that students with autism will make the academic and social progress that they should.•Decrease incidents of challenging behaviour, leading to improved mental wellbeing of individual students, and decreasing instances of absenteeism and bullying.•Improve access to teaching of academic, independent living, adaptive behaviours and social skills.•Help prevent secondary consequences of their difficulties such as anxiety disorders and depression.METHODS and RESULTS: Using mobile devices, the level of engagement in learning activities of students with autism, and their behavioural characteristics can be assessed in a non-intrusive manner using sensor data such as eye gaze, body posture and movements. Labels to train machine learning algorithms to predict engagement and challenging behaviour will be applied to these data, gathered by working with students with autism throughout the schools in our partnership. Once trained, our innovative user-friendly AI-tool (IO2/App) will allow teachers, parents, and carers to personalise learning based on individual needs, and pre-empt challenging behaviour. This App will be supported by an Online Database of latest autism-related methods (IO1), a Handbook (IO4) and a Pedagogical Framework (IO5) acting as a 'blueprint' for school staff to optimally introduce AI technology into their classrooms.CONTEXT - target groups & numbers- Teachers, teaching assistants, and special education needs coordinators in mainstream education, inclusive settings, and special educational settings (30/country).- Beneficiaries: students with ASC, and their families (100 in total).- Stakeholders: policy makers, pedagogical experts, schools, school authorities and their umbrella structures all over Europe. Service providers supporting students with ASC; Local education authorities at all levels, Associations for teachers and teacher unions.IMPACT - personalised learning solutions tailored according to the needs of students with autism, increased likelihood of academic and social progress, improved mental webbing - fewer incidents of challenging behaviour, and decreased absenteeism, smoother transition to the world of work.

Informed by the AHRC's 'Translating Cultures' highlight notice, the research network will investigate the concept of the Silk Road as a seemingly privileged site of cultural transmission, translation and exchange, in order to consider its radical potential to challenge the bounded, oppositional geopolitics that still determine the conventional categories of 'East' and 'West'. An international, inter-disciplinary and cross-sectoral forum, the network is intended to spark new conversations and collaborations between academics, travel writers, professionals from museums, art galleries and the tourist industry, and practitioners in the creative and visual arts. In doing so, it will serve to enable a wider public re-imagining of this ancient, long-distance trade route linking towns and cities from eastern China to western Europe, so that it speaks to 21st century global concerns. The Silk Road has featured prominently in historical geographies of Europe and Asia for more than a century, and remains a powerfully evocative metaphor around which narratives of east-west relationships are constructed. Investigations into the economic, cultural and intellectual exchanges between Europe and Asia are almost as old as the interactions themselves. The systematic study of ancient overland trade routes however, only began in the late 19th century when European historians, geographers and archaeologists produced the first scholarly accounts of the main trans-continental conduits along which people and commodities, particularly high-value, low-bulk textiles such as silk, moved in waxing and waning cycles over many centuries. Classic early works on the Silk Road include those by Scottish Orientalist Henry Yule (1820-1880), who re-introduced the adventures of the Venetian traveller Marco Polo to the Victorian reading public, and German explorer and academic Ferdinand von Richthofen (1833-1905), who coined the phrase 'Seidenstrasse' in 1877. These pioneering ideas were developed in the early 20th century by explorers, collectors and writers such as the controversial Swedish adventurer Sven Hedin (1865-1952) and the remarkable Hungarian-born traveller Aurel Stein (1862-1943), as well as by more sedentary geopolitical theorists such as Halford Mackinder (1861-1947). Since World War Two, new forms of historical and archaeological research have transformed the terms in which the Silk Road has been interpreted, rejecting the imperialist connotations of earlier accounts and emphasising instead the shared traditions and mutually constitutive encounters between regions shaped by comparable though different economic, social and intellectual forces. Despite these more critical approaches however, exoticising imaginative geographies of the routeway persist. Stories of the Silk Road reproduce images not only of intercultural exchange, but also of luxury, the exotic and the adventurous, as evident in contemporary travelogues, literary fiction, television programmes and other cultural performances produced and consumed in both western and eastern countries. In the context of the rapid economic development of China, India and other Asian powers, and in response to increasing popular interest in the Silk Road, this network seeks to develop recent critical re-assessments of east-west economic, cultural and intellectual translation and exchange, so as to extend their impact within such public sectors as tourism, heritage and the arts. Although the network will include specialists in Silk Road studies, the workshops are not primarily designed to advance historical and archaeological research. Rather, these events will bring together academics and non-specialist professionals from the creative and tourist industries, travel writing, and the visual arts to explore how recent scholarship on the Silk Road might facilitate a wider public re-imagining of this ancient trade route.

Understanding the transformative power of multilingualism is vital. Over half of mankind daily speaks more than one language, and multilingualism brings advantages for community relations, business, and global understanding. Yet the linguistic landscape is changing fast, with English increasingly the lingua franca. In the UK, many schools are highly multilingual, despite falling numbers learning languages, and almost 1 in 5 primary school pupils have a first language other than English. Equally integral to a multilingual UK are the regional (minoritized) languages (e.g. Irish, Scottish Gaelic). The decline in pupils taking language GCSEs/A-levels and the number of children with English as an additional language are often portrayed negatively, and the value of community and minoritized languages is underestimated. The aim of this interdisciplinary project is to reflect critically on multilingualism and to transform attitudes through greater understanding. Our approach is holistic, exploring individuals, communities and nations. We analyse the situations giving rise to multilingualism, its social implications and creative possibilities, and relationships between languages, cultures, identities and standards. We explore why individuals/societies choose (consciously or not) to be multilingual, the potential of multilingualism as 'mental gymnastics', ways to optimize language learning, and the benefits of multilingualism for community and international relations. Our research questions: 1. What is the relationship between the multilingual individual and the multilingual society? What does it mean to be multilingual in a monolingual/multilingual society? Or monolingual in a multilingual society? 2. What are the opportunities and challenges presented by multilingualism? How might multilingualism benefit individuals, enhance communities, enrich cultures and foster social cohesion? To what extent might multilingualism disadvantage individuals, divide communities, dilute culture or fragment societies? 3. What is the relationship between multilingualism, diversity and identity? How does this play out at the individual, local, regional, national and international level? 4. What is the relationship between multilingualism and language learning? Who can/should learn additional languages, and in what contexts? How do age and other factors affect motivation, achievement and well-being? 5. How can we influence attitudes towards multilingualism? How can we change the attitudes of individuals and societies, and inform language policy? 6. How can we re-energise Modern Languages research? Can we reinvigorate the discipline by broadening its scope and developing new interdisciplinary methodologies? Intersecting research strands (S1-6) offer powerful case studies for understanding multilingualism: literature, film and culture in a globalized context; the role of standard languages; linguistic identity, diversity and social cohesion; the influence of multilingual identity on foreign language learning; language learning across the lifespan; the cognitive benefits of multilingualism. The project spans major languages traditionally or newly studied in the UK (French, German, Mandarin, Spanish), minoritized languages in Europe (Catalan, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Ukrainian), and community languages (e.g. Cantonese, Polish, Punjabi). We seek to break down barriers between high/low status and home/learnt languages. The project will have transformative outcomes for individuals, for education, health and social policy and practice, and for international relations. Our partners (community groups, educational, cultural and policy bodies, drama and creative writing groups, business) will help shape the research and disseminate outcomes. Placing language-led research at its heart, literary-cultural studies are integrated into an exciting new interdisciplinary programme to show how Modern Languages can respond to key issues of our time.

Horizon will tackle the challenge of harnessing the power of ubiquitous computing for the digital economy in a way that is acceptable to our society and increases the quality of life for all. This will involve establishing a world-leading and sustainable centre of excellence for research and knowledge transfer for the ubiquitous digital economy. Horizon will conduct a five-year programme of research into the key scientific challenges involved in the widespread adoption of ubiquitous computing; collaborate with users to create, demonstrate and study next generation services; deliver a knowledge transfer programme that ensures that the results of our research are fully connected to the digital economy; train a new generation of researchers to meet the demands of industry for skilled interdisciplinary staff; engage with policy makers and the wider public in order to address societal concerns; and provide a focal point for international, national and regional research in this area.Horizon will exploit the distinctive nature of hub funding to develop a unique approach to this challenge. Our Collaborative Research Programme will be driven by the overarching concept of a lifelong contextual footprint, the idea that each of us throughout our lifetimes will lay down a digital trail that captures our patterns of interaction with digital services. Our research will explore the major infrastructural, human and business challenges associated with this concept, adopting a unique multidisciplinary approach that integrates insights from computer science, psychology, sociology, business, economics and the arts and humanities. We will collaborate with over 30 users from different sectors of the Digital Economy in order to create, deploy and study a series of next generation services 'in the wild' so as to drive our underlying research. We will initially focus on the creative industries and transportation sectors, but subsequently extend our focus to additional sectors in partnership with other hubs and major initiatives. In parallel, our Transformation Programme will drive knowledge transfer and long-term economic impact through partnership management, public engagement, international outreach, incubation of new ventures, the transfer of people, and training for 24 associated PhD students, funded by the University.Our team draws on leading groups at Nottingham spanning computer science, engineering, business, psychology and sociology, complemented by expertise at two spokes: distributed systems and communications at Cambridge, and mathematical modelling and advertising at Reading. A series of further mini-spokes will enable us to introduce other key individuals through hub fellowships.These multiple disciplines and partners will be brought together in a new centre at Nottingham where they will be able to engage with a critical-mass cohort of research staff and students to explore innovative and challenging new projects. The Hub will be directed by Professor Derek McAuley who brings extensive experience of working in academia, directing major industrial research laboratories, and also launching spin-out companies. He will be supported by Professor Tom Rodden, an EPSRC Senior Research Fellow who previously directed the Equator IRC. The net result will be a unique partnership between EPSRC, industry, the public, and the University, with the latter committing 16M of its own funds to match the 12M requested from EPSRC.