The acoustics industry contributes £4.6 billion to the UK's economy annually, employing more than 16,000 people, each generating over £65,000 in gross value added across over 750 companies nationwide. The productivity of acoustics industry is similar to that of other enabling technologies, for example the UK photonics industry (£62k per employee in 2014). Innovation through research in acoustics is a key to its industry success. The UK's acoustics industry and research feeds into many major global markets, including the $10 billion market for sound insulation materials in construction, $7.6 billion ultrasound equipment market and $31 billion market for voice recognition. This is before the vital role of acoustics in automotive, aerospace, marine and defence is taken into consideration, or that of the major UK industries that leverage acoustics expertise, or the indirect environmental and societal value of acoustics is considered. All the four Grand Challenges identified in the 2017 UK Industrial Strategy require acoustics innovation. The Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF, https://www.ukri.org/innovation/industrial-strategychallenge-fund/) focuses on areas all of which need support from acoustics as an enabling technology. The future of acoustics research in the UK depends on its ability to contribute to the Four Grand Challenges. Numerous examples are emerging to demonstrate the central role of acoustics in addressing the four Grand Challenges and particularly through more focused research. The acoustics-related research base in the UK is internationally competitive, but it is important to continue to link this research directly to the four Grand Challenges. In this process, the role of UK Acoustics Network (UKAN) is very important. The Network unites over 870 members organised in 15 Special Interest Groups (www.acoustics.ac.uk) who represent industry, academia and various non-academic organisations which success relies on the quality of acoustics related research in the UK. UKAN was funded by the EPSRC as a standard Network grant with the explicit aim of pulling together the formerly disparate and disjoint acoustics community in the UK, across both industry and academia. UKAN has been remarkably successful. Its success is manifested in the large number of its members, numerous network events it has run since its inception in November 2017 and contribution it has made to the acoustics research community. Unfortunately, UKAN has not been in the position to fund new, pilot adventurous or translational projects nor has it any funding support for on-going research or knowledge transfer (KT) activities. The purpose of UKAN+ is to move beyond UKAN, create strategic connections between acoustics challenges and the Grand Challenges and to tackle these challenges through pilot studies leading in turn to full-scale grant proposals and systematic research and KT projects involving a wider acoustics community. There is a great opportunity for the future of the UK's acoustics related research to move on beyond this point, build upon the assembled critical mass and explore the trans-disciplinary work initiated by UKAN. Therefore, this proposal is for UKAN+ to take this community to the next stage, connect this Network more widely in the UK and internationally to contribute through coordinated research to the solution of Grand Challenges set by the government. UKAN+ will develop a new roadmap for acoustics research in the UK related to Grand Challenges, award exploratory (pilot) cross-disciplinary research projects to the wider community to support adventure research and knowledge transfer activities agreed in the roadmap and support the development of develop full-scale bids to the government research funding bodies which are aligned with the Grand Challenges. UKAN+ will also set up a National Centre or Coordination of Acoustics Research, achieve full sustainability and support best Equality, Diversity and Inclusion practices.

The Tactile Universe is an award-winning public engagement project based at the University of Portsmouth's Institute of Cosmolgy and Gravitation that is empowering and raising the aspirations of students with vision impairments (VI) by making current astrophysics research topics accessible to them. To date, the project has developed and used its tactile resources to help VI children experience the size and scale of our solar system and understand what gives every galaxy in the Universe its own unique colour and shape. With the support of the STFC, the project now has the chance to expand to cover even more exciting topics, and ensure its legacy in the coming years. Predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916, as part of his theory of general relativity, gravitational waves were not detected until 2015, when the merging of two black holes in a distant galaxy (one of the most cataclysmic and energetic events that can occur in the Universe) caused ripples in space-time that were detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) instrument. Working with LIGO scientists at the University of Portsmouth and around the UK, the Tactile Universe team will develop resources and activities suitable for VI students aged 14-16, covering the detection of, and science behind, gravitational-waves. To make sure that the project's resources, old and new, reach everybody that they can, the Tactile Universe is working to train and grow a network of presenters who will deliver activities to VI students wherever they are based. The resources that the Tactile Universe will develop during this STFC Legacy Award will also be made available online through www.tactileuniverse.org, alongside our existing tactile resources, lesson plans and guides currently shared on the website. With access to a 3D printer, anybody will be able to download and make their own set of tactile resources to feel the awe inspiring shapes and structures of galaxies and understand gravitational-waves, one of the most exciting areas in astrophysics today.

Towards an Equitable Social VR Social Virtual Reality (SVR) constructs a digital parallel to the physical world, enabling remote social engagement mediated by modern immersive Virtual Reality (VR) technology. This social engagement is not strictly limited to conventional social interaction, but has also recently expanded to include activities such as remote participation in training, work, and service delivery. This digital parallel world offers significant opportunities for greater inclusion of individuals who are currently marginalised by the physical world, thereby widening access to the Digital Economy. SVR is a rapidly emerging technology and its pace of adoption has accelerated in the global pandemic. However, to date, there has been limited research examining the accessibility and inclusion requirements of SVR for users who currently face digital access barriers due to a disability or age-related capability loss. As a society, we sit at a critical juncture where concepts of inclusion and accessibility can be embedded into SVR while the technology is still in its formative stage. Towards an Equitable Social VR addresses the need to ensure that SVR platforms are accessible and inclusive for people with disabilities and older people, thus allowing for the potential of the platforms in contributing to the quality of life of these population groups to be realised in full. The project will undertake a programme of R&D with the aim of delivering the SVR Inclusion Framework: a collection of formalised guidance and tools serving to facilitate equal participation in SVR for disabled and older users. The project will take into account the whole spectrum of capability loss manifestations, including vision, hearing, mobility, dexterity, and neurodiversity aspects of cognition (learning difficulties) and mental health, as well as the co-occurrence of capability loss.

Every culture has music. It brings people together and shapes society. Music affects how we feel, tapping into the pleasure circuits of the brain. In the UK each year, the core music industry contributes £3.5bn to the economy (UK Music 2012) with 30 million people attending concerts and festivals (UK Music 2017). Music listening is widespread in shops, movies, ceremonies, live gigs, on mobile phones, etc. Music is important to health and wellbeing. As a 2017 report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health & Wellbeing demonstrates, "The arts can help keep us well, aid our recovery and support longer lives better lived. The arts can help meet major challenges facing health and social care: ageing, long-term conditions, loneliness and mental health. The arts can help save money in the health service and social care." 1 on 6 people in the UK has a hearing loss, and this number will increase as the population ages (RNID). Poorer hearing makes music harder to appreciate. Picking out lyrics or melody lines is more difficult; the thrill of a musician creating a barely audible note is lost if the sound is actually inaudible, and music becomes duller as high frequencies disappear. This risks disengagement from music and the loss of the health and wellbeing benefits it creates. We need to personalise music so it works better for those with a hearing loss. We will consider: 1. Processing and remixing mixing desk feeds for live events or multitrack recordings. 2. Processing of stereo recordings in the cloud or on consumer devices. 3. Processing of music as picked up by hearing aid microphones. For (1) and (2), the music can be broadcast directly to a hearing aid or headphones for reproduction. For (1), having access to separate tracks for each musical instrument gives greater control over how sounds are processed. This is timely with future Object-Based Audio formats allowing this approach. (2) is needed because we consume much recorded music. It's more efficient and effective to pre-process music than rely on hearing aids to improve the sound, as this allows more sophisticated signal processing. (3) is important because hearing aids are the solution for much live music. But, the AHRC Hearing Aids for Music project found that 67% of hearing-aid users had some difficulty listening to music with hearing aids. Hearing aid research has focussed mostly on speech with music listening being relatively overlooked. Audio signal processing is a very active and fast-moving area of research, but typically fails to consider those with a hearing loss. The latest techniques in signal processing and machine learning could revolutionise music for those with a hearing impairment. To achieve this we need more researchers to consider hearing loss and this can be achieved through a series of signal processing challenges. Such competitions are a proven technique for accelerating research, including growing a collaborative community who apply their skills and knowledge to a problem area. We will develop tools, databases and objective models needed to run the challenges. This will lower barriers that currently prevent many researchers from considering hearing loss. Data would include the results of listening tests into how real people perceive audio quality, along with a characterisation of each test subject's hearing ability, because the music processing needs to be personalised. We will develop new objective models to predict how people with a hearing loss perceive audio quality of music. Such data and tools will allow researchers to develop novel algorithms. The scientific legacy will be new approaches for mixing and processing music for people with a hearing loss, a test-bed that readily allows further research, better understanding of the audio quality required for music, and more audio and machine learning researchers considering the hearing abilities of the whole population for music listening.

EDUCARE was a European staff exchange programme where partner organisations had found a common interest in the subject of behavioural problems in connection with visual impairment. As we experience the number of young people with VI (Visual Impairment) and MDVI (Multi Disabled Visually Impaired) who develop challenging behavioural difficulties has been growing and the professionals working in the field of visual impairment are facing challenging situations for which they have not been adequately trained and prepared to cope with. Lack of competences generates new problems and causes stressful situations for both staff and young people. Consequently, the teachers and other professionals recognised there was a great need to increase the quality of professional knowledge and understanding of the target group. Visual impairment is a low incidence disability. Specialist organisations working in this field, which this group represents, tend to be unique within their country and need to reach out beyond national boundaries to work with others who are dealing with the same issues and challenges. Fortunately, through our previous cooperation in EU projects (Comenius) and networks, like MDVI Euronet and ENVITER, the partners had established good contacts and we believed we would all be able to benefit knowledge., good practices and strategies from each other. There were 6 partners in the project, each partner sent 2 to 4 professionals to the exchange activity. The profile the participants had to fit was of a professional with a background in VI/MDVI, a few years of work experience in the field of VI/MDVI, working with children/young people with behavioural problems, speaking and reading English on an active level and highly motivated to learn, share and implement lessons learned.The partner organisations agreed upon the following objectives:- Sharing recent research/literature available in Europe - Better understanding of the needs of the target group- Discovering models/approaches for professionals/staff to deal with the issues- Sharing and exchanging the challenges and good practice- Improving the staff competences regarding the treatment of behavioural problems of pupils and students with VI/MDVI (knowledge, skills, attitude) - Adoption of the strategies shared- Implementing new knowledge, skills- Reducing the stress level of the professional- Better achievements of pupils and students with VI/MDVI and additional behavioural problemsThere were four staff training events each preceded and followed up by a range of activities and every training event was focused on one specific behavioural issue. We were able to tackle the problem from different points of view through activities to identify various manifestations of behavioural problems regarding different education systems, cultural surroundings, the complexity of the impairment and other factors that can influence the behaviour. During the exchange training events, experts trained the participants in the three different models from the Netherlands, good practices were shared, new methodologies, case studies, and current research in focused areas of interest were presented and taught. This led to a coordinated overview of specific behavioural disorders in relation to those with VI/MDVI in order to give the professionals new tools to work with the target group. In between the exchange training events a number of activities were carried out by the participants like reading recommended literature, working on questionnaires, discussing, evaluating and analysing case studies, writing reports and giving presentations in their own language for the colleagues in their organisation and country. Topics of the four trainings events were:1. Introduction to three methodologies developed in the Netherlands.2. Aggression/Self-inflicted injuries3. Behavioural problems related to autism4. Challenging behaviour related to a range of transition processesThis project enabled professionals working in the field of visual impairment addressed to understand and address a range of complex and severe individual needs. The results of the project were on three different levels. Firstly the knowledge that the professionals gained about specific (international) models, methods, practices and techniques, with the objective of earlier recognition and better understanding of the problem was invaluable. Secondly, skills and competences of the professionals were improved; they learnt how to use/adopt these techniques in order to integrate them into daily activities, in order to expect more appropriate interventions. The staff was prepared/trained to address the problems of pupils and students with VI/MDVI and behavioural problems. This will ultimately decrease stress level, give confidence and improve the learning experience of VI/MDVI persons. Finally, long-term benefits of improved staff competences will also result in better prevention techniques and strategies to avoid an