Propylene production is classified as the 4th largest emitter of greenhouse gases among the major chemical compounds. As the polypropylene market is huge and still growing, it is essential to find alternatives to current, energy-intensive production processes to meet the European environmental challenges. Other C3 derivatives, more specifically propanol and propanal, are also very high added-value chemicals with growing markets, obtained via waste-generating and energy-consuming processes. Today, unused carbon resources are widely available and most of the time wasted.The C123 project’s main goal is the validation in a relevant environment (TRL5) of an efficient and selective transformation of current generally accessible, unexploited, cheap methane resources (stranded gas (CH4) and biogas (CH4+CO2)) to propylene in particular and C3 products in general. To this aim, C123 will develop new catalytic materials in novel process configurations and related operating procedures allowing the conversion of these resources to propylene through Oxidative Conversion of Methane, leading to an ethylene, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen mixture with an optimised composition for further HydroFormylation into propanal and/or propanol, ultimately being dehydrated into propylene, either in an integrated manner or as a stand-alone step. C123 will adopt an integrated approach, not studying each step separately but considering the process as a whole, optimising recycling, avoiding separation, using variable feedstocks, and increasing resource and carbon efficiency. The process will be evaluated and validated for implementation both as decentralised localised units (~10 kt/y) – the modular route, and in existing large facilities (>140 kt/y) –the add-on route. Throughout the development and thanks to the perfect complementarity of the partners and the very strong industrial commitment, emphasis will be put to maximise further exploitation of the results through industrial implementation.

Children who grow up in oral musical contexts such as the families of hereditary musical specialists commonly learn the body-language of music before they learn music itself. Throughout infancy and childhood they absorb the mannerisms of performance practice and the physical and social graces befitting of musicians. Learning music is accomplished by osmosis and imitation, largely without conscious intent. Children develop an unselfconscious musical confidence born of inherited or deeply-nurtured authority. Very little has been written about the processes of childhood music acquisition in the oral traditions of non-European cultures. There is a pressing need to study these processes before they are overwhelmed by the institutionalisation of music-teaching and globalisation.\n\nThis project will document and analyse oral music acquisition and transmission, conducting a detailed exploration of the processes by which children in diverse cultures become musicians, beginning with passive exposure in infancy and culminating in adolescent participation in public performance. We will consider our findings in the context of the belief, widely-held in such cultures, that these learning processes are intrinsic to the strength and depth of these highly-specialised traditions, which in all cases are central expressions of regional/national identity.\n\nWe are a team of five ethnomusicologists, each of whom specialises in particular geographic areas and ethnic groups. Being accomplished performers of musics from these areas will greatly facilitate our fieldwork. Each of us also has qualifications and experience in other relevant disciplines including music education, cognitive psychology, psychotherapy, film-making, popular music studies, music production, and broadcasting-perspectives which will contribute to the comprehensiveness of our study. \n\nWe will study musical childhoods amongst: Mande jeli (griot) musicians of Mali and Senegal; Langa and Manganiyar folk musicians of Rajasthan; hereditary accompanists in the art music tradition of North India; ashiq bards and classical mugam musicians of Azerbaijan; kharabatian musicians of Afghanistan; rumba musicians of Western Cuba; and the música llanera harp tradition of Venezuela, an oral tradition which both contrasts with and feeds into the more formal pedagogy of Venezuela's world-famous youth orchestras. We will observe and film the same children 'growing into music' over two years, making three fieldwork trips to each country.\n\nThese cultures have been chosen because they all have strong, relatively intact, oral traditions. They present fascinating differences with regard to the centrality of hereditary transmission, their positions on the continuum between art and folk music, the relative proportions of active transmission and passive acquisition, the balance between memorisation and improvisation, and the degree of mediation by musical literacy, institutionalisation, and globalisation.\n\nWe will produce:\n\n1. a collection of essays for the SOAS Musicology Series examining each musical culture in detail and investigating their commonalities.\n \n2. a series of five educational DVDs\n\n3. a film for television (with the collaboration of an award-winning documentary film-maker)\n \n4. a programme for BBC Radio 3's World Routes. \n\nWorkshops for schoolchildren, video-based talks and film-screenings will be hosted by the Asian Music Circuit and the October Gallery, and by institutions in our research countries, promoting awareness of these threatened oral traditions.\n\nOur work will benefit both academics and the wider public. It will address a crucial gap in the ethnomusicological literature and be of interest to scholars in the fields of music cognition and pedagogy, developmental studies, and anthropology. It will appeal to those with interests in world music, world culture, and the education of children, and will be of particular relevance to diasporic communities in the UK.

The Nizami project concerns the modernization of doctoral education, research and internationalization of HEIs in Azerbaijan. This project intends to answer to the urgent need for Azerbaijan universities to revise the rules and content of organizing doctoral studies within Bologna process documents in terms of their consistency, especially on ensuring science and research provisions in relevance with European standards, to fulfill the students' mobility and internationalzation of research.The consortium will achieve the objectives by restructuring the doctoral education through : (a) the organisation of doctoral schools within the HEIS and at the National level, (b) insuring high standards in doctoral education, (c) improving internationalization.A standardisation and modernization of doctoral education will lead to a better recognition from Europe of the quality of research provided by the HEIs and research institutions of Azerbaijan. Therefore, an enhance in collaboration between Europe and Azerbaijan can be predicted. As well, a greater ease of international mobility for PhD students, young researchers and staff should be reached.On a national level, the PhD students should inhance their professional skills to meet the needs of the local, regional and national markets.