The Education for 21st Century involves the development of key skills for citizens to adapt to the instability, the continuous change and uncertainty characteristic of this Century. In fact, the acquisition of these key skills is assumed to be a route to economic prosperity, reduced income inequalities and social cohesion. Great efforts have been done within the European Union to move towards a competence-based approach, especially in the area of teacher education. Teachers are believed to be a cornerstone for competence-based education models to success. Some teacher competence frameworks to guide initial and developmental teacher education paths have been developed around the world, for instance in the EU, the USA and Asia. However, there is not a global teacher education competence framework. In addition, some countries are currently at the back of the competence-based education approach. This is particularly the case of China where teacher education programmes are divided in specialities and, therefore, teachers lack a cross-sectional perspective. This fact causes diverse education problems, especially at primary level. For this reason, the purpose of this project is to improve Chinese teacher training programmes through a competence-based curriculum. For this purpose, a global teacher competence framework is going to be developed as a baseline to adjust the teaching plans towards a competence-based approach. Besides, teacher trainers will be trained within the competence-based approach so that they can adapt the teaching plans to apply the approach and train other teacher trainers. The development of this project will build capacity in Chinese higher education institutions since they will become qualified within the competence-based approach. Moreover, the project will establish synergies between European and Asia higher education institutions, what will improve the transfer of knowledge and capital.

You're feeling thirsty. Your arm moves outwards, reaching for the cup of coffee on your desk, grasps the handle, and moves the cup smoothly back to your waiting lips. You're walking to the bus stop, on your way to an important interview. Legs swinging, left then right, left then right, when the bus unexpectedly turns the corner ahead of you. Panicked, you break into a run, legs pumping, feet leaving the floor with each stride. Both are transitions between movements, between the discrete movements of the arm - out, then stop, then back - and between the rhythmic movements of walking to running. But while we know much about how the brain represents and controls single movements, we know little about how it controls the transitions between them. Understanding this would help us build better intelligent prosthetics for the paralysed and disabled; and build better, more natural controllers for moving robots. The challenge is that different movements are controlled by the same set of neurons in the brain. There are a set of neurons in your motor cortex that control arm movement. Elsewhere there are a set of neurons that create the rhythms of leg movement. Somehow, the activity of those same neurons changes from representing one movement to another, and does so smoothly, so that you do not freeze in place. Our proposed work thus aims to tackle the intriguing problem of how a single group of neurons changes between patterns of activity so different that they each generate different movements, yet does so smoothly. To tackle this problem for discrete movements, we will study neural activity in the motor cortex of monkeys moving their arms to control a joystick. The monkey's goal is to move the joystick to hit each of four targets in a row, each movement between targets thus creating a discrete arm movement. To tackle this problem for rhythmic movements, we will study neural activity in the crawling circuit of sea-slugs escaping, changing from being still, to galloping, to crawling normally. Studying rhythmic transitions in sea-slugs has the unique advantages that we can reliably cause this escape response in the lab, and at the same time can record every output from about ten percent of all the essential neurons. These data will let us answer some deep questions about how brains control transitions between movements. The first is to work out which pattern of neural activity creates which movement. We will develop methods to find when and how the patterns change, and compare these changes to the movements in monkeys and sea-slugs. This will reveal the basic neural "code" for transitions in movements. The second is to understand if single neurons are important for transitions. The pattern of activity that is responsible for, say, galloping is shared among a set of neurons; and approximately the same pattern can be created by different combinations of those neurons. So it may be that only the pattern is consistently created, and not the activity of individual neurons. Knowing this will help us better understand how to decode movements from brain activity. The third is to discover what physical changes to the circuit create the changes in activity pattern. We will use models of circuits to pick apart whether the timing and type of changes between movements are caused by changes to the inputs to the circuit, changes to the wiring between neurons, or something else. These insights this will help us design better ways to control changes between movements by controlling changes in brain activity. By revealing how brains successfully and smoothly move bodies between movements, our results could provide a wealth of new options for the control of artificial or robotic limbs by patients, and for designing controllers for movement in robots.

Our museums tell stories about who we are and where we've come from. They collect objects that connect us to the past and inspire our futures. Though many museums have helped us to see and feel in new ways, few teach us to hear differently. The National Science and Media Museum in Bradford has a new mission to tell the story of sound technologies. From TV sets to radios and gramophones to synthesisers, these objects were meant to be heard. They contain evocative histories of how we used to hear and take us into the sonic atmosphere of the past. Their ingenuity can inspire us to get creative in new ways. They can help us think differently about our digital media lives, too: microphones and speakers are everywhere from our smartphones to our Alexa speakers, but we rarely stop to think about what this means. Museums have not traditionally been places for sound and their visitors do not usually arrive ready to listen. This project will put sound technologies on show in the museum by testing new kinds of audible exhibits and new kinds of sound-making events at the National Science and Media Museum. The project will work with audience groups from the Museum to jointly develop new exhibits for future exhibitions. Three groups will work with creative practitioners to create innovative exhibits on topics as diverse as sound postcards (postcards that contain a record that you could play at home); the pioneering techniques of Delia Derbyshire who composed the original theme tune for the BBC television programme Doctor Who; and echo machines used in pop and rock music. Rather than create these exhibits first and ask people what they think after that, we will bring audience listeners into the beginning of the process. The exhibits made by the groups will feature alongside a new exhibition called 'The Shape of Sound' and go on to inform the development of new permanent galleries at the Museum. Curators will learn what their audiences want from sound technology collections and how they listen in gallery spaces. Audience participants will learn about the history of sound technologies and their place in museums.

Raman spectroscopy is an invaluable analytical tool for materials characterisation, providing essential information on the structure, chemical composition and local environment of molecules using the diagnostic fingerprint that the vibrational spectrum uniquely delivers. It is applied almost ubiquitously across the engineering, physical and life sciences, enabling analysis of molecular materials in their native state (regardless of the physical state of matter or environment), in the absence of labels or preparation procedures, in a non-invasive and non-destructive fashion. It does, however, suffer from two significant limitations: (i) low sensitivity, a result of the weakness of the Raman effect, where very few incident photons can be harnessed to generate information on vibrational structure, and; (ii) spatial resolution limited by the laws of optical diffraction. This places fundamental restrictions on the breadth of materials that can be examined, and the absolute precision with which information can be obtained in those that can. Necessitated by the comprehension that the principle functions of materials are governed by characteristics and phenomena that arise in molecular structures at the nanoscale, significant developments in the technology of Raman spectroscopy was warranted and an innovative approach - termed tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) - was consequently established. In TERS, a scanning probe microscopy (SPM) tip is illuminated with a laser at the natural plasmon frequency of the noble metal nanoparticle that resides at the tip apex. This creates a high-intensity electromagnetic field in the immediate vicinity of the SPM tip, and as such provides a new mechanism for high-sensitivity imaging of molecular materials at the nanometre length scale. Yet, to date, and for reasons of prior technical inadequacies of commercial instrumentation, its application has been largely restricted to analysis of solid surfaces in air at standard conditions of temperature and pressure. Thus, whilst TERS has effectively solved the fundamental deficiencies inherent to Raman spectroscopy, it has essentially failed to translate the highly desirable aspects of the parent technique, thus placing a significant barrier to its application for important materials science discoveries. To address this critical issue, we aim to pioneer an innovative nanoscale imaging capability, comprising optically-coupled SPM and Raman spectroscopy, and uniquely configured for the first time with dual optical access, multiple SPM functionalities and custom-made stages and liquid cells for environmental control. Designated DCI-TERS, our cutting-edge analytical platform will enable chemical fingerprint imaging of molecular materials significantly below the diffraction limit (<10 nm spatial resolution) for sampling both liquids and solids, with near-single-molecule-level sensitivity, along with 3D topographical analysis, acquired simultaneously from a single location (Tip-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy). The incorporation of full performance SPM modes extends the breadth of surface physical characteristics obtainable from a single nanoscale volume (Correlative Imaging), whilst first-time provisions for environmental control stands to revolutionise in situ and operando investigations of chemical transformations at the gas-solid and liquid-solid interfaces, in response to light, heat and electrical potential (Dynamic Imaging). Thus, DCI-TERS represents an innovative methodology for temporally-resolved and location-correlated imaging of molecular materials and will deliver new fundamental knowledge on surface physicochemical (mechanical, electrical, thermal, structural compositional) properties under relevant conditions and at the nanoscale level, applicable to a broad spectrum of material research programmes, from drug delivery and medical devices to optoelectronics and batteries.

The medieval manuscripts from Wollaton Hall library are a rare survival. Despite their significance they are not well known and none has been edited in full. They have been curated by the University of Nottingham since 1947 as part of a family archive (the Middleton Collection). Most were described in 1911 for the Historical Manuscripts Commission. Their loan status excluded them from Ker's Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, and their fragile condition discouraged access and display. In July 2007 the situation changed, with a Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) award for the purchase of 10 key manuscripts and for their preservation, digitisation and public display. \n\nThis project proposes a programme of research which will maximise the opportunity presented by the HLF award by adding significant research value to the dissemination aspects of the HLF project.\n\nThe project will focus on 11 medieval manuscripts. The 10 purchased and the Wollaton Antiphonal which is also held by the University. The manuscripts include major literary works of significance for understanding the culture (local, national and European) of the period 1300-1500. The research will focus around 10 themes, selected to bring out the strengths of the collection and identify further areas of research potential. These themes will be explored by a team of distinguished academics:\n\ni. Development and history of a medieval library (Prof. Ralph Hanna, University of Oxford, Dr Dorothy Johnston, University of Nottingham, Prof Thorlac Turville-Petre, University of Nottingham) \nii. Middle English literature in the East Midlands (Prof. Turville-Petre)\niii. The Wollaton Antiphonal and regional art (Dr Alixe Bovey, University of Kent)\niv. Aspects of English liturgical music (Dr Nicolas Bell, British Library)\nv. Medieval English bindings and fragments (Prof. Hanna)\nvi. The manuscripts as physical artefacts and their preservation (tbc)\nvii. Education of the laity and lay readership, 13th-15th centuries (Dr Robert Lutton, University of Nottingham)\nviii. The manuscripts of Gower's Confessio Amantis (Emeritus Prof. Derek Pearsall, Harvard)\nix. A collection of French romances and fabliaux (LM 6) in its French context (Prof Alison Stones, University of Pittsburgh) \nxi. Hagiography and the cult of St Zita in Eastern England (Prof. Caroline Barron, Royal Holloway, University of London)\n\nThe project aims to draw the academic contributors together as a network of scholars from across disciplines and institutions, with a shared interest in the manuscript collection. An advisory panel of scholars will also steer the research project and contribute to the network. The advisory panel will be largely, but not exclusively, drawn from the University of Nottingham, to encourage its researchers to engage with the newly purchased collection. \n\nTwo workshops (the first closed and the second open to the public) will bring the network together formally on two occasions. The network will also be supported through a dedicated research page on the HLF-funded manuscripts website. The Keeper of the Special Collections archive will foster the development of the network and will explore and support future research partnerships with the network group. \n\nThe outcomes of the project will consist of a major scholarly catalogue of the manuscripts, with essays on different research questions as outlined above; a static exhibition at the University's Lake Side Arts Centre (Western Gallery), complemented by a touring exhibition for the region, and enhanced research content of HLF-funded initiatives - i.e. the manuscripts web pages and e-learning initiative for schools.\n