This project aims to support the use of eco-system services evidence to inform policy-making that is more relevant to the realities and multitudes of people living in LMICs and their complex use of eco-system services. By generating practical tools, supporting capacity, and increasing research demand and awareness, this research aims to influence the behaviour of decision-makers in order to support pro-poor eco-system services policy-making in Sub-Saharan Africa. It uses evidence synthesis, evidence mapping and systematic review methodologies to provide answers for policy and practice across the region. The first step set out in the research will be to understand the nature and extent of the evidence-base generated by the ESPA programme in relation to eco-system services in LMICs, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa. We will go on to search comprehensively for research evidence from the region to produce a systematic evidence map. This will be the basis for a user-friendly evidence interface to enable an active dialogue between decision-makers in government, NGOs, and researchers. This evidence interface will be tailored to inform decision-making in a policy context and allow policy-makers to critically interrogate the gaps and policy-relevance of the existing research evidence. We will launch the evidence interface at a high-level meeting of senior African environmental policy-makers, the International Biodiversity Research and Evidence Indaba. As a result of this stakeholder engagement, we will agree four demand-driven syntheses, which will then be produced during the remainder of the project. These four pieces of more focused work will synthesise evidence to answer four specific questions in the region as prioritized by our government partners. These have been preliminarily scoped with government colleagues as follows, but will be refined in consultation with stakeholders: i) what works in the management of ecosystems services in drylands in the region, ii) how best to provide effective governance of ecosystems services in low income countries, iii) what guidelines and decision-making tools are available to support decision-makers and do these include multiple dimensional measures of poverty? and iv) how can research methodologies be better aligned to decision-makers' needs? We will engage in an active process of co-production with government colleagues to answer research questions (iii) and (iv). That is, these two evidence syntheses will be produced by an active collaboration between the research team and government colleagues. This will include direct mentoring, applied learning, and on-demand capacity-building. It will allow us to not just synthesise insights on decision-making tools and applied research methods; but to also adapt and develop new decision-making tools and to enhance policy-makers' understanding and appraisal of the existing evidence-base. The project will therefore leave eco-system service policy-makers in Sub-Saharan Africa with two tangible tools to support their decision-making. The first tool refers to the evidence interface, while the second refers to the jointly-produced (or adapted) decision-making tool, which is assumed to be more policy-relevant and by design of the synthesis will pay particular attention to multi-dimensional poverty measures. This work will be led from the University of Johannesburg by their Evidence to Action team, with support from specialists in evidence synthesis (at University College London's EPPI-Centre), from international leaders in understanding multi-dimensional poverty in Africa (from the Southern Africa Social Poverty Research Institute - SASPRI), and from specialists in eco-systems services (including the South African National Biodiversity Institute - SANBI). Last but certainly not least, this proposal has been driven by colleagues from South Africa's national Department for Environmental Affairs, and their recognised priorities across the region.

The history of early life on Earth is tightly coupled to evolving environmental conditions. Throughout Earths earliest history, atmospheric oxygen has fluctuated in ways that we are still trying to understand. These fluctuations would have strongly impacted biology in many different ways. Because biology requires several different chemical elements aside from carbon, the availability of these nutrients would have strongly controlled which ones were selected to perform crucial biological functions and at which time. The remnants of these early nutrients are left behind in the genomes of archaea, bacteria and eukaryotes today, providing tantalizing clues as to which elements were available and when. However, our knowledge of how bioessential elements were distributed in the early oceans is limited. This is mainly due to the fact that the sedimentary rocks that preserve such critical windows of Earth's history have experienced complex histories after they initially formed, essentially erasing the chemical clues that can help us answer some of these questions. This project has uncovered a mineral that is preserved in sedimentary rocks several billions of years old which captured critical information related to the availability of bioessential nutrients over time. Through laboratory synthesis work, we will understand how this mineral initially formed from seawater, which chemical elements enter its structure and in what proportions, and understand how these clues are preserved over geologic history. By selecting critical intervals of Earth's history where this mineral was formed in abundance, most notably in a unique sedimentary rock type called banded iron formation, we can reconstruct the nutrient availability of Earth's early oceans, directly testing hypotheses that relate biological evolution to environmental change.

The research consortium between, the UK, Africa and other interested partners seeks to provide innovative mathematical solutions to fundamental global problems and questions faced by the Sub-Saharan African (SSA) region (Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe). The statistics are overwhelmingly clear: (i) The top five killer-diseases in Africa are HIV/AIDS, lower respiratory tract infections including Tuberculosis, diarrhoea diseases (linked to water borne diseases and poor sanitation), malaria and strokes; (ii) Despite significant investments, crime activities (murder, sexual offences, assault, robbery, hijacking of cars, etc.) in Southern Africa, particularly in South Africa, continue to be of national and international concern; (iii) Governments and National Parks across SSA are faced with significant challenges in designing efficient methods for wild-life management and conservation; (iv) Almost 80 percent of faculty staff in Departments of Mathematics at Universities across SSA hold at most a Masters degree and in some cases, many senior faculty staff members do not possess a PhD. The figures are astonishingly depressing particularly for Historically Disadvantaged Institutions. Our mission is to offer alternative research-led quantitative solutions to these global challenges by carrying out interdisciplinary and inter-institutionally research in mathematical sciences focusing on six key research strands: (1) Infectious Tropical Diseases: Towards disease control policies supported by scientific evidence theory; (2) Mathematical Modelling of Biological Systems: From data to models and back; (3) Numerical Analysis and High Performance Scientific Computing; (4) Crime Modelling in Sub-Saharan Africa; (5) Mathematics for Public Policy and (6) Statistical Methods for Data Analysis, Model and Parameter Estimation. Outcomes of our programme include (i) innovative quantitative solutions based on rigorous mathematical theories, (ii) training of a new generation of young African scientists agile and competent in skills for model building, validation, interpretation, and communicating modelling results to policy makers, and (iii) influence government and non-governmental organisations through rigorously tested scientific methods and solutions. The mode for delivery of these research activities is through one Postgraduate Advanced Study Institute in Mathematical Sciences and two intensive Workshop Series aimed at training the future leaders of Africa on the latest state-of-the-art mathematical, numerical and statistical methods that allow them to derive new models from data, carry out rigorous mathematical and numerical analysis and then to complete the full research cycle, fit the models and parameters to data by use of rigorous statistical methods. This allows the researchers to select from a wide range of models based on different biological assumptions and their mathematical translations, the best model that fits data and be able to carry out parameter estimation under these conditions. We will partner with the Southern Africa Mathematical Sciences Association (SAMSA) and MASAMU program to deliver our research and pedagogical activities (see letters of support from both). SAMSA represents over 40 Universities across SSA and hosts an annual conference to which many of the SSA researchers are in attendance. One of the postgraduate advanced study institute and workshop will revolve around the SAMSA annual conference in order to reach a wider community beyond that supported by this proposal. The MASAMU program, funded primarily by the National Science Foundation for USA faculty staff only, will complement our research and training activities.

This proposal is focused on the study of quantum materials with competing interactions. Measurements of the various quantum-mechanical phases provide the most direct manifestation of the underlying abstract physics, such as quantum spin liquid, topological behaviour and quantum entanglement. The in-depth experimental and theoretical investigations of emergent phenomena of the candidate quantum materials have been serving as a major theme of recent condensed matter physics research. Understanding the complex magnetic interactions in these novel quantum materials is crucial for the development of fundamental science in the form of modern theory of higher d transition metal oxides, as well as for the strong foundation of alternative pathways towards the design of new and exotic materials and functional devices, which hold true promise for future generation of technological applications. The investigations on the novel 5d Iridates and 4d rhodates reveal a burgeoning list of theoretical proposals as well as predictions of unusual states, such as Jeff half Mott-insulating state, the quantum spin liquid phase, Kitaev quantum magnetism, unconventional superconductivity, Weyl semimetals, correlated topological insulators, etc., which are indeed truly remarkable and stimulating. The physics of iridates, ruthenates and rhodates clearly warrants serious intellectual challenges both theoretically and experimentally, and hence, in this proposal we focus on design, synthesis and characterisation of the new candidate quantum materials within 4d Rh/Ru- and 5d Ir-based oxides. Quantum spin liquid (QSL) is a novel state of quantum magnetism where long range magnetic order is suppressed due to strong quantum fluctuations down to the lowest temperature. The gapless QSLs exhibit long-range quantum-entanglement and fractionalised spin excitations named as Majorana Fermions. Such fractionalised spin excitations are different from conventional magnons observed in compounds with long-range magnetic ordering. The present proposal is therefore aimed to investigate the exotic and unconventional magnetic ground states of iridates, ruthenates and rhodates within a variety of crystal structures and lattice geometries by implementing detailed experimental study (both laboratory based and state-of-art neutron, muon and x-ray synchrotron based advanced measurements) and ab-initio electronic structure calculations. These in-depth investigations will help in understanding the importance of various competing interactions, e.g. spin-orbit interaction, on-site Coulomb U, crystal field, Hund's coupling, hopping and electronic bandwidth. The nature of the extraordinary structural sensitivity of quantum materials also calls for extraordinarily high-quality single crystals and we are planning to synthesise such single crystals using UCL crystal growth lab at Harwell and investigate them using various central facilities.

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is currently seen in huge numbers of patients worldwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but also before that, respiratory diseases were the third largest cause of death in the EU. Current therapy for respiratory failure includes mechanical ventilation and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) both associated with high morbidity and mortality. In ECMO devices the functionality of the lungs tissue membranes that are responsible for gas exchange during breathing is usually taken over by bundles of synthetic cylindrical hollow fiber membranes. Geometries and transport characteristics of standard hollow fiber membranes are not suitable for re-building the structurally complex and dynamic contracting microstructure of the mammalian lung and consequently, artificial devices to assist/replace respiration still face major limitations in size, flow characteristics and hemocompatibility that impede the development of efficient intracorporeal devices. In BioMembrOS, we want to follow a groundbreaking new biomimetic approach, and replicate main characteristics of the most effective respiration found in vertebrates, mainly birds and fish, in order to develop membrane structures that will serve as key elements for a novel generation of artificial respiration devices. To reach this goal, we will a) optimize geometry of the membrane structure by mimicking microstructure of the gills of fish to increase outer surface per membrane area, mimicking globular shape of the gas transporting inner lumen and interconnected arrangement of membrane fibers of avian respiration; b) design and control flow characteristics and boundary layer applying μPIV experimental flow investigations and structural design optimization; c) design and synthesize bi-soft segment polyurethane membranes with increased hemocompatibility and gas permeability with phase inversion; and d) verify and benchmark the boosted mass transfer capabilities by in-vitro blood tests