Peatlands store more carbon than any other terrestrial ecosystem, both in the UK and globally. As a result of human disturbance they are rapidly losing this carbon to the atmosphere, contributing significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. We propose to turn this problem into a solution, by re-establishing and augmenting the unique natural capacity of peatlands to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and to store it securely for millennia. We will do this by working with natural processes to recreate, and where possible enhance, the environmental conditions that lead to peat formation, in both lowland and upland Britain. At the same time, we will optimise conditions to avoid emissions of methane and nitrous oxide that could offset the benefits of CO2 removal; develop innovative cropping and management systems to augment rates of CO2 uptake; evaluate whether we can further increase peat carbon accumulation through the formation and addition of biomass and biochar; and develop new economic models to support greenhouse gas removal by peatlands as part of profitable and sustainable farming and land management systems. Implementation of these new approaches to the 2.3 million hectares of degraded upland and lowland peat in the UK has the potential to remove significant quantities of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, to secure carbon securely and permanently within a productive, biodiverse and self-sustaining ecosystem, and thereby to help the UK to achieve its ambition of having net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

This fellowship programme will take a circular economy (CE) approach and unlock the huge potential of renewable biomass, which can be easily sourced from agriculture/aquaculture/food industry as byproducts or wastes. The biomass contains biopolymers cellulose, chitin/chitosan, starch, protein, alginate and lignin, which are valuable resources for making environmentally friendly materials. Moreover, these biopolymers have unique properties and functions, which make them highly potential in important, rapidly growing applications such as therapeutic agent delivery, tissue engineering scaffolds, biological devices, green electronics, sensing, dye and heavy metal removal, oil/water separation, and optics. However, enormous challenges exist to process biopolymers and achieve desired properties/functions cost-effectively; these valuable biomass resources have long been underutilised. This proposed ambitious and adventurous research will focus on the smart design of materials formulation and engineering process from an interdisciplinary perspective to realise the assembly of biopolymer composite materials under a single flow process. This will eventually lead to a reinvented, cost-effective engineering technology based on 3D printing to produce a diverse range of robust, biopolymer composite materials with tailored structure, properties and functionality. Due to the versatile chemistry of biopolymers for modification, the bespoke 'green' materials are expected to outperform many synthetic polymers and composites for specific applications such as tissue engineering and controlled release. The outcomes of this transformative project will not only provide fundamental knowledge leading to a completely new line of research, but also deliver ground-breaking technologies that will impact the UK's plastic industry by providing truly sustainable and high-performance options for high-end technological areas (e.g. healthcare and agriculture).

The nature of science is changing, particularly in its relationship to decision-making and policy formulation. In essence, science is becoming more complex with questions becoming broader in scope and with the consequent need to span disciplines and achieve integration between scientific disciplines and socio-economic concerns. Given this complexity, levels of uncertainty are increasing and there is a need to make decisions in the face of such uncertainties. In addition, we are seeing that the stakes are high in scientific discourse and there is an urgency associated with decision-making. Many observers refer to this as a period of post-normal science but, whatever terminology one adopts, it is clear that we need new tools to support science and decision-making given this complexity, uncertainty, importance and urgency. These statements apply strongly to the environmental sciences and in particular to issues related to biodiversity and its relationships with economics and society. The Dasgupta Review highlights the criticality of nature for our economies, livelihoods and wellbeing, our failures in managing nature to date and the huge risks associated with this. Crucially, it calls for transformative change in the way we think, act and measure success, seeing our economies as fundamentally embedded and interlinked with nature. This resonates with statements from the post-normal science literature calling for a fundamental rethink about the approaches and tools we use for decision-making related to science. In response to these challenges, we will deliver a transformative approach to embedding biodiversity values in decision-making by integrating novel perspectives around the economics of biodiversity with virtual labs (collaborative, cloud-based environments supporting transparent science). As a starting point, we will build a comprehensive evidence base to support economics of biodiversity decision-making within virtual labs, thus: i) facilitating the necessary integration of data and analyses around biodiversity and its economic and non-monetary benefits, values and costs; ii) promoting an approach that is collaborative and open, both critical components in supporting the necessary dialogue between disciplinary experts and stakeholders, and supporting collective reasoning around uncertainties. We will extend virtual labs by adding trustworthy and accountable decision-making capability, through decision-support frameworks. These frameworks will be informed by a systems thinking approach, building on the integration offered by virtual labs, and promoting an understanding of interactions and feedback. This will enable deeper analyses of co- or incidental benefits or other synergies associated with biodiversity and socio-economic activity, which we see as crucial in supporting improved decision-making in this area. The work will be evaluated through two complementary case studies, investigating co-benefits between: i) biodiversity and renewable energy in the planning and operation of solar parks; ii) biodiversity and agricultural production in land use decision-making. Note that we seek a flexible approach to the design of decision-support frameworks, where they can be specialised for different contexts and scales with commonalities and variabilities emerging from the case studies. The research is fundamentally transdisciplinary in nature and we have a consortium with internationally leading expertise in science, data science and social science (see Part I). We adopt an agile approach to the research, an approach that can achieve the necessary cross-disciplinary dialogue, as well as enabling tighter integration of stakeholders in the co-design of solutions. We have a rich set of project partners supporting this process, and have already engaged with our partners in co-design activities in preparation for this proposal.

Antibiotics are used extensively to fight bacterial infections and have saved millions of lives. However, the bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics and some antibiotics have stopped working. We refer to this as antimicrobial resistance - AMR. We don't just use antibiotics for people; similar amounts are given to farm animals. More than 900 million farm animals are reared every year in the UK and antibiotic treatments are vital for their welfare, for farms as businesses, and for us to enjoy affordable food. However, farms may be contributing to the development of AMR. The aim of this project is to improve our understanding of how farm practice, especially the way in which manure is handled, could lead to AMR in animal and human pathogens. This understanding will help farmers and vets find new ways to reduce AMR, without harming their animals or their businesses. For research purposes, Nottingham University maintains a typical high performance dairy farm - its 200 cows produce a lot of milk and a lot of manure. The waste is stored in a 3 million litre slurry tank, any excess goes into a 7 million litre lagoon. This slurry is applied to fields as organic fertilizer. Cow manure contains many harmless bacteria but some, e.g. E. coli O157, can cause severe infection in people. When cows get sick they are treated with antibiotics. Udder infections are treated by injection of antibiotics into the udder. Since this milk contains antibiotics, it cannot be sold but is discarded into the slurry. Foot infections are treated with an antibacterial footbath, which is also emptied into the slurry tank. As a result, slurry tanks contain a mixture of bacteria, antibiotics and other antimicrobials that are stored for many months. The bacteria that survive in the presence of antibiotics are more likely to have antibiotic resistance. This resistance is encoded in their genes so passed to the next generation. Worse still, the genes can be passed on to other bacteria in the slurry. Before we wrote this proposal, we investigated our own farm's slurry tank to see if this might be happening. We tested 160 E. coli strains from the slurry; most carried antibiotic resistance. We also found antibiotics in the tank - including some that bacteria were resistant to. Our mathematical modellers showed that reducing spread of resistance genes in the tank might be more effective in preventing resistance than cutting the use of antibiotics. Conversations with the farm vets revealed that they knew about AMR and had changed some of their antibiotic prescriptions. But these analyses leave us with more questions than answers. In this project, we want to find out if current farming methods are contributing to the development of harmful antibiotic-resistant bacteria in slurry, bacteria that may then be encountered by humans and animals. To do this, we need to integrate scientific and cultural approaches: - What bacteria are in the slurry? How many are harmful? What resistance genes do they carry? How do these genes spread? - How long do antibiotics remain in the tank? Do they degrade? - What happens to the bacteria and antibiotics after they are spread on fields? - How do farmers, vets and scientists interpret evidence about AMR? What are their hidden assumptions? Can we improve collaborative decision making on AMR risk management? - Can we reduce resistance by avoiding mixing together bacteria and antimicrobials in slurry? - Can we predict the risk of emergence of and exposure to resistant pathogens? Can we predict which interventions are likely to be most effective to reduce AMR, taking into account both human and scientific factors? Through this research, we will learn what can realistically be done to reduce this risk; not just on this farm, but UK wide. We will work with farmers, vets and policy makers to ensure that our results will make a difference to reducing the risk of harmful AMR bacteria arising in agriculture.

Within the UK, energy underpins all aspects of life, with most people reliant on access to abundant and uninterrupted energy for the provision of basic needs (e.g. heating and cooking), and to enable work (e.g. reliance on information technology) and leisure (e.g. through transport and social media). The production and consumption of energy is currently responsible for ~75% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and thus contributes significantly to climate change. Supplying sufficient energy to meet rising demands whilst also transitioning to low carbon sources to avoid dangerous climate change is a global grand challenge. Within the UK we are reaching a critical juncture in energy supply, with the closure of our coal-fired power plants in 2025 and the planned decommissioning of the majority of our nuclear fleet by 2030. This will leave an energy gap of approximately 50% and insufficient new energy plants are planned. The capacity of solar photovoltaics (PV) in the UK exponentially increased in response to the Feed-in-Tariff. The majority (58%) of PV systems are ground-mounted as solar parks, with the remainder being building- or water-mounted. Although the Feed-in-Tariff has been cut, solar park installations have continued through other policy measures (e.g. the renewables obligation) and the installation for direct use (i.e. not grid connected) by large energy users (e.g. water companies). Further, industry predicts that the solar park market will accelerate in response to: the cost of large scale solar undercutting nuclear, coal and gas; the UK Government's Industrial Strategy focus on energy cost; the advancement in battery storage (both technological and financial); and the lower public opposition for solar compared to other renewables and hydraulic fracturing, despite the relatively large land take. One implication of the relatively large land take for solar parks is the impact on the hosting environment. Given that the majority of solar parks are converted from intensively-managed low grade agricultural land to grasslands, this offers an opportunity to deliver co-benefits beyond low carbon energy. Enhanced management of solar parks for would contribute to statutory nature conservation requirements (e.g. conservation of protected species and national biodiversity targets under the Convention on Biological Diversity), help redress the continuing declines in biodiversity that now threaten the UK's ability to meet the Aichi 2020 targets and our commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and enhance the provision of ecosystem services that provide wider societal benefits worth billions per year to the UK economy. This IFP brings together an interdisciplinary and multi-sector team spanning ecosystem services, renewable energy, land management, planning and policy. Our aim is to embed a decision support tool relating to solar park design and management into policy and practice. The work plan, to be carried out by a partnership of academic researchers and end users, includes: (i) an evaluation of alternative adoption pathways and supporting business models, (ii) workflow testing with end user organisations; (iii) development of a web-enabled version of the tool to enhance functionality; (iv) piloting of the tool in real-world settings; and (v) further engagement with the broader stakeholder community within the UK and overseas.