There is irrefutable evidence that the climate is changing. There also is strong evidence that this is largely a result of human activity, driven by our insatiable consumption of resources, growing populations, unsustainable migration patterns and rapid overdevelopment in cities that are resulting in heavy ecosystem services losses. Humankind's solutions to these problems do not always work, as many rely upon quantities of resources that simply do not exist or that could not support the rate of change that we are facing, behaviour changes that sit uneasily with our current consumption patterns and quality of life aspirations, and government policies that emphasise long-term sustainable gain but potential short-term economic loss for businesses and local people. A radical revisioning of the problem is needed, not only to reverse current trends, but also to contribute positively to the sustainability and wellbeing of the planet, now and in the future. This proposal is that radical new vision, adopting a 'whole of government' focus to the changes needed in the ways that societies live, work, play and consume, balancing social aspirations against the necessary changes, and using CO2 emissions as a proxy measurement for the harm being done to the planet and the resources (particularly energy) that we use. Through the development of a city analysis methodology; engineering design criteria for quality of life and wellbeing; engineering design criteria for low carbon pathways and; radical engineering approaches, strategies and visioning-all generated in a multidisciplinary context-we aim to deliver a range of engineering solutions that are effective in sustaining civilised life, in an affordable and socially acceptable style. Our vision is to transform the engineering of cities to deliver societal and planetary wellbeing within the context of low carbon living and resource security. We seek to prove that an alternative future with drastically reduced CO2 emissions is achievable in a socially acceptable manner, and to develop realistic and radical engineering solutions to achieve it. Certain techno-fixes for a low-carbon society have been known for some time (e.g., installing low energy appliances in homes), but are not always deemed successful, in part because they have not been deemed socially acceptable. Current aspirations for material consumption are driven by social factors and reinforced by social norms, yet recent research shows that meeting these aspirations often does not enhance wellbeing. Thus, the challenge the research community faces is to co-evolve the techno-fixes with people's aspirations, incorporating radical engineering strategies within the financial, policy/regulation and technical contexts, to re-define an alternative future. A roadmap is required to chart the path from here to there, identify potential tipping points and determine how to integrate radical engineering strategies into norms. However, this roadmap can only be considered once that alternative future has been established, and a 'back-casting' exercise carried out, to explore where the major barriers to change lie and where interventions are needed. Our ambition is to create an holistic, integrated, truly multidisciplinary city analysis methodology that uniquely combines engineered solutions and quality-of-life indicators, accounts for social aspirations, is founded on an evidence base of trials of radical interventions in cities, and delivers the radical engineering solutions necessary to achieve our vision. We seek to achieve this ambition by using a variety of innovative and traditional approaches and methods to undertake five research challenges, which are outlined in detail in five technical annexes.

Domestic burglary is a high volume crime affecting many households. As well as substantial financial loss and damage to property, it causes high levels of anxiety about the possibility of being burgled. Surveys documenting public priorities about crime place burglary at the top. Burglar alarms and other security devices in principle deter potential burglars. Insurance premiums are discounted when a fully operating burglar alarm exists in the home due to claims about the effectiveness of burglar alarms and other security devices in the marketing literature, but no systematic research studies have been undertaken to assess their effectiveness in different areas, accommodation types and occupants' characteristics. The research proposed is precisely concerned with such an assessment. The primary research question is: Which burglary security devices work for whom and in what context? This study will identify the individual and combined security devices that offer cost-effective burglary protection to (a) the population in England and Wales overall; (b) specific population subgroups according to their socio-economic attributes; (c) the residents of Wales, each of the nine English regions and area types according to population socio-demographic profile and density; and (d) area types and population subgroups plausible combinations. The urgency to gain insights about the cost-effectiveness of burglary devices for tailor-made preventive interventions cannot be exaggerated: at a time of massive public spending cuts and declining disposable incomes the latest Home Office figures show a 14% annual increase in domestic burglary in 2010/11 after an extended (fifteen years) period of falls (Chaplin et al. 2011). The Department for Communities and Local Government (2012) has recently highlighted the need of research evidence on cost-effective burglary security devices to inform the on-going deliberation on national building regulation for minimum standards for security in homes. The proposed research will: -Make a major scientific contribution with immediate and high societal and economic impact. Its theoretical and methodological advancements will inform future research developments in criminology. The current gap in knowledge impedes cost-effective burglary prevention not just in the UK but across the world at a time that wasteful financial decisions are unaffordable. -Engage throughout with high level research users in the public sector and civil society organisations and inform national and international guidelines on burglary prevention. The research results will be regularly conveyed to users in the private sector (the security and insurance industry) who however will not contribute to their development to avoid conflict of interest. -Analyse two decades of a formidable existing data source, the British Crime Survey (BCS). The BCS is a large and complex dataset with currently some 40,000 respondents annually that exists in the public domain, and has been run for three decades. Yet, relative to both data generation cost and its impeccable quality, it has been extremely under-explored. -Employ innovative research techniques for the deeper exploitation of the BCS, including the Security Impact Assessment Tool, pioneered by the co-applicants with ESRC support to assess the effectiveness of car security devices, as well as the multivariate multilevel logit modelling, to investigate the effect of context on trends of related crime types. -Build the national skills base in the analysis of large and complex datasets and expand the limited secondary data analysis capacity in criminology via actively seeking to employ a full time researcher from disciplines (mathematics, statistics, sciences or engineering) beyond traditional BCS users. Therefore the proposed research fits the ESRC-SDAI call specification. The co-applicants' theoretical, methodological and policy contribution to date ensure its successful delivery.

The overall aim of this project is to enhance the legacy of the Connected Communities (CC) programme through exploring the translation of university-led research into governmental policy processes. We aim to challenge and expand dominant understandings of research by drawing on insights and methods from the humanities and interpretive social science. Contemporary social problems are widely perceived as increasing in scope and complexity, and needing to be better understood if appropriate policy responses are to be developed. However, there is a longstanding problem that the relevance of academic research in understanding this complexity is not always obvious to potential 'research users' in government. The heart of the proposed research is to observe the use and translation of research outputs generated by CC projects as they move into central government and local government policy processes. This process involves the interaction of academic researchers, research analysts and policy teams in Whitehall and local practitioners who implement policy initiatives. We will pose three research questions: 1: how are different kinds of CC research 'outputs' taken into policy arenas? 2: what modes of communication and types of knowledge are explicitly preferred and habitually adopted in different domains (academic, government research analyst etc.) and why? 3: what assumptions about the value of different kinds of findings and modes of communication characterise the domains, and how susceptible to change are these? The research will focus on following outputs from the CC Policy Reviews for DCLG. This will allow comparison of a wide range of different kinds of communication whose uptake and translation will be taking place during 2014/2015 and so can be followed 'in real time'. Drawing on the research team's wider experience, and the review of CC projects carried out for the Reviews, other CC outputs will be introduced into the 'conversations' between academics and researchers as and when appropriate. This detailed, interpretive work will be put into a broader context through a survey of all CC projects to identify the extent and nature of policy engagement across the programme. The research will be co-produced by a team of academics and the research analysts of DCLG's Decentralisation and Big Society (DABS) division. Its execution will involve close engagement with the Division's policy team and local government officers in the pilots of the 'OurPlace!' neighbourhood budgeting programme (i.e. key 'users' of the Policy Reviews). We will: a) Survey CC policy engagement: on-line survey of all CC projects, followed up by five interviews. b) Observation: non-participant observation of DABS meetings averaging two per month over the 12 month fieldwork period (and/or others as opportunity arises) plus 4 periods, of one week, embedded participant observation fieldwork within DABS; obesravtion and interviewing in 3 OurPlace! authorities. c) Semi-structured interviews: with Policy Review academics, DABS and OurPlace! officials. d) Initiation workshop: with wider group of expert academics and policy makers and practitioners. e) Workshops: three workshops in which the assumptions affecting and processes of translation across team borders will be explicitly examined by all participants. f) Reflective writing: Our collective, continuous analysis of translation processes will be summarised and tested by monthly one-page reflections across the research team and research partners. The outputs will be: a) a survey of the CC programme's engagement with policy making b) guidance for academic researchers (especially those working from arts and humanities perspectives) on co-production and increasing impact with policy-makers c) guidance for government officials on using arts and humanities research d) academic articles in selected journals.

Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in extremism, though mainly al-Qaeda or 'AQ'-inspired terrorism. This emphasis on preventing violent extremism (PVE), and countering processes of radicalization within Muslim communities, has marked a logical response to the events of September 11th 2001, subsequent terrorist attacks in cities such as London and Madrid, and the priorities of national security services. However, at the same time, there has emerged a view among policymakers that the heavy focus on one particular 'type' of extremism has left them with a less developed understanding of alternative forms of extremist ideology, activity and support. One particularly neglected area that has recently acquired increased policy relevance is right-wing extremism. Across several European democracies, radical and extreme right-wing parties continue to rally relatively durable electoral support. At the same time, the resurgence of interest in right-wing extremist ideology and support has been fuelled by the emergence of non-electoral forms of mobilization (such as the English, Scottish and Welsh Defence Leagues), and the atrocities that were committed in Norway by a 'lone wolf' activist who had passed through the radical right-wing Norwegian Progress Party and was connected to right-wing extremist blogs (such as the Gates of Vienna). Against this backdrop there has emerged a consensus among policymakers: while there is a relatively well-developed understanding of AQ-inspired terrorism and underlying processes of radicalization, the task of developing an effective policy response to right-wing extremist organizations, their ideological appeals and supporters is lacking. This gap in the existing work is best reflected in the most recent Prevent strategy (2011), which devotes only four paragraphs to right-wing extremism and notes how the current understanding of this challenge 'is inevitably less developed than it is for terrorism associated with Al Qa'ieda'. This knowledge exchange project will directly contribute to addressing this gap by facilitating the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) to increase its knowledge base and understanding about right-wing extremism. Principally, through a six-month placement at DCLG (that will support a conference and expert workshops), the applicant - an early career researcher - will focus on exchanging knowledge on: the social and attitudinal profile of supporters of extreme right-wing groups; the ideological appeals and motivational vocabularies offered by the extreme right; non-electoral forms of mobilization; and possible policy responses. With active support from DCLG and the Home Office, the placement will promote the application of accumulated academic knowledge in this area, which (but is not limited to) ESRC-supported research. What are the potential applications and benefits? A placement in a national-level policy community will enable the applicant to directly inform policy development at DCLG and also across government more widely. Specifically, the project will deliver the following benefits to policymakers and the wider social science community: a synthesis of current and past academic research; ensuring that policy is anchored in this evidence base; databasing key publications; producing accessible summaries for policy audiences; help identify gaps in current and future work; produce 'in house' publications; contribute to the general development of a research cluster in the area above; and organise and co-host a knowledge exchange conference and four expert workshops that will build or strengthen networks between policymakers and the social science community. When seen as a whole, the project will transfer academic knowledge on an issue that is currently of high policy interest and relevance, strengthen policymakers' understanding of an oft-neglected form of extremism and contribute directly to the development of more effective policy responses

One third of the world's energy is used in industry to make products - the buildings, infrastructure, vehicles, capital equipment and household goods that sustain our lifestyles. Most of this energy is needed in the early stages of production to convert raw materials, such as iron ore or trees, into stock materials like steel plates or reels of paper and because these materials are sold cheaply, but use a lot of energy, they are already extremely energy efficient. Therefore, the key materials with which we create modern lifestyles - steel, cement, plastic, paper and aluminium in particular - are the main 'carriers' of industrial energy, and if we want to make a big reduction in industrial energy use, we need to reduce our demand for these materials. In the UK, our recent history has led to closure of much of our capacity to make these materials, and although this has led to reductions in emissions occurring on UK territory, in reality our consumption of materials has grown, and the world's use of energy and emission of greenhouse gases has risen as our needs are met through imports. The proposed UK INDEMAND Centre therefore aims to enable delivery of significant reductions in the use of both energy and energy-intensive materials in the Industries that supply the UK's physical needs. To achieve this, we need to understand the operation and performance of the whole material and energy system of UK industry; we need to understand better our patterns of consumption both in households, and in government and industry purchasing, particularly related to replacement decisions; we need to look for opportunities to innovate in products, processes and business models to use less material while serving the same need; and we need to identify the policy, business and consumer triggers that would lead to significant change while supporting UK prosperity. The proposer team have already developed broad-ranging work aiming to address this need, in close collaboration with industry and government partners: at Cambridge, the WellMet2050 project has opened the door to recognising Material Efficiency as a strategy for saving energy and reducing emissions, and established a clear trajectory for business growth with reduced total material demand; in Bath, work on embodied energy and emissions has created a widely adopted database of materials, and the Transitions and Pathways project has established a clear set of policy opportunities for low carbon technologies that we can now apply to demand reduction; work on energy and emissions embodied in trade at Leeds has shown how UK emissions and energy demand in industry have declined largely due to a shift of production elsewhere, while the true energy requirements of our consumption have grown; work on sustainable consumption at Nottingham Trent has shown how much of our purchased material is discarded long before it is degraded, looked at how individuals define their identity through consumption, and begun to tease out possible interventions to influence these wasteful patterns of consumption. The proposal comes with over £5m of committed gearing, including cash support for at least 30 PhD students to work with the Centre and connect its work to the specific interests of consortium partners. The proposal is also strongly supported by four key government departments, the Committee on Climate Change, and a wide network of smaller organisations whose interests overlap with the proposed Centre, and who wish to collaborate to ensure rich engagement in policy and delivery processes. Mechanisms, including a Fellows programme for staff exchange in the UK and an International Visiting Fellows programme for global academic leaders, have been designed to ensure that the activities of the Centre are highly connected to the widest possible range of activities in the UK and internationally which share the motivation to deliver reductions in end-use energy demand in Industry.