This fellowship will develop a new generation of analysis and decision making tools required for engineers to respond to the challenges of intensifying global change. Consumption of energy and other resources is widely acknowledged to be unsustainable at today's rates. The world is therefore faced with the challenge of designing and implementing the transition to a more sustainable situation, a state in which greenhouse gas emissions and resource consumption (e.g. energy, water, materials) are drastically reduced and our society is well adapted to the impacts of climate change. Infrastructure systems such as water, energy, transportation and waste are the array of physical assets (and associated processes) responsible for moving the goods and services that ensure the safety, health and wealth of cities and their inhabitants. Thus, design and management of infrastructure has implications in terms of vulnerability and resource consumption (e.g. denser cities use less energy per capita on private transport, but can aggravate flooding and heat stress). However, effective management of infrastructure systems is challenging because they (a) vary in space, (b) are highly interconnected, (c) interact strongly with an ever-changing environment and population, and, (d) deteriorate with age. Nowhere is this more evident than cities, where over half the global population live and more than three quarters of global resources are consumed. As cities adapt in response to global pressures such as climate change, it is crucial to understand the implications of these adaptations in terms of resource requirements to avoid confounding parallel sustainability initiatives. Whilst the vulnerability of the built environment to climate impacts is to some extent understood, resource flows, such as energy, waste and water within cities are currently poorly-understood and are generally considered in terms of gross inputs and outputs to the urban area. The relationship between urban form, function and these resource flows has only been established from observational evidence e.g. relating population density directly to total transport energy demand. This provides insufficient evidence to appraise, plan and design specific adaptations as it does not account for crucial properties of the urban system such as land use, human activity, or the topology and attributes of the infrastructure systems that mediate this, and other, relationships (for example, land use and flood risk). To plan and design adaptations in urban areas requires a capacity to analyse the behaviour of whole cities over timescales of decades, to simulate and test the effectiveness of alternative management options and to monitor and modify the system performance. The capacity to adequately understand and model processes of change within the coupled technological, human and natural systems that comprise cities does not yet exist. This fellowship will address this priority area, through the development of a novel coupled systems simulation model of urban dynamics, climate impacts and resource flows within cities. This systems integrated assessment model will be used to analyse the relationship between the spatial configuration of cities and their infrastructure systems, resource consumption and vulnerability to climate change impacts. Working closely with key stakeholders in industry and local government I shall develop, demonstrate and apply decision analysis methods to show how long term planning strategies can be developed for re-engineering cities from their 'traditional' form into more sustainable configurations.In doing this, I shall provide the evidence to underpin more sustainable engineering and policy decisions and reduce the harmful impacts of unmitigated global change in urban areas.

Globally, national infrastructure is facing significant challenges: - Ageing assets: Much of the UK's existing infrastructure is old and no longer fit for purpose. In its State of the Nation Infrastructure 2014 report the Institution of Civil Engineers stated that none of the sectors analysed were "fit for the future" and only one sector was "adequate for now". The need to future-proof existing and new infrastructure is of paramount importance and has become a constant theme in industry documents, seminars, workshops and discussions. - Increased loading: Existing infrastructure is challenged by the need to increase load and usage - be that number of passengers carried, numbers of vehicles or volume of water used - and the requirement to maintain the existing infrastructure while operating at current capacity. - Changing climate: projections for increasing numbers and severity of extreme weather events mean that our infrastructure will need to be more resilient in the future. These challenges require innovation to address them. However, in the infrastructure and construction industries tight operating margins, industry segmentation and strong emphasis on safety and reliability create barriers to introducing innovation into industry practice. CSIC is an Innovation and Knowledge Centre funded by EPSRC and Innovate UK to help address this market failure, by translating world leading research into industry implementation, working with more than 40 industry partners to develop, trial, provide and deliver high-quality, low cost, accurate sensor technologies and predictive tools which enable new ways of monitoring how infrastructure behaves during construction and asset operation, providing a whole-life approach to achieving sustainability in an integrated way. It provides training and access for industry to source, develop and deliver these new approaches to stimulate business and encourage economic growth, improving the management of the nation's infrastructure and construction industry. Our collaborative approach, bringing together leaders from industry and academia, accelerates the commercial development of emerging technologies, and promotes knowledge transfer and industry implementation to shape the future of infrastructure. Phase 2 funding will enable CSIC to address specific challenges remaining to implementation of smart infrastructure solutions. Over the next five years, to overcome these barriers and create a self-sustaining market in smart infrastructure, CSIC along with an expanded group of industry and academic partners will: - Create the complete, innovative solutions that the sector needs by integrating the components of smart infrastructure into systems approaches, bringing together sensor data and asset management decisions to improve whole life management of assets and city scale infrastructure planning; spin-in technology where necessary, to allow demonstration of smart technology in an integrated manner. - Continue to build industry confidence by working closely with partners to demonstrate and deploy new smart infrastructure solutions on live infrastructure projects. Develop projects on behalf of industry using seed-funds to fund hardware and consumables, and demonstrate capability. - Generate a compelling business case for smart infrastructure solutions together with asset owners and government organisations based on combining smarter information with whole life value models for infrastructure assets. Focus on value-driven messaging around the whole system business case for why smart infrastructure is the future, and will strive to turn today's intangibles into business drivers for the future. - Facilitate the development and expansion of the supply chain through extending our network of partners in new areas, knowledge transfer, smart infrastructure standards and influencing policy.

Today, many advanced countries are positioning themselves to have Sustainable Development (SD) at the heart of their developmental policies. Applying SD principals to a large community or perhaps a city is to be commended. In China, the development of such a city is becoming a reality and an integrated master planning for the world's first sustainable city / Dongtan - was launched recently. Dongtan is situated on Chongming Island, the third largest island in China, near Shanghai at the mouth of the Yangtze River. The island currently consists of a large area of mostly agricultural land. The Shanghai Municipal Government is planning to turn Chongming Island into an eco-island, and Dongtan as a model eco-friendly area. At three quarters the size of Manhattan, Dongtan will be developed on 630 hectares of land as a sustainable city to attract a range of commercial and leisure investments. A programme to develop such a sustainable city presents an unsurpassed opportunity to study and capture all aspects of the development including: the consultation, planning and design stages and the implementation phases of such a project. A recent workshop (Nov 2006) organised by EPSRC, Arup and their Chinese partners has resulted in the formation of specific networks that aim to begin research studies, information capture processes and establish appropriate research programmes that will achieve the most sustainable approaches for the Dongtan eco city development. The three networks which aim to learn from the Dongtan experience, allow and facilitate knowledge networking between Chinese and UK collaborators are as follows: (a) City History and Multi-scale Spatial Master-planning, (b) Network to Investigate Sustainable Economic and Ecological models of Peripheral Urban and (c) Sustainable Urban Systems to Transfer Achievable Implementation Network Resources and Infrastructure Systems Development. In addition to the networks, the workshop also established a Coordination Framework which is independent of the four networks. The main purpose of the coordinating framework is to draw and tie the identified networks together. This proposal deals mainly with the establishment of the coordinating framework group , the objectives and activities of the framework and its funding profile.

The research will investigate the feasibility of extracting energy from low velocity (< 2 m/s) tidal flows, using the UK waters as a case study. Existing research and commercial developments have focused on the energy extraction from high velocity flows (> 2 m/s), given the priority has been to optimise the potential renewable energy. However there are numerous issues associated with the associated technologies relating to the operation, reliability, maintenance and survivability of turbines in these high energy flows. Consequently, there is now a need to consider the potential energy from low velocity tidal currents, where some of these issues will not be so paramount and the resulting energy costs make this option economically attractive. Given the different tidal conditions, it is imperative that a feasibility study is first undertaken to analyse the environmental conditions and determine the design parametrics required for a tidal stream turbine to operate in such low velocity flows. The study will therefore provide information to the tidal turbine developers on the design requirements for a low velocity tidal stream turbine, including the blade geometry and the drive train system as well as a Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE) evaluation for comparison with existing technologies.

This proposal from Loughborough University outlines the case to renew the funding for the Industrial Doctorate Centre for Innovative and Collaborative Construction Engineering (CICE) as part of the Industrial Doctorate Centres call aginst the Towards Better Exploitation element of the EPSRC Delivery Plan. In partnership with an established industry base, CICE is delivering a high quality research and training programme that: meets the core technical and business needs of the construction industry; enhances its knowledge base; and produces high calibre doctoral graduates that can drive innovation. The Centre addresses a wide range of research issues that concern the UK construction industry including: Innovative Construction Technologies; Construction Business Processes; Advanced Information and Communication Technologies; Sustainable Design and Construction; and Transport and Infrastructure. Many of these areas have been highlighted in various reviews of the industry including the Latham Report, the Technology Foresight Report, the Egan Task Force Report, and more recently the National Technology Platform's research priorities. It also contributes to the EPSRC Delivery Plan as part of the knowledge transfer research and training activities. The research areas of the Centre align with the Engineering and Science for Sustainability research theme, as outlined in the EPSRC's Research Priorities and Opportunities, and fall under the 'Construction and the Built Environment' and 'Transport' sub-themes. Within the Construction and Built Environment, the Centre builds on existing strengths in the Department of Civil and Building Engineering established as part of the Engineering Doctorate Centre and other related industry based research to address some of the EPSRC research priorities to improve efficiency across the supply chain, including: encouraging the uptake of ICT to promote efficiency; improving building performance to minimise impacts on the environment ; and the analysis and design of civil engineering structures . Within the Transport area Sustainability and Innovation are key themes of the research that centres on transport operation and management, transport telematics, and minimising energy use and environmental impact . The Engineering Doctorate Centre (CICE) was established in 1999 and has subsequently recruited a total of 94 research engineers sponsored by a total of 63 large, medium and small companies. Loughborough University is a research intensive institution, which integrates its research and teaching activity at every opportunity to provide a top quality research led learning experience for all its students. The Department of Civil and Building Engineering has consistently achieved high research rating in the RAE assessments and the last RAE results were 5* in Built Environment. The Engineering Doctorate is part of Loughborough University's excellent doctoral research training programme, which in addition to supporting the pursuit of a particular project aims to provide a basic professional training to support the research and offer personal development opportunities. The training programme integrates taught and research elements tailored to suit the needs of the research engineer, project, and the sponsoring company while maintaining the expected quality of the academic standards required for a doctoral study. The Centre is managed by the Director, Prof. Dino Bouchlaghem supported by a Deputy Director, a Centre Manager and an Administrator. A Centre Management Board consisting of the Director, Deputy Director, and Industrial Representatives meets twice a year and is chaired by a senior industrialist from one of the sponsoring companies, oversees the work of the Centre and provides direction and guidance on strategic matters. This proposal has the full support of the University and has been subject to an internal review process to ensure synergy with the University's Research Strategy.