Glass has been a key material for many important advances in civilization; it was glass lenses which allowed microscopes to see bacteria for the first time and telescopes which revealed the planets and the moons of Jupiter. Glassware itself has contributed to the development of chemical, biological and cultural progress for thousands of years. The transformation of society with glass continues in modern times; as strands of glass optical fibres transform the internet and how we communicate. Today, glasses have moved beyond transparent materials, and through ongoing research have become active advanced and functional materials. Unlike conventional glasses made from silica or sand, research is now producing glasses from materials such as sulphur, which yields an unusual, yellow orange glass with incredibly varied properties. This next generation of speciality glasses are noted for their functionality and their ability to respond to optical, electrical and thermal stimuli. These glasses have the ability to switch, bend, self-organize and darken when exposed to light, they can even conduct electricity. They transmit light in the infra-red, which ordinary glass blocks and the properties of these glasses can even change, when strong light is incident upon them. The demand for speciality glass is growing and these advanced materials are of national importance for the UK. Our businesses that produce and process materials have a turnover of around £170 billion per annum; represent 15% of the country's GDP and have exports valued at £50 billion. With our proposed research programme we will produce extremely pure, highly functional glasses, unique to the world. The aims of our proposed research are as follows: - To establish the UK as a world-leading speciality glass research and manufacturing facility - To discovery new and optimize existing glass compositions, particularly in glasses made with sulphur - To develop links with UK industry and help them to exploit these new glass materials - To demonstrate important new electronic, telecommunication, switching devices from these glasses - To partner other UK Universities to explore new and emerging applications of speciality glass To achieve these goals we bring together a world-class, UK team of physicists, chemists, engineers and computer scientists from Southampton, Exeter, Oxford, Cambridge and Heriot-Watt Universities. We are partners with over 15 UK companies who will use these materials in their products or contribute to new ways of manufacturing them. This proposal therefore provides a unique opportunity to underpin a substantial national programme in speciality-glass manufacture, research and development.

Citizen science provides the public with the opportunity to engage with science in a meaningful way that can have mutual benefit for participants and researchers. It allows people to make authentic contributions to research while simultaneously learning more about a topic. In the classroom this has the potential to impact on a young person's attitude towards and relationship with science. By showing children that they're able to make valuable contributions to real science, citizen science provides an opportunity to nurture their 'science identity' and build science capital (i.e. experiences in, knowledge of, and connections with science), influencing choices to continue with science post-16. It can also develop scientific literacy by giving students direct research experience and knowledge of 'how science works'. Young Citizen Scientists with 'Zooniverse in School' will be the first large-scale programme to put STFC citizen science in schools, supporting STFC's vision of a society that values and participates in scientific endeavour by engaging children (9-12 years) with real scientific research. Through the world's largest and most popular citizen science platform, The Zooniverse, they will join volunteers from around the world to participate in research that would otherwise be unfeasible. The research projects on the platform, which span all disciplines, typically involve multiple volunteers analysing data by identifying or classifying objects in a series of images. Zooniverse in Schools extends this by enabling young people to undertake additional analysis of the images in a series of classroom activities using the newly-developed 'Zoo Notes' app. The app allows students to view all contributions made on a particular image, and thus visualise and interpret the analysed data before discussing their results with the researchers. Zooniverse in Schools will focus on two research areas; Science Scribbler, where volunteers identify and categorise images of viruses generated at Diamond Light Source to improve our understanding of how viruses multiply in cells and Galaxy Zoo, where volunteers categorise images of galaxies to help us understand what their shape can tell us about the galaxies and the Universe as a whole. In the first year, three online or in-person workshops on each topic will take place in schools, augmented with hands-on activities and discussions to help students develop their analytical and enquiry skills. In the second year, we will deliver an online Zooniverse in Schools Nationwide Challenge through live, multi-school webinars, pre-recorded video content, Q&A sessions and simple DIY demonstrations, closing with a celebration event. This will enable us to scale-up the reach of the programme while still providing support, encouragement and contact with researchers. The sequential activities give students and their teachers the opportunity to explore and understand the research process in depth and experience the collaborative nature of the science for themselves. They provide direct contact with the researchers involved to discuss the real-world impact of this research, focussing on the students' contribution. The activities give the opportunity to explore the facilities and techniques used to image the data and the methods we use to train computers to analyse large data sets (investigating concepts like algorithms and decision trees). Zooniverse in Schools will build upon Oxford Physics' work in engaging young people from backgrounds that are underrepresented within STEM. We have already developed and piloted, in a series of workshops, 'Zoo Notes' with our local target schools. We will now work with a number of partners (Diamond Light Source, The Ogden Trust, SEPnet, I'm a Scientist and Abingdon Science Partnership) to enhance the impact of the programme and ensure we reach young people who will benefit the most; those who live in the most deprived and remote areas of the UK.