In this project we will support individuals and organisations across the food system to develop their knowledge of resilience. Producers, processors, manufacturers, retailers, policy makers and consumers will all have to change their practices and behaviours if we are to achieve a more resilient food system. Yet both trade-offs and tensions between these actors can easily arise. For example, forms of farming that can better withstand extreme weather events do not necessarily support the health and wellbeing of consumers, and may struggle to supply the volumes or quality standards demanded by robust global supply chains. To start to unpick this complexity, we will investigate the nature of resilience and how it can be promoted in three components of the food system: on farm; in the supply chain; and among consumers. We will employ information technology to secure access to data that enables actors across the food system to gain the knowledge required to respond and adapt to emerging socio-economic and environmental change. Importantly, we will also go further, and look to develop a unifying understanding of 'food system resilience', complemented by tools and methods that can integrate the knowledge and perspectives of hitherto disparate food system actors. Through integrating knowledge, our aim is to remove some of the significant disconnects between various actors in the food system. In three areas of focus, we will: 1) Work with farmers, scientists and engineers, to reform processes of technology development so that farmers' existing knowledge of farm resilience, embedded in their understanding of their soils, seeds and breeds, can be supported and expanded through the application of novel, low cost sensor and imaging technologies 2) Work with food processors, distributors and retailers, to undertake an integrated analysis of food commodity supply data and the political economy of production, consumption and trade, to identify contexts in which resilience can be supported within the distribution and supply system 3) Work with consumers through engagement with individuals and with population data, to better understand the drivers of consumer choice within and between socioeconomic groups, and the consequences for public health resilience. By better understanding resilience in these three areas, we will develop decision support tools that draw on data from across the food system to identify and encourage complementarities - and minimise conflicts - between the choices and actions taken by different actors in the food system. To achieve this, we will translate existing agricultural sensors and engineering technology platforms to address the specific needs for the 'right data at the right time, in the right location and at the right cost', to reduce vulnerability increase resilience across the food system. In particular, we will: 1) Deepen understanding of the food system and how stakeholders differ in their ability to respond to crises and stresses within international food supply chains 2) Investigate how structures, institutions and information can support individuals, communities and organisations to think and act in response to different types of change that emerge within the complexity of the global food system 3) Explore how new forms of data, mobile technologies, institutional models and incentive frameworks can shape information flows and behaviour, enabling researchers, technologists and food system stakeholder resolve and respond in a timely fashion to pressures facing food consumption, production and trade 4) Provide a new model of food system resilience that sets an agenda for future interdisciplinary research and defines policy objectives for a resilient UK food system.

Non-domestic buildings account for approximately 18% of UK carbon emissions and 13% of final energy consumption. In contrast to domestic buildings, which can be well characterised by a few representative archetypes, the non-domestic sector is highly diverse incorporating a range of built forms to satisfy the needs of commercial, retail, public service, and other end-use sectors. These assets are also very long-lasting and it is estimated that 70% of the UK's current non-domestic buildings will still be in service in 2050. Consequently a major challenge is to design technologies and operating strategies that support a transformation of existing non-domestic buildings into efficient buildings compatible with the UK's energy and climate policy goals. Facilities managers must balance people (the occupants), place (the building's context), and processes (the installed equipment) in order to deliver agreed levels of building services to occupants, of which energy services are particularly important. However, experience has shown that the variability of occupant behaviour and long-term changes in the demand for energy services creates significant challenges for maintaining highly efficient building energy systems. Furthermore it cannot be taken for granted that future innovations will overcome these barriers. New technologies and business models - such as smart meters, heat pumps, phase change materials, real-time pricing, pervasive sensing, and more - will bring with them implicit assumptions about buildings and their occupants and facilities managers will again need to determine how they can be installed and operated effectively, in an integrated fashion. Therefore, although the future holds significant technical potential for improving the energy efficiency of non-domestic buildings, experience suggests that none of these innovations will remove the need for fundamental improvements in the energy management of non-domestic buildings, and indeed provide more opportunities for optimisation. The proposed three-year research project will therefore develop and demonstrate novel adaptive methods both to improve the energy performance of existing buildings and to ensure that these gains are preserved in the face of technological and societal change. This will be achieved by working with partners representing the education, commercial, and retail sectors, thus delivering immediate impact to the energy management of their buildings and also enabling the developed techniques to be sufficiently flexible for widespread use in other non-domestic buildings. The research will therefore help the UK transform its building stock to meet a range of energy and climate policy goals, while enabling the facilities management industry to demonstrate new products and services for domestic and international markets.

Terrestrial farming is the greatest driver of biodiversity loss, a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and water pollution, and faces its most transformational reform in 50 years to improve both environmental and economic sustainability. The new Agriculture Act, 25YEP, has commitment to net zero carbon emissions and policies to enhance environmental stewardship, sustainability and support the production of public goods. This project aims to demonstrate the socio-economic benefit of a world-leading 'terrestrial blue economy', contributing multiple public goods to reform UK agriculture. Combining high value shrimp aquaculture with farm-based renewable energy will provide a novel home-grown output with considerable but poorly understood economic and health potential. The public goods benefits of a switch from beef/sheep production to shrimp include lower greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, and land use, freeing land for other public goods such as trees, biodiversity, biodiversity net gain, and recreation. Furthermore, co-locating self-contained, indoor shrimp production units with UK farm anaerobic digesters (AD) will maximise use of their (otherwise wasted) heat energy, enhancing sustainability and circularity of both industries. Extra income will also boost the farm-based renewable energy sector, helping the UK meet emissions targets. Shrimp is a healthy seafood with high protein, low calories, low fat, rich in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, promoting brain and heart health. Warm water shrimp is already highly popular seafood in the UK, with 22,852 tons (UK retail £319M) imported annually from Central America and SE Asia. However, traditional overseas production is vulnerable to climate/disease crises, has high transport-related CO2 emissions, and often uses environmentally unsustainable practices, e.g., destroying up to 80 % of nations' mangrove forests which absorb and trap more CO2 than any other of Earth's ecosystems. They also provide coastal protection against storms and coastal erosion. There is also the problem of illegal use (or just misuse) of chemicals such as pesticides and antibiotics resulting in contaminant residues in some of the shrimp exported to the UK, EU and US that can cause health issues. This proposal aims to completely avoid these problems and ensure a risk-free, healthier and sustainable supply chain of this heart- and brain- healthy seafood for UK-consumers, by facilitating a major expansion of UK's shrimp RAS production sector which currently supplies equivalent to <1% of imports. We aim to co-locate RAS production with renewable energy sources on UK terrestrial farms. We conservatively estimate that if only 20% of the UK's current Anaerobic Digestor (AD) plants were adapted for shrimp farming, we could sustain 960 shrimp production units and harvest 5,520 tonnes of shrimp per year (~25 % of current UK warm water shrimp imports). With the rapid growth of AD plants across UK farms (10-fold increase since 2010), there is clear potential for truly sustainable, healthier, home-grown shrimp to provide the majority consumed in the near future, in addition to enhancing environmental stewardship, sustainability and supporting the production of public goods from UK agricultural practices. Importantly, this project will generate data to evaluate the true potential of sustainable UK shrimp production using renewable energy technology, as well as providing this shrimp industry with the necessary world-class scientific support. This project will therefore address 3 goals to transform the UK Food System: 1) increased environmental sustainability of farm practices (e.g., sustainable use of existing waste heat from ADs), 2) economically sustainable expansion of UK land-based aquaculture production & employment, and 3) establishing the UK as a leader regarding capability, expertise and innovation in co-reforming agriculture and aquaculture.

Enhancing the energy performance of existing buildings in the UK is a vital step in the Government's pathway to net-zero carbon. If environmental targets are to be reached, R&D is required to understand the capabilities of low carbon technologies and how digital services can be used to better manage their energy use. In this context, novel building control approaches that can be derived from data-driven, cloud-based solutions is of high interest for building owners and operators who soon will need to upgrade outdated building management systems (BMS). Yet today there is limited implementation of such solutions due to 'hidden' installation costs, lack of standards and modularity and 'risk averse' attitudes in the building sector. Bridging the gap between the academic literature and real-world applications is hence paramount to support live implementation and explore the potential of greater connectivity. Under this context, the DEMSIS project employs a supermarket as a case study and uses it as a test bed to implement in real-time a model predictive control (MPC) scheme to enhance HVAC and refrigeration systems; the two most energy intensive services in a supermarket which are responsible for 45-60% of a store's overall electricity usage. MPC schemes work by predicting how a system will respond to a control change over the next 12-24 hours, considering other relevant forecasts such as energy prices and weather data. By understanding these future states, it allows the system to pre-emptively prepare for, for example, high electricity prices or cold weather, hence reducing its overall energy and carbon usage. As well as developing this control logic, the required hardware and software infrastructure will be designed and deployed in the pilot store to allow for real-world testing of the proposed MPC schemes. The proposed modelling and software framework will be replicable across a wide range of commercial buildings, lowering the barrier to entry for many businesses across the UK. Furthermore, due to the flexible nature of MPC formulation the proposed approach could incorporate additional constraints related to demand-side management for the grid, e.g. ensuring power thresholds aren't breached during peak periods. The challenge for researchers in this field is how best to integrate the abundant data being captured to coordinate the management of systems to reduce energy use in buildings. A combination of hardware components and software tools are required to update existing legacy control systems. If such upgrades take place, the academic literature suggests there is significant potential in enhancement of operational management by applying internet-of-things concepts to support real-time optimisation. In this project the researchers collaborate with a major food retailer (Sainsbury's Supermarkets) to implement cutting edge solutions that give insights into how future buildings should be operated. The DEMSIS project has as key objectives to: 1. Provide recommendations on the best hardware and software solutions that are compatible with existing controllers (e.g., HVAC). 2. Quantify the business case for implementing such novel solutions in a commercial building by conducting multiple tests in the supermarket. 3. Outline the technical and commercial barriers building operators are facing to implement smart control schemes. 4. Propose new key performance indicators that provide information on how heating and refrigeration systems are performing. 5. Give insights on how control cloud-based solutions can support the UK power system with regards to demand side management and smart-grid applications. Findings from the project will support enabling a cost-effective transition towards smarter digital services for the built environment. Transferring knowledge to key stakeholders in academia, industry, and policy makers responsible for the decarbonisation of the property sector.

The UK is committed to a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% before 2050. With over 40% of fossil fuels used for low temperature heating and 16% of electricity used for cooling these are key areas that must be addressed. The vision of our interdisciplinary centre is to develop a portfolio of technologies that will deliver heat and cold cost-effectively and with such high efficiency as to enable the target to be met, and to create well planned and robust Business, Infrastructure and Technology Roadmaps to implementation. Features of our approach to meeting the challenge are: a) Integration of economic, behavioural, policy and capability/skills factors together with the science/technology research to produce solutions that are technically excellent, compatible with and appealing to business, end-users, manufacturers and installers. b) Managing our research efforts in Delivery Temperature Work Packages (DTWPs) (freezing/cooling, space heating, process heat) so that exemplar study solutions will be applicable in more than one sector (e.g. Commercial/Residential, Commercial/Industrial). c) The sub-tasks (projects) of the DTWPs will be assigned to distinct phases: 1st Wave technologies or products will become operational in a 5-10 year timescale, 2nd Wave ideas and concepts for application in the longer term and an important part of the 2050 energy landscape. 1st Wave projects will lead to a demonstration or field trial with an end user and 2nd Wave projects will lead to a proof-of-concept (PoC) assessment. d) Being market and emission-target driven, research will focus on needs and high volume markets that offer large emission reduction potential to maximise impact. Phase 1 (near term) activities must promise high impact in terms of CO2 emissions reduction and technologies that have short turnaround times/high rates of churn will be prioritised. e) A major dissemination network that engages with core industry stakeholders, end users, contractors and SMEs in regular workshops and also works towards a Skills Capability Development Programme to identify the new skills needed by the installers and operators of the future. The SIRACH (Sustainable Innovation in Refrigeration Air Conditioning and Heating) Network will operate at national and international levels to maximise impact and findings will be included in teaching material aimed at the development of tomorrow's engineering professionals. f) To allow the balance and timing of projects to evolve as results are delivered/analysed and to maximise overall value for money and impact of the centre only 50% of requested resources are earmarked in advance. g) Each DTWP will generally involve the complete multidisciplinary team in screening different solutions, then pursuing one or two chosen options to realisation and test. Our consortium brings together four partners: Warwick, Loughborough, Ulster and London South Bank Universities with proven track records in electric and gas heat pumps, refrigeration technology, heat storage as well as policy / regulation, end-user behaviour and business modelling. Industrial, commercial, NGO and regulatory resources and advice will come from major stakeholders such as DECC, Energy Technologies Institute, National Grid, British Gas, Asda, Co-operative Group, Hewlett Packard, Institute of Refrigeration, Northern Ireland Housing Executive. An Advisory Board with representatives from Industry, Government, Commerce, and Energy Providers as well as international representation from centres of excellence in Germany, Italy and Australia will provide guidance. Collaboration (staff/student exchange, sharing of results etc.) with government-funded thermal energy centres in Germany (at Fraunhofer ISE), Italy (PoliMi, Milan) and Australia (CSIRO) clearly demonstrate the international relevance and importance of the topic and will enhance the effectiveness of the international effort to combat climate change.