The Government's commitment to increasing offshore and marine renewable energy generation presents significant technological challenges in designing, commissioning and building the infrastructure, connecting offshore generation to onshore usage, and considering where these new developments are best placed, whilst balancing the impact they have upon the environment. In tandem, this commitment presents opportunities to advance UK capabilities in cutting-edge engineering and technologies in pursuit of net zero. Liverpool is home to one of the largest concentrations of offshore wind turbines globally in Liverpool Bay, the second largest tidal range in the UK, some of the largest names of maritime engineering alongside numerous SMEs, and the Port of Liverpool, a Freeport and Investment Zone status. The latest Science and Innovation Audit (2022) highlights Net Zero and Maritime as an emerging regional capability, and is an area in which the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority has stated its ambition to grow an innovation cluster. The University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University each host world-class research expertise, environments and facilities relevant to addressing these maritime energy challenges, and have an established, shared track record in collaboration with industrial and civic partners. The Centre for Doctoral Training in Net Zero Maritime Energy Solutions (N0MES CDT) will play a vital role in filling critical skills gaps by delivering 52 highly trained researchers (PGRs), skilled in the identification, understanding, assessment, and solutions-delivery of pressing challenges in maritime energy. N0MES PGRs will pursue new, engineering-centred, interdisciplinary research to address four vital net zero challenges currently facing the North West, the UK and beyond: (a) Energy generation using maritime-based renewable energy (e.g. offshore wind, tidal, wave, floating solar, hydrogen, CCS) (b) Distributing energy from offshore to onshore, including port- and hinterland-side impacts and opportunities (c) Addressing the short- and long-term environmental impacts of offshore and maritime environment renewable energy generation, distribution and storage (d) Decommissioning and lifetime extension of existing energy and facilities The N0MES CDT will empower its graduates to communicate, research and innovate across disciplines, and will develop flexible leaders who can move between projects and disciplines as employer priorities and scientific imperatives evolve.

There is strong evidence that natural environments within urban areas, such as parks, woodlands, lakes and beaches, have positive impacts on health. These urban green and blue spaces (UGBS) could be huge assets for protecting and equalising health if they were available, accessible, valued and well-used, particularly by less advantaged groups. The problem is that they are not. This is largely because the many policies, organisations and communities involved in designing, creating, managing, promoting, maintaining and using UGBS are disconnected. Also, the voices of less advantaged communities that UGBS could be helping most are either not heard or not persuasive. Perhaps as a consequence, those communities are much less likely to benefit from these spaces. We know that the UGBS we have are not the UGBS we need to make the best possible contribution to better and more equal health. GroundsWell aims to change that. We propose a new partnership - researchers working together with communities and those who currently create and control UGBS, to plan, design and manage it better so that it benefits everyone, especially those who need it most. The main research will take place in three cities - Belfast, Edinburgh and Liverpool. These have sufficient similarities (such as large and diverse low-income communities) but also distinct features (such as geography and culture) making them, collectively, an ideal laboratory. Each city already has policies and programmes in place to improve UGBS, but there is much room for improvement. GroundsWell will take a systems approach. This means understanding the multiple and interconnecting components of policy-making, practice, perception and people which together affect the presence, location, character and use of UGBS. It also means working to transform the system so that the components function together. To do this, GroundsWell will mix co-development of new theoretical frameworks, novel data science including simulation, health economics and policy analysis, but at its heart will be community engagement and partnership. We will develop and use meaningful community engagement, co-production and citizen science to understand the system, identify how and where it is broken, and co-create solutions. We anticipate interventions aimed at how the UGBS system operates, and small-scale interventions around actual spaces and their use. Data play an important part in understanding systems. GroundsWell will develop an accessible, trustworthy and policy-relevant system to collate, collect, house and share data on UGBS across the three cities. These data will be used to help the whole Consortium understand the UGBS there, identify possible interventions, and then assess whether they work, for whom and why, creating feedback loops to help us continually monitor, learn and adapt what we do. Novel simulation approaches will also be used to suggest interventions, and in particular what could be effective beyond the three cities. Health economics will suggest what would be best value for money. An important part of putting actions and solutions in place is understanding if they work (or not). Evaluation of our actions and the Consortium as a whole will be undertaken in partnership with our communities, drawing on the new data system we establish, and enabling them to directly see whether and how the process has benefited them. In particular, we will assess and share our impacts on health inequalities. We are realistic about the likely scale of our impacts. Small actions within existing UGBS and local communities are unlikely to affect population level health and inequalities within our funded period. That is why we are going to focus on improving the UGBS system as a whole, laying foundations for long-term benefits. We know that the use and enjoyment of UGBS is something that adults pass on to their children. If GroundsWell can improve and equalise the role of UGBS, it will achieve a lasting impact.