Geospatial Design of Energy Systems for Africa (GeoDESA) Citizen Science aims to integrate citizen science in rural electrical grid planning for developing regions. As over 800 million people still lack reliable access to electricity, and the UN is targeting affordable clean energy access for all by 2030, innovative electrification strategies are needed to close the gap. Data-driven geospatial system planning can be an effective way to accelerate electrification. High-resolution geographic data and modern computing power can be leveraged to plan community-specific grid development cheaply and quickly, reducing costs by an order of magnitude compared to traditional methods. One key challenge in this approach is the need for detailed home location data. Home locations are necessary to design grid topologies and architectures. This level of specificity enables better grid cost estimates and community-appropriate design. Currently available home location datasets, such as OpenStreetMap, are typically incomplete, particularly in the hardest-to-reach rural poor areas. High-resolution satellite imagery and modern computer vision algorithms can fill the gaps in these datasets. While many algorithms have been trained to detect housing in the past, they are typically based on rich urban contexts. The full diversity of rural and remote housing styles must be taken into account to enable the dwelling detection needed for electrification design. By engaging citizen scientists fluent in local rural housing styles in the labeling of homes in satellite imagery, local knowledge can be incorporated in a scalable data-driven approach. With accurate and context-informed labelled satellite data, computer vision algorithms can be trained to reliably locate rural dwellings in the hardest to reach areas, allowing grids to be efficiently designed to suit community needs. This proposal complements past and ongoing work undertaken at the University of Oxford in rural Africa electrification from the SONG and RELCON projects. The methods developed and data generated will be useful for electrical system planning in many rural and remote contexts, and can cross-apply into other geographic planning disciplines, such as urban planning, migration tracking, and geospatial poverty estimation.

This project seeks to construct an interdisciplinary expert and stakeholder community to uncover and pilot using 'discoverable' data to construct a usable and scientifically rigorous biodiversity dataset. To achieve that, the project will be led by the Oxford Sustainable Finance Group, in partnership with WCMC and Catapult, in four key stages: Stage One: Network building Stage Two: construction of a strawman for integrating biodiversity in ESG metrics Stage Three: Testing and revising the strawman Stage Four: White Paper, Next Steps and Capacity Building The project will result in: (1) a community of committed stakeholders; (2) a concept note of use cases of biodiversity metrics, existing data and capacity availability and gaps; (3) a tested blueprint of what a biodiversity finance database would look like; (4) an agreed-upon plan of next steps forward.

To exemplify how data from satellites can provide valuable insight into challenges here on Earth, increasing the scientific awareness of key stage three students, teachers, and their families. Through providing an opportunity to find creative and innovative solutions to real life problems, this project will give examples of how science and business, industry and academia can work together to innovate for a better world, powered by satellites. The Spark Award will provide the funding to develop a standalone game which allows participants to experience the role of a satellite architect, in a reusable and entertaining manner, to directly engage students into undertaking STEM careers, in an inclusive manner. We also intend to release the game as a PDF 'print and play' version, to ensure it is accessible to audiences in digital poverty and promoting group usage and team working. The Space Skills Alliance Census schooling figures show that people from less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds appear to be under-represented in the space sector and this under-representation is regionally invariant. These data suggest that people who attended state non-selective schools are under-represented by nearly 25% compared to the general UK population. According to the 2019 Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), 10 of Oxford's 83 super output areas (SOAs) are among the 20% most deprived areas in England. These areas, which are in the Leys, Rose Hill, Littlemore, Barton and areas of the city, experience multiple levels of deprivation - low skills, low incomes, and relatively high levels of crime. As Satellite Applications Catapult is in Oxfordshire, we aim to target key stage three (KS3) school students, their teachers, and their families in these locations to support their STEM development and help overcome their under-representation in the space sector. As the resource will be digital or printable and openly accessible, we aim to encourage science discussions within the families, advancing the science capital of family members who might not otherwise have chosen to engage with STEM subjects. In addition, using our network, we aim to increase the reach of the resource beyond the local Oxfordshire region, through to other areas of the UK with high IMDs such as: the West Midlands, North East England, North West England, and Yorkshire. We aim to increase awareness of the space industry's ability and application to solve pressing global issues. In particular, we aim to improve understanding around climate challenges and ways they can be tackled using satellite data, which is closely related to the Satellite Applications Catapult's net zero and COP 26 initiatives. In addition, because of the Catapult's unique position in empowering the commercialisation of space innovation, the resource is also uniquely positioned to demonstrate how STEM and business can be combined. After playing the game, the audience should come away with: - An understanding of 3 major types of satellites and their real-world applications. - An understanding of which subjects and skills are relevant to space careers - A feeling of value and accomplishment for solving a relevant environmental crisis. - A feeling of inspiration and aspiration to pursue a STEM and/or space sector career. - An ability to effectively work as part of a team (where the pupils play as part of a team; they can also play solo). These outcomes will be achievable regardless of whether the resource is used in-person or online. In addition, the game will build on applicable KS3 topics: - Introduction to space science and satellite applications. - Principles of gravity/orbital physics that dictate satellite coverage and revisit rate. - Principles of light wave physics that enables imaging in the visible light spectrum and beyond. - An understanding of radio wave communication through ground segment capabilities (this also highlights STFC's ground segment capabilities).

We propose to generate a step change in the capacity of a network of cities in developing countries to address development dilemmas and advance the new 'urban' Sustainable Development Goal (11), linking cutting edge research to governance challenges of the emerging metropolis. The contemporary city presents a major development challenge. The majority of the world now lives in cities and the proportion is set to increase rapidly. All SDGs will need to be achieved in emergent cities and through understanding the combination of different development challenges, simultaneously realized. To recognize this and address the development challenges we need to combine the insights of traditionally discrete disciplinary expertise and link the humanities, natural sciences and social sciences in a new interdisciplinary configuration. We propose to 'grow' a new generation of urban researchers comfortable taking forward this new interdisciplinary field, working across an international partnership of research intensive universities renowned for their expertise in analyzing contemporary urbanisms. A global team of partners from China (Peking University), India (India Institute of Human Settlements), South Africa (UCT African Centre for Cities) and Colombia (EAFIT, Medellin) will work together with the University of Oxford. Researchers work across natural sciences (including mathematics, medicine, transport and engineering), the social sciences (including anthropology, development, migration) and humanities (including law, history). We leverage expertise across the University of Oxford and the Alan Turing Institute, building capacity internationally through a partnership networking strategic sites of urban interventions globally, working with a cohort of postdoctoral fellowships to develop a programme of excellent research. The focus is international and interdisciplinary. International networks build on existing collaborations, strong links to cities themselves and on track records of research excellence. Research proposed uses complex systems framing to synthesise our understanding of the development of future cities. Research addresses urban challenges that focus on data science opportunities of the city and socio-material systems that link built form, technology and behavioural pattern in complex interventions in public health, the nexus of water food and energy, informality, the city commons, mobility, land and the imperative to accommodate new populations. Research embedded in cities themselves will build new forms of learning, co-production and capacity building to promote sustainable urban development. To maximize the impact of our work the five centres of research will create a platform that will link regionally to linked research centres, urban labs and city observatories in Latin America, Africa, India and China. The opportunity to link the challenges of the global south to the city futures of the global north will be addressed through formal links to impact pathways in London government and European Urban Labs and centres, liaising with three of the Innovate UK funded Catapults (Satellite, Transport, Future of Cities). In order to meet the global goals of sustainable development cities will have to fundamentally shift developmental trajectories, implying a significant realignment in urban management practice. The knowledge base on which policy makers are expected to make such momentous decisions is fragmented but we will work with cities across the partnership to develop new models of co-production and knowledge exchange. All of the research partners have outstanding records of engagement and coproduction of knowledge with cities themselves, city regions, national bodies and emergent transnational organisations, including UN Habitat, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the World Bank/UN agency Cities Alliance.

The market assessment research will review potential users of information services on deforestation, patterns of activity, the ways in which they buy and the motivations for purchase of forest monitoring data and analysis. It will provide an overall picture of demand whilst highlighting markets to prioritise and target (based on size, accessibility, demand). In addition, competitors and substitute products will be analysed. The information will be synthesised to create a picture of markets to target and required features of the product and service. The work will inform our understanding of which segments of the market to target (countries, NGOs) it will also inform on the basics details of product & service design and delivery. This will be of vital importance as we decide of the nature of the service, the extent to which the product needs to be refined and developed. At present it is envisaged that a stand-alone commercial entity will be created providing both data and consultancy services to global users of the data. The follow on funding will support the planning for the organisational model and structure for delivery, through the development of a hard evidence base to support decisions on investment and resources allocation. It will subsequently guide the development of a marketing plan.