AH/V01241X/1ENGLISH HERITAGE TRUST CONSERVATION AND HERITAGE SCIENCE FACILITY - RANGER'S HOUSE, GREENWICH, LONDONClosedResearch GrantInfrastructure FundEnglish HeritageThe English Heritage Trust (EHT) cares for the National Heritage Collection of 400 historic sites and 3/4 million associated artefacts. The Facility The heritage science and conservation facility at Ranger's House acts as a central hub for core research and conservation activities carried out by EHT. The facility itself comprises five rooms in the apartment adjacent to the publicly accessible house (home to the Wernher Collection), the fine art conservation studio, and an outbuilding used as a store. The facility has grown organically and has reached a point where the scale of work outstrips the capacity of the facility - both due to space and the quality of equipment within. The Beneficiaries - People and Collections The English Heritage Conservation Science team has been leading the way in research on the environmental response of objects in historic environments. This work has been critical in allowing for the safe display and storage of the collection in historic buildings. Its novelty lies in the combination of close object/ building examination and analysis, with an epidemiological approach. We have been able to develop this novel approach because we look after similar objects that are exposed to a range of very different environments. The practical methods we have devised as a result of our research have enabled us to reduce the carbon footprint of conservation activities by 40%. The sector's interest in this work is demonstrated by an impressive 70 publications in competitive forums, the oversubscription to a series of 8 international courses covering management of showcases and an invitation to the 2018 Gordon conference on Scientific Methods in Cultural Heritage Research. We have also supported six PhDs - looking at response of lined canvas paintings, archaeological bone, archaeological glass and outdoor artillery - through the CPD scheme, SEAHA doctoral training scheme, AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Program and the Science and Heritage Programme. This research would not be possible without the Ranger's facility and its equipment, but it has been severely restrained by lack of space and outdated equipment - with constant failures or issues with software compatibility. The conservation studio at Ranger's House, often guided by scientific advice from the conservation science team, carries out practical treatments and technical analysis of the English Heritage collection of over 1500 easel paintings, many of international significance, and their associated frames. Technical examination advances our understanding of an artist's materials and methodology. Over the last five years our work has resulted in the reattribution of several paintings, notably to Botticelli and Titian, and much associated publicity for English Heritage has followed. Art historical findings relating to paintings by Rembrandt, Titian, Weenix and Beuckelaer have been presented at several national and international conferences and published in postprints and journals. To allow this treatment and research to continue, we need to update equipment in line with technological advances and remedy issues with the studio space, previously adapted from an old coach house The Project The amount of research needed, both within the EHT strategy and to support the sector, is not possible within the confines of the existing facility, nor with equipment more than 10 years old and suffering constant failures (and not supported by the manufacturers due to its age). We will redevelop the interiors of the facility and upgrade the store into a workshop in order to house equipment, and provide space for sample preparation and wood working for fine art conservation. We will also replace the most outdated pieces of equipment, to significantly improve the efficiency for research undertaken in the facility.6CFA1E1F-F25C-4C23-8FE1-C47AE53E333EUnclassifiedEP/D045304/1Novel Time-Resolved Thermal Imaging: AlGaN/GaN Heterostructure Field Effect TransistorsClosedResearch GrantEPSRCPhysicsThe increasing complexity of tasks required by communication, radar, aircraft, automotive systems benefits from the use of novel materials in high speed devices. Such devices, for example, radio-frequency (RF) transistors used in mobile communication base stations or phased array radars, have to meet certain performance standards. Electrical characterization is mostly used today to tackle challenges in the device development process to meet these standards. Electrical measurements, however, determine average device properties rather than specific information on spatial characteristics such as temperature and electric field inhomogeneities. If direct imaging of temperature and electric field distribution over a device area was possible with high time resolution this would open a new dimension for the investigation of semiconductor devices. This would be of great benefit to device researchers and developers to study and tackle time-dependent phenomena limiting device performance. Adequate techniques, however, are not existent at present. In the proposed work we will develop the first high-spatial resolution time-resolved thermal prober for semiconductor device imaging ever built to our knowledge. Electric field distribution will be extracted from the temperature information. The technique will be illustrated on the example of the topical AlGaN/GaN HFETs to learn more about how these devices operate in detail and what limiting factors for current devices are. For example, we will obtain information about carrier trapping related to AlGaN/GaN HFET current collapse, but experience shows that other interesting and potentially important discoveries are likely to result as well.1908FDF5-1C61-4F33-B47F-3E91675C88AAInfo. & commun. Technol.55945E0A55-10CB-4E91-BCCB-7CB22CFE2232Tools, technologies & methods2550CC55CC-BE0D-4167-BD99-285D6BCC369BMaterials processing204D4F63B1-6DA2-42B3-AAF1-0FC07D91E3D3Instrumentation Eng. & Dev.2550CC55CC-BE0D-4167-BD99-285D6BCC369BMaterials processing20811766AE-F6E0-4356-AEBF-17A4DA456AD4VLSI Design158EC6A705-6D4A-44E8-95FF-27E262DA290CRF & Microwave Technology40EP/Y530037/1Open Access Block Award 2023 - Armagh Observatory and PlanetariumClosedResearch GrantOpen Access Block GrantFinanceAbstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.6CFA1E1F-F25C-4C23-8FE1-C47AE53E333EUnclassifiedNE/P000061/1Characterising hydrothermal alteration across the Atlantis Massif: IODP Expedition 357ClosedResearch GrantNERCSch of Geog Earth & Environ SciencesThe oceans covers approximately two thirds of the Earth's surface yet the oldest ocean floor is less than 200 million years old because it is continuously created and destroyed through the plate tectonic cycle. The ocean floor is made of volcanic rocks that form at mid ocean ridges, a global chain of under-water volcanoes that stretch for ~60,000km around the oceans, where two tectonic plates are moving away from each other. The rate at which the two tectonic plates move away from each other varies across the oceans. Currently 50% of the global mid ocean ridge system is spreading at slow spreading rates (<40 mm/yr, e.g Mid Atlantic Ridge). From dredging and scientific drilling of the ocean crust and studying ophiolites, pieces of ocean crust that have been emplaced onto the continents, the overall structure of the ocean crust has determined. 'Typical' ocean crust has a layered stratigraphy with erupted lavas overlying intrusive feeder channels and frozen magma chambers (gabbros). However along slow spreading ridges this typical stratigraphy is not always present, and ~ 50% is formed by tectonic extension along detachment faults that bring gabbros and mantle rocks to the seafloor. Once new ocean crust is formed cold seawater penetrates downwards into the crust along fractures, becomes heated and reacts with the volcanic rocks until the hot hydrothermal fluids becomes buoyant and exit the crust at the seafloor . These reactions modify the chemistry of both the rocks by the formation of new hydrothermal minerals and the hydrothermal fluids, and are therefore an important process to quantify in order to understand global chemical exchange. The new minerals that form are strongly dependent on the initial rock and the temperature of the reacting hydrothermal fluids. At slow spreading ridges, the exposure of gabbroic and mantle rocks at the seafloor results in different chemical reactions, and mantle rocks in particular undergo extensive alteration to serpentinites. Serpentinisation reactions are accompanied by the formation of calcium carbonate minerals in fractures. The formation of calcium carbonate by fluid/rock reactions is currently being investigated as a potential long-term store of carbon dioxide. Understanding hydrothermal circulation in these environments is critical for understanding this process and ultimately exploiting it for the industrial storage of carbon dioxide. The Atlantis Massif is located on the Mid Atlantic Ridge and is an example of where tectonic extension has exposed gabbroic and mantle rocks at the seafloor. A hydrothermal vent system called the Lost City Hydrothermal Field is present on the southern end of the massif and is driven by serpentinisation reactions. Low temperature (<100degC), high pH hydrothermal fluids vent diffusively at Lost City through carbonate-brucite structures. It is one of only five hydrothermal vents that are known to be hosted on mantle rocks. In this study, new samples recovered by scientific ocean drilling of the Atlantis Massif during IODP Expedition 357 will be used to investigate the role of hydrothermal circulation in the formation of ocean crust along these long-lived detachment faults. For the first time an age transect of samples across the massif has been recovered allowing insight into how the detachment changes and evolves as it progressively ages. By studying the new hydrothermal minerals that have formed during fluid/rock reaction, and documenting their distribution within the different rock types, the pathways for the hydrothermal fluids can be deciphered. This information will be combined with geochemical analyses of the rocks and hydrothermal minerals to quantify the chemical changes that have occurred during hydrothermal circulation across the Atlantis Massif. This combined approach will allow the contribution of hydrothermal circulation along detachment faults to the broader hydrothermal budget of global geochemical cycles to be determined.This project will make significant scientific advances towards our understanding of the role of hydrothermal circulation during the formation and evolution of the ocean crust. It will expand upon our current knowledge of this key Earth process through the variable slow spreading rate crust that represents much of the modern mid ocean ridge network. This project will primarily benefit the extensive ocean crust community, both those working on modern ocean crust and ophiolites, as outlined in the Academic Beneficiaries section. Benefits to: IODP The proposed research will contribute to addressing two of the proposed challenges in the 2013-2023 IODP Science Plan; challenge 9 'how are seafloor spreading and mantle melting linked to ocean crustal architecture' and challenge 10 'what are the mechanisms, magnitude, and history of chemical exchanges between the oceanic crust and seawater?'. This research will contribute to these by characterising and quantifying hydrothermal circulation through the detachment surface of the Atlantis Massif and its contribution to global geochemical cycles. Publication of this research in internationally recognised peer-reviewed journals will highlight the on-going importance of IODP as a world leader in scientific collaboration and high impact science. Benefits to: Public This research will contribute to topical global questions about the response of the Earth system to perturbations (global geochemical cycles) and the limits of life. Through the integration of this study with companion studies addressing the mechanisms of serpentinisation because of the intimate link between the two studies, this research will contribute to the topical debate about the long term storage options for atmospheric carbon dioxide. Involvement with University open days and public engagement activities (e.g. Girls into Geoscience) and the publication of the results in journals accessible to the public will ensure this research is exposed to the public. Benefits to: RA The research assistant will benefit from training and experience in laboratory procedures in addition to being involved with active research. It will provide an opportunity to extend their skill set and develop their future career prospects. Benefits to: Industry The long term storage of carbon in solid mineral form is one of the options available for reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide and is currently an area of research of high interest in both academic (e.g. IODP Expedition 357, ICDP Oman Drilling Project) and industrial (e.g CarbFIX) contexts. A necessary step towards the potential industrialisation of this process is understanding the natural system in a range of environments. This research is intimately linked to serpentinisation across the Atlantis Massif and will therefore help inform our understanding of the formation of calcium carbonate minerals in lower crustal and mantle rocks. This research will add to the growing body of research in this field and in the long term will be of use to carbon capture and storage industries. How does the proposed research generate impact? This research will inform our understanding of the variation in processes that form the ocean crust. The recent recognition of the extent of the detachment mode of seafloor spreading represents a major step in our understanding of how the Earth surface forms. The results of this study will provide crucial evidence for the interaction of hydrothermal fluids and tectonic processes and quantify for the first time the contribution of focused hydrothermal fluids on global hydrothermal budgets. The intimate link between hydrothermal circulation in the gabbroic and mantle rocks will inform our understanding of the natural storage of carbon in ocean crust, a crucial step in knowledge necessary for the potential industrialisation of this process.346611FD-47F5-46D6-9813-D4707F62253BGeosciences1007F1C4565-EFD3-4BE7-8A4A-B5F39FFD36F3Volcanic Processes302334C846-D357-4EF1-B929-0EC4EC1854CBHydrogeology40A646062E-6497-4533-8274-47644A7B369CEarth Resources20F52704F6-1035-4307-9FA9-45BC878F1F1ATectonic Processes10EP/H023666/1Ferroelectrics for Nanoelectronics (FERN)ClosedResearch GrantEPSRCElectrical, Electronic & Computer EngThe evolution of silicon technology since the 1960's has focussed on doubling performance and functionality every 18-24 months through miniaturization. Critical dimensions measured in tens of nanometres are now common place and billions of components connected by miles of wiring can be packed onto a wafer no larger than a thumb nail. Today the focus is shifting away from more scaling (called more Moore after the founder of Intel, Gordon Moore) towards increasing functionality through the introduction of mixed technologies on silicon (called more than Moore). This project investigates the incorporation of ultra thin ferroelectric materials into silicon nanoelectronics and two of its many applications.Capacitance is the rate of change of charge with voltage. It is the defining property of capacitors which are necessary in many electronic systems but are relatively large. Ferroelectrics can shrink capacitors by three orders of magnitude, because their electric permittivity is so high. More than that, their capacitance can be made to vary depending on the applied voltage so very small and tunable capacitors can be made, which can find applications in hand held electronics products in order to reduce power consumption. If they could be integrated onto a silicon microchip there would be further space savings. Thin layers are expected to produce even higher capacitance. However there is evidence that capacitance starts to reduce below 50 nm as dead layers are said to form near the interface with electrodes, but this may be an interface effect which can be lessened through engineering. Recently there has been experimental evidence that effective negative capacitance can be seen in ultra-thin ferroelectric films. If such material can be incorporated into a transistor then it would be able to reduce the voltage needed to switch a transistor between its on and off states (the sub-threshold slope). This would transform silicon technology, allowing a new generation of more powerful single core processors. Modern computers have dual or multi-core processors. A single core processor would generate too much heat but is still desirable for many applications. Capacitance places a lower limit on the sub-threshold slope. The consequence is that transistors need a larger applied voltage to be on and/or will leak current and so can never be fully switch off. This leads to increased power loss and heating as more transistors are crammed onto the same area of silicon, which limits component density. Integrating a ferroelectric film with negative capacitance into the gate of a transistor would reduce the overall capacitance and thus the sub-threshold swing. The need to understand and produce high quality ferroelectric ultra-thin films is imperative for each of these applications. Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) at Newcastle and Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) at Imperial College will be used to deposit thin films of the ferroelectric materials barium titanate (BTO) and barium strontium titanate (BST). Both allow deposition thicknesses with atomic level precision. Extensive characterisation is needed to assess quality of these ferroelectric films. First principles computer simulation will be used to gain a better understanding of the films and to direct experiments. The deposition and thermal parameter space will be mapped to identify best ferroelectric properties for given constraints laid down by the silicon fabrication. Transistors will be made incorporating the best ferroelectric films to confirm the reduction in sub-threshold slope. Ferroelectric capacitors integrated onto silicon will be demonstrated, quantifying the capacitance increase per unit area and examining the fabrication constraints needed to maintain high transistor performance. This will also help identify integration issues, which also include equipment contamination and the development of ferroelectric etches.The RAs and PG student trained will have the opportunity to develop excellent analytical, research and communications skills. Such people have previously gone on to work as permanent academic staff, in industry, in finance and in government research labs. The project will offer other RA's and PG students an opportunity to benefit from working on closely related topics in the area of thin film ferroelectrics and it is anticipated that this will boost the activity to benefit all. UK companies spanning the supply chain for high performance integrated circuits will gain competitive advantage. The primary benefits will be proof of concept for new types of semiconductor devices using ferroelectric thin films and the reduction of risk for development and manufacture of products using these devices. Materials companies benefit from expertise within this consortium and IP generated. Knowledge gained will accelerate their progress in producing high quality films for many applications. They can license the recipes for deposition of ferroelectric thin films adding value to their deposition system. They will benefit from the collaboration, especially characterisation and device data which will reassure customers. Mixing silicon with ferroelectrics for high permittivity voltage controlled capacitors will have the benefit of allowing single chip solutions where previously several components may be necessary. Using ferroelectric films to reduce transistor sub-threshold slope is high risk but has the potential for enormous benefits. The exponential increase in microchip leakage power and heating, as critical dimensions reduce and transistor count increases has halted single core processor evolution in favour of multiple core processors in order to have effective thermal management. A reduction in power consumption by integrated circuits must be of global benefit to the environment, since almost every appliance uses some silicon technology. Beneficiaries will include not only the semiconductor manufacturers, circuit designers and product manufacturers, but all of us who use their products. Ferroelectrics are also piezoelectric and pyroelectric and so a range of intelligent sensor/actuator systems might be envisaged. While the UK does not at present have state of the art silicon manufacturing, it is likely that in future UK based companies will partner with overseas semiconductor foundries for the supply of part-processed wafers (the transistors and some interconnect metallisation) which can be completed integrating a variety of mixed technologies (such as thin film ferroelectrics for tunable capacitors) to create IP intensive products of high added value. This may be particularly appropriate for partnering within the EU where it can make economic sense to share expensive semiconductor foundries. Publication of research in high quality journals and at leading international conferences is crucial and will continue. The industrial steering group will be a means of two-way communication and engagement between this academic project and the commercial sector. National electronics networks like Si Futures, UKDF and EU networks like Sinano will be accessed. Press releases to the trade press will also be used to announce the project and to publicise breaking news as it develops. The research will feature on web pages of the two universities. The quarterly management meetings will have a standing item on potential impact of research. Promising strands of research will be pursued and our steering group members will be approached for additional guidance. Patents will be sought where possible prior to publication of the research. Both PIs have previous experience of knowledge transfer to industry. Both universities have excellent media staff to help with communication.177C04BB-BFD4-4D65-BA9D-15A50728B8CAMaterials sciences2550CC55CC-BE0D-4167-BD99-285D6BCC369BMaterials processing251908FDF5-1C61-4F33-B47F-3E91675C88AAInfo. & commun. Technol.50BEA752D6-11B4-4E5F-937C-2DD41104E229Materials Characterisation2550CC55CC-BE0D-4167-BD99-285D6BCC369BMaterials processing252B23EFD7-00EA-4FCA-8685-A8B4B94BF976Electronic Devices & Subsys.50AH/I02352X/1Literary Mapping: Dickens and the Dynamics of PlaceClosedTraining GrantAHRCEnglish Language and LiteratureAlong with a large collection of nineteenth-century maps of London and topographical materials, The Museum of London (MoL) holds a series of 41 watercolours painted 1860-1870 by J.L. Stewart of 'real places' in Dickens's novels. The Bishopsgate Institute holds a further 60 Victorian watercolours of Dickensian places. Other holdings at MoL include paintings, panoramas, and stereographic images; the covers and illustrations of the serial parts of Dickens's novels; later book-edition illustrations; the archives of Dickensian tourism at MoL (and at the Dickens House Museum), including plans of 'Dickens Walks' and Victorian 'Dickens' souvenirs. MoL also holds significant theatrical collections and large collections of photographs of London. To mark the bicentenary of Dickens's birth in 2012, a major exhibition will run at MoL from December 2011-June 2012, with an international tour to follow. The student would use the exhibition as a significant research resource for thinking about the continuing fascination with the geography of Dickens's London. S/he would be involved in creating a 'Dickens Walk' for the exhibition, also delivered through an phone app, and in running and presenting at events connected to it, as well as in detailed evaluation of its visitor response. \nApplications will be invited which address some or all of the following research questions:\nWas Dickens the only author whose work was mapped so closely to the 'real' during -and after - his lifetime? (comparators could be Scott, Hardy, Wordsworth) \nHow does the map of Dickens's places change over the nineteenth century?\nHow does an ever more pervasive print culture generate new ideas of 'place' and create specific 'places'?\nHow does the representation of place in 'fact-based' articles in Household Words and All the Year Round compare to Dickens's versions in the novels? (Significant places might include: Newgate, bridges, coaching inns, law courts, London churchyards, the City, and what Dickens called 'fairy land': the places of entertainment and theatre). \nHow did Dickens's own travels affect his construction of the provincial and the global? (Locations which might be considered include: the cities of Boston in the US; Paris; Rome and its ruins, Rochester, Preston, Broadstairs). \nHow did Dickens's texts themselves travel? How did his American and/or colonial readers in his lifetime interpret his sense of place? \nWhat was the impact of photography, and -later- film, on the poetics of place and particularly of London? Conversely, what was Dickens's influence on filmic 'placing' - in the early films of Griffith and Eisenstein, for example?\nWhat happens to place when it becomes distanced in time? How do we reconstruct Dickens's places today? \nWhat have been the effects of the heritage industry and mass culture on Dickens's work?\nThere has been much debate about 'place' as historically contingent process in recent years. The thesis will engage with work generated by scholars of geography, history, literature and art, such as David Harvey; Nigel Thrift, Derek Gregory; Henri Lefebvre; Raymond Williams, Lynda Nead and Franco Moretti.\nThe student would have a hot desk space at MoL and access to all the graduate-student facilities at KCL. S/he would spend at least one day every week at MoL, and often more, particularly during the first year, in the run-up to and during the 2012 Dickens exhibition which will stimulate and feedback into the initial research. In years two and three the student will add value to the documentation around MoL's Dickens-related collections, in the light of his/her doctoral research, and will choose and curate a group of objects for an on-line exhibition in year 3 in line with the MoL's ongoing research strategy. Academic supervisions would be supplemented by meetings at least every two months between Werner, Pettitt and the stuDickens is exceptional as a literary figure who continues to excite immense international interest and his bicentenary in 2012 will generate considerable media attention. Both Werner and Pettitt are experienced in giving media interviews and dealing with the press (Pettitt was interviewed on Radio 4's Today Programme, among others, about her last book; and Werner regularly speaks to the press) and are well-placed to capitalise on these opportunities, and maximise the media exposure of both the exhibition and the connected research at MoL.\n\nPettitt is planning a new undergraduate course on 'Dickens and London' inspired by this project. The beneficiaries of the collaboration will include but will also extend well beyond students (UG/PG) and academic staff at KCL and Museum staff at MoL. They will include a wide variety of museum/exhibition visitors, both 'real' and on-line, such as school children, adult learners, academics and journalists, and we expect international impact, both through tourists attending the exhibition and its supporting events, and, in the longer term, through hits on the legacy 'Dickens exhibit' website. \n\nThe student will also be involved in organising and presenting at a series of exhibition-related events, some at the MoL and some at KCL which will be free and open to the public. KCL has a new partnership with Cheltenham Literary Festival so a Dickens event could appear on the 2012 Festival programme too.\n \n'Literary Mapping: Dickens and the Dynamics of Place' will provide new insights into London's past, helping to inform the public histories presented by the Museum in its displays, online and through other outputs. The Museum recently created one of the most successful phone apps interpreting London's historic topography (Streetmuseum), and the student will be well placed to build on this and help the Museum deliver another innovative resource that will reveal the London of Charles Dickens to the general public. Considering the worldwide interest in the works of Dickens, such a resource is likely to have a broad appeal both to national and international visitors as well as those who live and work in the capital, and the intention is to deliver it in a range of languages. It will impact on the Museum's marketing campaign in drawing people to the exhibition (the target has been set at 100,000 visitors between December 2011 and June 2012). It will have a financial impact by increasing revenue for the Museum and other related attractions and sites across London.\n\nThe student's work will demonstrate the potential of the Museum's collections as a research resource and add value to the Museum's existing body of knowledge about its collections. The delivery of an online exhibition around the Museum's Dickens-related collections will create a further publicly accessible output and contribute to the Museum's reputation as a national and international resource on London and, in this case, specifically about literary London in the nineteenth century. It will also form part of the MoL's ongoing commitment to defining itself as a rich research resource both for scholars and for the public.\n\nCrucially, though, the impact of this project will not be only 'one way' - pushing outwards from the MoL towards the public. It will also close the loop and feed back the responses and ideas of the public into MoL's on-line displays. The student will have the opportunity to do this both through devising creative ways of eliciting reactions and responses at the exhibition from different constituencies of visitors, and through the detailed evaluation of this visitor response, and its use in considering the meanings of 'Dickens' to different interest-groups.\n\nThis innovative collaboration between curatorial and academic specialists has the potential to deliver both a highly stimulating doctoral apprenticeship, and6CFA1E1F-F25C-4C23-8FE1-C47AE53E333EUnclassifiedST/M00161X/1ISOL-SRS: ISOL Beam Storage Ring SpectrometerClosedResearch GrantSTFCPhysicsAbstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.Knowledge transfer: We foresee a number of areas where knowledge transfer could occur. All detectors used with the external solenoid must operate successfully in high magnetic field. In particular, we have highly pixellated silicon detectors. The challenges making these highly-integrated detectors function in this environment are extremely close to the demands of combined PET/MRI or SPECT/MRI, seen as a high priority for medical imaging in the future. Highly integrated electronics and ASICs may also be transferred over to the medical or other relevant sectors. The detectors to be used inside the storage ring must survive baking out to high temperatures and be compatible with very high vacuum. This may have applications to other areas of science. In the exploitation phase, the ISOL-SRS system could be used to gather nuclear data relevant to fission reactors, decommissioning or future fusion reactors. A specific example is the ability to measure beta-delayed neutron branches of ions stored in the ring. All the groups have a strong background in knowledge transfer. The Liverpool and Daresbury groups have experience in transferring nuclear physics detector technology towards the medical sector in areas such as SPECT imaging. York established an industry-facing detector development laboratory working on coupling scintillators to novel photosensors. Manchester has the Dalton Institute in-house who provide a natural linkage to the nuclear energy sector, while Surrey have a diverse group working in applications. Manchester, York and Surrey working on nuclear data relevant to present and future fission reactors, supported by an EPSRC grant. Knowledge transfer may be facilitated between groups and companies concerned with applications in nuclear measurement techniques and instrumentation, including GE Healthcare, BAE Systems, AWE, Canberra, Centronic, Kromek, Canberra Harwell UK, Ametek (Ortec), John Caunt Scientific, National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) and Rapiscan. Liverpool has a 4 year STFC IPS Fellowship to maximize the impact of the STFC science portfolio. The Fellow will work closely with Liverpool, STFC Daresbury Laboratory and the Cockcroft Institute for Accelerator Science. The role will deliver increased numbers of industrial studentships, enable "pump priming" of collaborative ideas through appropriate routes such as mini-IPS or mini-KTP projects and will facilitate potential staff exchanges with industrial collaborators. The Edinburgh Nuclear Physics Group has been at the forefront of nuclear physics applications of silicon strip detectors since this technology became commercially available. They have a long-standing relationship with the UK company Micron Semiconductor Ltd (MSL). With MSL, they have developed silicon strip detector designs with very thin (~20 micron) and thick wafers (~mm) for our research applications. MSL now has a range and depth of technical capability unmatched by any commercial company worldwide and this technology is now applied to X-ray and space-based applications. Public engagement: There is considerable scope to engage with a variety of general audiences from schoolchildren to the wider public. Big science like nuclear/particle physics and astronomy is acknowledged as one of the key motivators for young people to decide to study Physics at university level and for a career. This project has an inspirational story attached relating to our fundamental understanding of nuclear structure and our understanding of the origin of the chemical elements. We are developing new instrumentation for the world's most famous scientific laboratory. The test bed solenoid magnet has featured in an article in New Scientist. Ongoing educational initiatives include Nuclear Physics Masterclasses for schoolchildren held at Surrey, Liverpool and York, supported by outreach officers co-funded by the Ogden Institute. Public engagement work will be facilitated by the STFC outreach officer, Elizabeth Cunningham.8C77C51A-5639-42DA-B4F4-4A184CA2EA00Nuclear physics1005333CE47-4782-4D31-A764-62C2F6914101Nuclear Astrophysics50A4CEBAA4-8692-41A1-89CB-E92E7854929ENuclear Structure50EP/E013422/1Imaging fluorescence from cells in 5-dimensions: x, y, wavelength, lifetime, and anisotropy.ClosedResearch GrantEPSRCSchool of Science & TechnologyFluorescent probes are widely used to study the location and function of biomolecules in cells. Using current fluorescence methods, the behavior of molecules within cells can be studied. Examples include: clustering, rotational motion, and intermolecular distance. These three examples are studied by measuring fluorescence lifetime and anisotropy. Simultaneous monitoring of the behavior of many types of molecules in cells over an extended area is an important unsolved physical problem. This proposal seeks to develop, study, and use a new approach to fluorescence imaging combining spectroscopy, fluorescence lifetime, and anisotropy with a goal of studying the behavior of many types of molecules in cells simultaneously. This will produce images with x and y spatial dimensions and fluorescence emission wavelength, fluorescence lifetime, and fluorescence anisotropy. The research has three parts: construction of new instrumentation, tests on defined mixtures of fluorescent compounds in a solution, and study of an important cell surface receptor. Successful completion of the study will provide biologists with new ways to study clustering, motion, and intermolecular distances of multiple molecular species in the field of a microscope.CD31C09B-E4ED-4429-8639-2B258858CDE1Optics, photonics & lasers502D9083F0-05FA-4726-9EB2-3FCC293CAAF9Biomolecules & biochemistry50C3F75436-9E3C-49EA-937B-37595DB168ECChemical Biology5026CDCF2A-8EF5-45B3-88A4-09064D3F279ALasers & Optics50UKRI4071Assessing hurricane damage and species vulnerability across six Jamaican forest ecosystems following catastrophic and compounding hurricanesActiveResearch GrantNERCOn 28 November 2025, Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 hurricane with maximum sustained winds >295 km/h, made landfall on Jamaica's south-western coast as the most powerful hurricane on record (since 1851) and the third most intense Atlantic hurricane, damaging six tropical forest ecosystems. These include the Blue Mountains (BM) cloud forest, John Crow Mountains (JCM) wet montane forest, Cockpit Country (CC) moist forest, Portland Ridge (PR) and Hellshire Hills (HH) (the last remaining habitat for the critically endangered Jamaican iguana) dry forests, and the Black River Lower Morass (BRLM) herbaceous wetland. Two sites (CC and BRLM) experienced significant damage. Melissa's impact was compounded by Hurricane Beryl, (Category 4, 3 July 2024) that damaged the BRLM and PR. All sites are internationally recognized biodiversity hotspots and protected areas including a National Park (BM and JCM), World Heritage site (BM and JCM), tentative World Heritage Site (CC), and RAMSAR wetland (BRLM). The frequency of high-intensity hurricane impacts has increased due to climate change. The JCM is the most frequently impacted – five hurricanes in 21 years (2004-2025) versus nine in 153 years (1851-2003) – while the CC is the least frequently impacted – two hurricanes in 37 years (1988-2025) versus three in 136 years (1851-1987). Past hurricane damage at three sites (PR, HH and CC) was never assessed and species/ecosystem vulnerability remains unknown. Hurricanes alter plant species composition through differential mortality and recruitment over years or decades. Compounding impacts reduce populations of vulnerable species. Jamaica has a high diversity of endemic frogs (23 species), many threatened with extinction. Many use bromeliads - funnel/vase-shaped rosette plants growing in trees and on the ground that holds water - as habitats. Most have fallen or are buried, and recovery may take decades. Accurate pre-recovery damage mapping is essential for tracking these changes and identifying vulnerable plant and frog species. Current mapping methods have limitations. Pre- and post-hurricane satellite image differencing is limited by image availability and cloud cover and validated using qualitative, subjective categories. Maps from our hurricane damage model can track forest structural changes and predict frog population responses but were validated using a subjective, site-specific parameter. To generalize our model across forest types and scales, we need data from objective, three-dimensional (3D) measurement methods. We have pre-hurricane data from 217 permanent plots (13.8 ha) monitoring 20,000+ stems of 200+ plant species across five impacted ecosystems, with recent surveys (2011-2025) including 3D data, plus 32 additional BM plots (1.426 ha), some monitored since 1974. Consequently, we have an unprecedented opportunity to quantify damage from a single Category 5 hurricane – the first in 174 years – and compounding hurricanes and identify accurate damage metrics and vulnerable species. With existing and newly established plots, we will (1) characterize hurricane damage across six tropical forest types using 3D data, (2) validate our damage model and satellite image differencing maps for broader applications, (3) assess frog populations at damaged and undamaged sites, and (4) identify plant and frog species vulnerable to damage from single catastrophic and compounding hurricanes. Follow-up surveys over 1-2, 2-5, and >5 years will track species responses to identify vulnerable/resilient species for conservation prioritization. Findings from our rapid and medium to longer term assessments will guide conservation and management initiatives aimed at reducing ecosystem vulnerability and supporting recovery in an era of intensifying hurricanes.6CFA1E1F-F25C-4C23-8FE1-C47AE53E333EUnclassified104673Using blockchain technology to improve UK telephone number managementClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKAwaiting Public Project Summary6CFA1E1F-F25C-4C23-8FE1-C47AE53E333EUnclassified0AFBED4C-BA96-4F67-AAE6-5C41838B9BC6OFCOMLEAD_PARTICIPANT935600.0935600.02260824AI-driven design of enzyme replacement therapiesClosedStudentshipOther NPIFSch of InformaticsEnzymes are molecules catalysing all the reaction in a cell and, when defective, they can cause life threatening diseases, such as Gaucher's disease. Patients with enzymatic deficiencies can be treated by injecting a recombinant version of the defective enzyme; however, injection of wild-type human enzymes is usually ineffective, as they are less active and often cause immune response. Thus, human enzymes must be engineered to optimise their therapeutic properties. Designing enzymes is challenging as standard biochemical or biophysical methods do not work well on large proteins as they are not sufficiently accurate to identify new functional enzymes in large protein sequence space. Generative Machine Learning (ML), instead, represents an attractive approach to learn design principles to build new enzymes directly from the sequences of molecules found in nature. Recently, conditional recurrent neural networks (cRNN), a particular type of neural networks (NN) suitable for working with sequences, were successfully used to generate novel antimicrobial peptides and protein structures, but scaling these methods to design complex molecules, including enzymes, remains a largely unexplored field. We will develop deep generative models to learn the functional design space of human enzymes and implement optimisation methods to find the most likely amino acid sequence encoding a specific catalytic function. To do that, we will integrate proteomic, evolutionary and structural data publicly available across biological databases and develop variational methods to fit enzyme sequence models. The availability of these methods will enable design of new designer enzymes.6CFA1E1F-F25C-4C23-8FE1-C47AE53E333EUnclassified2119089Microbial Interactions Within Denture BiofilmsClosedStudentshipBBSRCDentistryMost microorganisms naturally grow within biofilms in both environmental and industrial systems. Biofilms on denture surfaces are widely acknowledged and arise in cases of poor oral/denture hygiene and where dentures are not removed whilst sleeping. Key microorganisms in denture biofilms include fungi of the genus Candida as well as bacteria that can originate from other oral sites or from exogenous sources. The majority of denture biofilm studies have targeted Candida as these fungi are highly adept at adhering to denture acrylic and can induce the infection, denture associated stomatitis. Denture biofilms are, however, ideal for investigating microbial interactions since they are readily accessible, polymicrobial and variable in their microbial composition and can be modelled in vitro. Furthermore, difference in conditioning of the denture surface may also lead to differential species colonisation and biofilm behaviour. Preliminary studies in our School of Dentistry have highlighted the effect that bacterial species may have on denture biofilm composition and behaviour of Candida albicans. We have found that Candida growth can be inhibited in biofilms by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, whilst other bacteria, such as certain streptococcal species can influence the morphologyof C. albicans. The reasons for these effects remain unclear, but could be due to specific associations between species, or a feature of a wider community effect on the biofilm. Project aims The aims of this PhD are therefore to explore the types and mechanism(s) of microbial interactions that occur in biofilms, using denture biofilms as model systems.6CFA1E1F-F25C-4C23-8FE1-C47AE53E333EUnclassified750553Safe and Sound - secure and sustainable Cloud3D servicesClosedVouchersInnovate UKSafe and Sound will enable Hao2.eu to research and develop good practise standards and approaches to deliver secure and sustainable Cloud3D services which proactively anticipate and support the needs of vulnerable groups such as people with autism and learning disabilities.6CFA1E1F-F25C-4C23-8FE1-C47AE53E333EUnclassified288A0B86-D107-4599-8CC3-167C05AF1D49HADWEBUTKNOWN LIMITEDLEAD_PARTICIPANT5000.05000.0NE/H526886/1Doctoral Training Grant (DTG) to provide funding for 3 PhD studentships.ClosedTraining GrantNERCSchool of Life SciencesDoctoral Training Partnerships: a range of postgraduate training is funded by the Research Councils. For information on current funding routes, see the common terminology at https://www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/how-we-fund-studentships/. Training grants may be to one organisation or to a consortia of research organisations. This portal will show the lead organisation only.6CFA1E1F-F25C-4C23-8FE1-C47AE53E333EUnclassifiedNE/L011956/1Undestanding microbial communities through in situ environmental 'omic data synthesisClosedFellowshipNERCCollege of Science and EngineeringThe purpose of this research is to integrate different sources of 'omics data in environmental science for microbial community analysis. The computational based comparative analysis of DNA sequences may provide information about genome structure, gene function, metabolic and regulatory pathways and how microbial genomes evolve. However, to fully delineate microbial activity and its response to environmental factors, it is necessary to include all levels of gene products, mRNA, protein, metabolites, as well as their interactions. I propose to use large-scale whole genome metagenomic sequencing for assessment of taxonomic and functional diversity of microbial communities. The data generated by metagenomic experiments are both enormous and inherently noisy, containing fragmented DNA sequences representing as many as thousands of microbial species. After using pre-filtering steps, including removal of redundant, low quality sequences, the short DNA sequences are assembled together into longer contigs of overlapping reads, and these contigs may then be scaffolded into full genomes in a bottom-up approach. Having obtained the assembled contigs, the obvious next step is to use publically available databases to annotate the coding regions in these contigs. This will tell us WHAT functionality is available and provide information on WHO is there, the metagenomic sequences are binned, i.e., by associating a particular sequence with an organism. This can be done by either searching for phylogenetic markers or by looking for similar sequences in existing public databases. The end result is the community profile of different samples in terms of organismal abundances within each sample. Whilst metagenomic analysis gives a profile of the microbial community at a specific place or time, and their potential functional, it does not reveal which genes are actually being transcribed. I thus propose to integrate sequencing-based metatranscriptomics in which total RNA (a proxy for gene activity) is extracted from microbial community, converted to cDNA and sequenced without the need for cloning. This will provide information on the regulation and expression profiles of complex communities by enabling quantitative measurements of dynamic expression of RNA molecules and their variation between different states reflecting the genes that are being actively expressed at any given time. However, the story is still far from complete, as we do not have direct evidence of the metabolism within a cell. To give a more complete picture of living organisms, I will integrate metabolomics which will provide unique chemical fingerprints that are a function of specific cellular activity. In particular, the focus will be on identifying habitat-specific endogenous and exogenous metabolites along distinct geochemical conditions. These metabolites will be detected using two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. They will be related to the expression levels from transcriptomes using information on metabolic pathways readily available from annotating metagenomic sequences. In this way we will integrate all three sources of information, mapping the metatranscriptome onto the assembled annotated metagenomes and reconciling the reconstructed metabolic pathways with observations on metabolite concentrations and fluxes. From this we will be able to predict the metabolic function of the entire community not simply who is there.The removal of complex organic contaminants from soils will be one of the major environmental challenges facing the United Kingdom over the coming decades and recommendations based on this proposal will be of use to stakeholders especially, the remediation consultants, industry regulators i.e. SEPA and local councils. Brownfield development is an important part of the societal shift towards sustainability. Many contaminated brownfield sites sit unused for decades because the cost of cleaning them is more than the land would be worth after redevelopment. This research will impact on our ability to achieve sustainable reclaim of environmental capital and will allow adaptive re-usability. The Earth Microbiome Project has generated an enormous collection of data with the intention of producing a global Gene Atlas describing protein space, environmental metabolic models, and characterizing a global environmental parameter space for microbial communities. This global environmental sample database is an ambitious initiative that is community-driven. The tools developed in this fellowship will exploit this vast amount of information to provide useful insights on the Earth's microbiome and to catalogue all the microbes that live on earth. This will be of great benefit to mankind as whole, these microbes are performing vital functions, and to environmental researchers. Methanogenesis is a key process in the carbon cycle, methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, therefore understanding its metabolism at a community level is of fundamental importance if we are to incorporate microbial processes into models of climate change. Methane is an important greenhouse gas yet its production could play a part in the transition to a low carbon economy. Water treatment is the fourth most energy intensive sector in the UK and consumes approximately 1% of the UK's electricity. Reducing the energy required to treat wastewater would therefore have major benefits both by reducing costs and carbon dioxide emissions. Anaerobic digestion (AD) reactors have the potential to provide these benefits. They do not require the same energetically costly aeration as aerobic methods and through the action of methanogens produce biogas. Better understanding of methanogenesis could lead to more efficient AD reactors.29F3DF16-3094-4F79-BC69-8D05FB551826Omic sciences & technologies70F673FD2B-013B-47E5-9E62-03BAB1E7348EEnvironmental engineering104CCA4C04-0C28-41BE-8869-FA6391A7F005Microbial sciences20513702B4-7C48-41F2-A1A0-8B4E8BEDCABCAssess/Remediate Contamination10C6A85141-ED79-4266-86E5-F6D25217C97FEnvironmental Genomics40937A9F23-021A-4604-8979-A28E0E04F825Transcriptomics10AF3F5E7C-7FB6-4588-9174-6018BA2A231BEnvironmental Microbiology207E61B40B-93E5-4D69-8C89-426ED7E0D2B4Metabolomics / Metabonomics202430216Real-time prediction of cellular states in 3D lattice light sheet microscopyClosedStudentshipMRCWarwick Medical SchoolProgramme overview: This MRC-funded doctoral training partnership (DTP) brings together cutting-edge molecular and analytical sciences with innovative computational approaches in data analysis to enable students to address hypothesis-led biomedical research questions. This is a 4-year programme whose first year involves a series of taught modules and two laboratory-based research projects that lead to an MSc in Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research. The first two terms consist of a selection of taught modules that allow students to gain a solid grounding in multidisciplinary science. Students also attend a series of masterclasses led by academic and industry experts in areas of molecular, cellular and tissue dynamics, microbiology and infection, applied biomedical technologies and artificial intelligence and data science. During the third and summer terms students conduct two eleven-week research projects in labs of their choice. Project overview: Lattice light sheet microscopy (LLSM) is a new technology to visualise fast cellular processes at the time scale of 1 second, in 3D. LLSM is very low through-put however, limiting its use for studying rare events, such as cell divisions. In close collaboration with industrial partner Intelligent Imaging Innovations Ltd. (3i), suppliers of LLSM, we will develop an integrated imaging pipeline to classify and anticipate physiologically meaningful events during the cell cycle using state of the art machine learning. The main goal is to 1) enable automated control of the image acquisition and increase its throughput, and 2) make it possible to analyse statistically significant numbers of well-defined cellular events and their progression from an early stage, which often go unnoticed by even the most expert human experimenter. Enabling detailed spatio-temporal analysis of the 3D imaging data will help to better understand the timing and control of different stages of cell division and recognise more subtle defects in cell division which can affect development or diseases such as cancer where divisions occur uncontrolled. This is an interdisciplinary project at the interface of cell biology, computer science and engineering, enabling fundamental science to improve human health through world-class biomedical research. Health focus is enabling biological research into genetic risk and disease mechanisms, aiming at new strategies for early diagnosis and treatment. The specific training the student will receive is geared towards quantitative and interdisciplinary skills and understanding of whole organism physiology in addition to that of single cells in the main project. The training in advanced machine learning and computing addresses the demand for team scientists and technology specialists and will help to build new software technologies and imaging instruments that will become available to the biomedical community in the future.6CFA1E1F-F25C-4C23-8FE1-C47AE53E333EUnclassifiedMC_PC_13051Molecular recognition in post-transcriptional regulation 2ClosedIntramuralMRCUNLISTEDThe functioning of the human body and of complex organisms in general requires different proteins to be produced in different types of cells. This cell-type-specific protein production is achieved by precisely regulating the translation of the genetic code into proteins. The two steps in this process of translation are, first, the translation of the DNA-encoded information into RNA and, then, the translation of the RNA code into a protein molecule. Both processes are regulated by biological machines, which are composed of proteins and, in some cases, RNA molecules. We focus on the regulation of the RNA-to-protein step (or post-transcriptional regulation) and investigate how the protein RNA machines assemble in a solution environment and regulate gene expression. Our structural studies complement other techniques such as X-ray crystallography, which can be used to study molecules in a static crystalline state. Analysing the structures of the molecules that govern regulation of protein synthesis has a direct medical relevance, as this process lies at the basis of common genetic diseases, cancer and viral infections. We work on an important regulatory mechanism, called ARE mediated mRNA decay (AMD), that increase the synthesis of specific proteins in inflammation and healing processes. This mechanism, if permanently switched on, can lead to inflammatory arthritis and cancer. We want to understand how the switch works at the molecular level and design specific therapies to switch in off when required.||Using a similar technical approach we are also investigating a key regulatory protein from herpes virus. This project wants to facilitate the design of anti-herpes drugs to treat people infected with this virus, which forms a major threat to immunodepressed patients, increases the risk of organ transplantation and chemotherapy and reduces the life expectancy of AIDS sufferers. Molecular insight into the interaction of ICP27 with its functional binding partners needs to be obtained if we are, for example, to design or optimise compounds to lock protein and RNA in a non-functional conformation or to (de)stabilise protein RNA complexes.Multifunctional eukaryotic regulatory proteins and their viral functional equivalents control gene expression by interacting with mRNAs in large macromolecular aggregates. Dissection of the molecular basis of post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms has a direct medical relevance, as changes in the regulation of mRNA metabolism lie at the basis of common genetic diseases, cancer and viral infection. Current therapies for these diseases do not focus on the post-transcriptional steps of regulation but rather on the transcriptional ones, that are better understood. Our aim is to clarify the structure-function relation that is at the basis of mRNA recognition by post-transcriptional regulatory proteins and to suggest strategies to control this recognition. Adenine-uracil-rich element (ARE)-mediated mRNA decay (AMD) regulates the concentration of mRNAs that contain AREs within their 3 untranslated regions (3 UTRs) by promoting their degradation. Transient AMD shut-off up-regulates the stability of these mRNAs and is important for processes that require a fast response of the organism such as cellular growth, immune response, cardiovascular toning and external stress-mediated pathways. However, impaired AMD and the consequent pathological long-term increase in the stability of a subset of mRNAs have been related to several types of cancer (skin tumours, colorectal cancer, Hodgkins lymphoma, lung carcinoma and leukaemia) and auto-inflammatory diseases (Crohn-like inflammatory bowel disease and inflammatory arthritis). K-homology splicing regulator protein (KSRP) is an important player in AMD that interacts with several different AREs mediating the degradation of the corresponding mRNAs. Our work centers on the analysis of the structural and functional elements that contribute to KSRP-RNA interactions and to mRNA degradation. We are studying the structure and dynamics of the different domains of the protein and investigated their relationship to mRNA degradation. Using structural and functional information, we plan to dissect the details of the interaction with the RNA and help the design of a strategy for the tuning of KSRP activity. Herpes viridae induced infections are a major threat to immunodepressed patients, increasing the risk of transplants and chemotherapy and reducing the life expectancy of AIDS sufferers. Current herpes virus therapies (e.g. Acyclovir) aim to block the synthesis of new DNA, but resistance to these treatments is increasing. Successful viral replication is achieved through the tightly regulated expression of viral genes. A key component of the regulatory mechanism is ICP27, an essential HSV-1 RNA binding protein that regulates protein expression, both at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional level. We will study both ICP27 and the mechanism of post-transcriptional regulation acted upon by this protein, in particular 3 mRNA editing. Using the same strategy described above for the protein KSRP, we will obtain a better understanding of the regulatory cycle of the virus and define specific structural features amenable to structure-aided drug design.6CFA1E1F-F25C-4C23-8FE1-C47AE53E333EUnclassified10159543ERDERA - EUROPEAN RARE DISEASES RESEARCH ALLIANCEActiveEU-FundedHorizon Europe GuaranteeAbstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.6CFA1E1F-F25C-4C23-8FE1-C47AE53E333EUnclassified13C979ED-CCCE-4C21-9953-307B6EC53D42NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITYLEAD_PARTICIPANT265671.0265671.02594586Using Artificial Intelligence to Understand Zeolite CatalystsClosedStudentshipEPSRCMaterialsElectron microscopy provides a unique tool for studying the local structure of materials at the atomic scale. However, a major challenge lies in correlating bulk measurements of properties with highly selective structural data. One approach is to take advantage of fast electron detectors to acquire large data sets of millions of images and to develop automated analysis tools based on deep learning to analyse these. The overall aim of this project is to study defect structures in zeolites involved in heterogeneous catalysis. This project will use recent developments in fast direct electron detectors for transmission electron microscopy for low dose imaging and neural networks trained for pattern recognition of specific defect structures. The potential impact of these studies is a better understanding of catalytic processes of interest to the industrial sponsor and an improved understanding of the relationships between catalytic performance and local structure. Initially the project will use new detectors operating at kHz frame rates to record large datasets containing many TEM images of defect structures. In parallel the project will develop the use of machine learning based on convolution neural networks to build image analysis tools suitable for analysing large data sets containing millions of images. A convolutional neural network will be trained using simulated data of known defect structures for various electron dose budgets and other imaging conditions. This will then be used to analyse the experimental data to gain meaningful statistics on defect types. The research proposed relies heavily on unique instrumentation available at the electron Physical Sciences Imaging Centre. Specifically, a new high speed direct electron detector operating at a frame rate in excess of 2KHz in 12 bit counting mode will be used to acquire low dose data. Within all of the above aims and objectives it will be necessary to ensure that the methods developed are robust to low dose data acquisition as zeolites are known to be radiation sensitive and to ensure that electron beam induced effects are minimised. Initially pure zeolites will be studied but the project will also be extended to study metal loaded zeolites and comparisons between defects in these systems and the pure materials will provide insights into the mechanisms and structural consequences of metal loading. Finally catalytic data will be measured at the industrial sponsors laboratories to attempt to correlate catalytic performance with the nature and densities of defects present across a range of loaded and unloaded samples The project falls within the EPSRC energy, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and physical sciences research areas The project is funded by Johnson Matthey plc through the iCase initiative.6CFA1E1F-F25C-4C23-8FE1-C47AE53E333EUnclassifiedMR/Y016629/1Predicting Biological Carbon in the Ocean Globally (PRECOG)ActiveFellowshipUKRI FLFEarth, Ocean and Ecological SciencesEmissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from our society are rapidly warming our climate to currently 1.1 degrees C warmer than in preindustrial times. Global governments have pledged to reduce emissions to stabilise our warming climate at 1.5 degrees requiring us to reduce emissions of CO2 to a point where they no longer accumulate in the atmosphere: Net Zero. A crucial consideration in this effort are natural reservoirs of carbon on the Earth's surface such as permafrost and soils that store large amounts of carbon away from the atmosphere, but which are vulnerable to environmental change. The destabilisation of these reservoirs over time, releasing more CO2 into the atmosphere, presents a challenge to stabilising climate upon reaching Net Zero. Therefore, predicting how these natural carbon reservoirs will change in the future is a crucially important task. The Biological Carbon Pump is one of these natural reservoirs of carbon in our Earth System. It stores carbon in the ocean by plankton (microscopic plants) taking up CO2 as they grow in the surface ocean. The sinking remains of these plankton carry the carbon into the deep ocean locking it away for hundreds to thousands of years. This carbon pool is equivalent in size to the anthropogenically-driven increase in atmospheric CO2 over the 20th century. The Biological Carbon Pump is widely expected to be sensitive to environmental change and could therefore release CO2 in the future. However, we have limited knowledge of what those changes might be and why because we don't have the necessary outputs from the state-of-the-art future projections by Earth System Models that underpin the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that inform social, economic and political decisions about Climate Change. PREdicting biological Carbon in the Ocean Globally (PRECOG) will build a team of experts at the University of Liverpool to comprehensively explore the future of the Biological Carbon Pump using state-of-the-art Earth System Model projections. PRECOG will strategically align with an international network of researchers and industry partners to build a new knowledge framework that will inform future IPCC reports and mitigation strategies. PRECOG will: 1) Derive new standard quantitative measures of the Biological Carbon Pump in a future changing ocean. 2) Quantify how and why the Biological Carbon Pump changes in state-of-the-art future projections that underpin the IPCC reports. 3) Determine the long-term impact of the Biological Carbon Pump beyond the year 2100 using new Earth System Model simulations. 4) Predict which future projections of the Biological Carbon Pump are most likely and how this might impact schemes to artificially enhance carbon storage by combining future projections with new compilations of observations. PRECOG has a strong focus on connecting scientific outcomes to societally relevant outcomes. The research team will maintain a strong and active link with IPCC activities through its international network with the aim of raising the profile of Biological Carbon Pump research. PRECOG will also work with industry partners interested in techniques that will enhance the carbon storage of the Biological Carbon Pump to help mitigate rising CO2 such as kelp farming and seeding the ocean with iron. PRECOG will provide the state-of-the-art estimates for the best locations to undertake these activities and disseminate these findings through its industrial partners. In summary, the Biological Carbon Pump is a vulnerable natural carbon pool in the ocean that can influence atmospheric CO2 in response to environmental change. The future of this carbon pool is however poorly known. This Future Leaders Fellowship, PRECOG, will establish a team of experts to explore the Biological Carbon Pump in state-of-the-art IPCC projections to find out what the likely future changes are and translate this is into a societally relevant agenda.6CFA1E1F-F25C-4C23-8FE1-C47AE53E333EUnclassified