EPSRC UK Acoustics Network Plus

Lead Research Organisation: University of Sheffield
Department Name: Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

The acoustics industry contributes £4.6 billion to the UK's economy annually, employing more than 16,000 people, each generating over £65,000 in gross value added across over 750 companies nationwide. The productivity of acoustics industry is similar to that of other enabling technologies, for example the UK photonics industry (£62k per employee in 2014). Innovation through research in acoustics is a key to its industry success. The UK's acoustics industry and research feeds into many major global markets, including the $10 billion market for sound insulation materials in construction, $7.6 billion ultrasound equipment market and $31 billion market for voice recognition. This is before the vital role of acoustics in automotive, aerospace, marine and defence is taken into consideration, or that of the major UK industries that leverage acoustics expertise, or the indirect environmental and societal value of acoustics is considered.

All the four Grand Challenges identified in the 2017 UK Industrial Strategy require acoustics innovation. The Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF, https://www.ukri.org/innovation/industrial-strategychallenge-fund/) focuses on areas all of which need support from acoustics as an enabling technology. The future of acoustics research in the UK depends on its ability to contribute to the Four Grand Challenges. Numerous examples are emerging to demonstrate the central role of acoustics in addressing the four Grand Challenges and particularly through more focused research. The acoustics-related research base in the UK is internationally competitive, but it is important to continue to link this research directly to the four Grand Challenges. In this process, the role of UK Acoustics Network (UKAN) is very important. The Network unites over 870 members organised in 15 Special Interest Groups (www.acoustics.ac.uk) who represent industry, academia and various non-academic organisations which success relies on the quality of acoustics related research in the UK. UKAN was funded by the EPSRC as a standard Network grant with the explicit aim of pulling together the formerly disparate and disjoint acoustics community in the UK, across both industry and academia. UKAN has been remarkably successful. Its success is manifested in the large number of its members, numerous network events it has run since its inception in November 2017 and contribution it has made to the acoustics research community. Unfortunately, UKAN has not been in the position to fund new, pilot adventurous or translational projects nor has it any funding support for on-going research or knowledge transfer (KT) activities.

The purpose of UKAN+ is to move beyond UKAN, create strategic connections between acoustics challenges and the Grand Challenges and to tackle these challenges through pilot studies leading in turn to full-scale grant proposals and systematic research and KT projects involving a wider acoustics community. There is a great opportunity for the future of the UK's acoustics related research to move on beyond this point, build upon the assembled critical mass and explore the trans-disciplinary work initiated by UKAN. Therefore, this proposal is for UKAN+ to take this community to the next stage, connect this Network more widely in the UK and internationally to contribute through coordinated research to the solution of Grand Challenges set by the government. UKAN+ will develop a new roadmap for acoustics research in the UK related to Grand Challenges, award exploratory (pilot) cross-disciplinary research projects to the wider community to support adventure research and knowledge transfer activities agreed in the roadmap and support the development of develop full-scale bids to the government research funding bodies which are aligned with the Grand Challenges. UKAN+ will also set up a National Centre or Coordination of Acoustics Research, achieve full sustainability and support best Equality, Diversity and Inclusion practices.

Organisations

Publications

10 25 50
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Bradfer-Lawrence T (2023) Using acoustic indices in ecology: Guidance on study design, analyses and interpretation in Methods in Ecology and Evolution

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Caetano A (2023) Integral equation methods for acoustic scattering by fractals

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Chandler-Wilde S (2022) Corrigendum: Interpolation of Hilbert and Sobolev spaces: Quantitative estimates and counterexamples (Mathematika 61 (2015), 414-443) in Mathematika

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Chandler-Wilde S. (2022) Reflections on an EDI Survey of UK-Government-Funded Research Networks in the UK in Internoise 2022 - 51st International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering

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Clayton M (2023) An Embedded Multichannel Sound Acquisition System for Drone Audition in IEEE Sensors Journal

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Clayton M (2023) UAV Bioacoustic Monitoring for Bird Survey

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Dance S (2022) Teaching acoustics during a pandemic: Lab in a Box for experiments at home. in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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Francesco Aletta (2022) Frontiers 2022: Noise, Blazes and Mismatches

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Gower A (2023) A model to validate effective waves in random particulate media: spherical symmetry in Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences

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Horoshenkov K (2021) UK Acoustics Network and International Year of Sound in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

 
Title A World of Sound 
Description To celebrate the year of sound, a collection of articles written by experts from the UK Acoustics Network and the International Year of Sound team. These articles explore the fascinating world of sound and how it benefits and causes problems to people, other animals, and our environment. 
Type Of Art Creative Writing 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact Everything vibrates and makes sound, from the smallest living cells in the human body to the biggest skyscrapers. Sound itself is a travelling wave of vibrating particles but, amazingly, our brains can understand sounds - gathering information and meaning from these vibrations. Sounds are the building blocks for language, and culture, and can be a source of both pleasure and pain. In the modern world sound is also fantastic tool for medicine, industry and monitoring the natural environment. But it can also be polluting and bad for our health. For many animals, sound is essential for survival, enabling them to communicate, hunt and navigate their world. Hearing loss affects around 5% of the world's population, and encouraged by the WHO, scientists across the world are working to find new ways to improve deaf people's lives. The science of sound cuts across many disciplines - from medicine and neuroscience to the environment - and people who study sound use complex mathematics and cutting-edge technology to help us understand how sound affects us and our planet. 500,691 views 02.03.23 
URL https://kids.frontiersin.org/collections/17985/a-world-of-sound
 
Title A World of Sound 
Description To celebrate the year of sound, a collection of articles written by experts from the UK Acoustics Network and the International Year of Sound team. These articles explore the fascinating world of sound and how it benefits and causes problems to people, other animals, and our environment. 
Type Of Art Creative Writing 
Year Produced 2021 
Impact Everything vibrates and makes sound, from the smallest living cells in the human body to the biggest skyscrapers. Sound itself is a travelling wave of vibrating particles but, amazingly, our brains can understand sounds - gathering information and meaning from these vibrations. Sounds are the building blocks for language, and culture, and can be a source of both pleasure and pain. In the modern world sound is also fantastic tool for medicine, industry and monitoring the natural environment. But it can also be polluting and bad for our health. For many animals, sound is essential for survival, enabling them to communicate, hunt and navigate their world. Hearing loss affects around 5% of the world's population, and encouraged by the WHO, scientists across the world are working to find new ways to improve deaf people's lives. The science of sound cuts across many disciplines - from medicine and neuroscience to the environment - and people who study sound use complex mathematics and cutting-edge technology to help us understand how sound affects us and our planet. 
URL https://kids.frontiersin.org/collections/17985/a-world-of-sound
 
Description This is a network grant that supports a plurality of pilot studies into various acoustics research topics, networking activities, mobility of staff and students, outreach and advocacy. A key finding is that there is a considerable number of academics and industrialist in the UK who are actively working or benefit from acoustics related research. As a result, the UK Acoustics Network has grown since its launch in November 2017 from 0 member to 1800 members. A majority of these members participate actively in the events organised by the UKAN and develop new collaborations leading to new research grants and knowledge transfer activities led by the industry. Another key finding from this grant has been better understanding of the value of acoustics to the UK's economy. It was found that the UK acoustics industry contributes £4.6 billion to the country's economy annually, employing over 16,000 people, each generating over £65,000 in value, in 750 companies nationwide. Whilst those 750 companies are distributed throughout the UK, the largest concentration of acoustics industrial activity is in the North West, Scotland and South East regions. The industry is made up of over 98% small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), yet the 7% of medium and large operations generate over 80% of acoustics revenues. Productivity in gross value added (GVA) contribution per employee also rises from £65,000 for the industry average, to £73,000 in larger companies. The acoustics industry in underpinned by a vibrant knowledge base with over 150 active research grants, worth in total in excess of £160 million and involving over a large number of separate UK universities. This research is supported by seven different research councils under UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), reflecting the multi-disciplinary environment in which acoustics operates, from social and health to engineering sciences. Industry as a whole is also increasingly recognising the importance of acoustics and investing in new capabilities, for example Jaguar Land Rover have recently invested £150 million in new acoustics research facilities. Acoustics feeds into many major global markets, including the $10 billion market for sound insulation materials in construction, the $7.6 billion ultrasound equipment market and the potential $31 billion market for voice recognition. This is before the vital role of acoustics in automotive, aerospace, marine and defence is taken into consideration, all major UK industries which leverage acoustics expertise. The number of partners / collaborators has increased significantly, including international partners jointly delivering technical workshops, meetings and public engagement events. The situation with Covid-19 in 2020/21 required UKAN to change to online meeting format. This resulted in a very active live programme of webinars which attracted over 10000 of participants via 300+ networking events. The details of these events can be found on https://acoustics.ac.uk/events/. The Network has distributed £800k in pilot studies the details of which can be found on https://acoustics.ac.uk/funding/funded-projects/. The outcomes from the pilot project funded under the first two calls are below:

Call 1
Acoustic attenuation using advanced nanoporous materials
Designed and validated two experimental methods to investigate the acoustic attenuation of the material system.
identified and investigated candidate materials that are effective in acoustic attenuation under certain conditions, opening further investigations into more materials in the full-scale project.
Gained an initial hypothesis on the physical mechanism which guides the direction of further investigations. PI recently awarded the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF) related to this project which can facilitate the wider impact delivery from this project.

Bioacoustic monitoring using drones
Hardware prototype. Two hardware prototypes were developed for bird sound recording from a flying drone platform. Both are ready for data collection in real environments. The first prototype has better noise suppression capability while the second prototype has better manoeuvrability.
Dataset collection. A simulated dataset was recorded with the first prototype, with the auditory drone hovering at different altitudes. The simulated dataset is used to validate the performance of the bird recognition algorithm in presence of ego-noise.
The bird recognition algorithm for noisy recordings. A baseline deep-learning algorithm was developed. The baseline algorithm achieves 100% accuracy for the testing signal, and the performance drops significantly in the presence of the ego-noise, e.g. 50% accuracy at a drone hovering altitude of 15 meter. A noise augmentation algorithm was developed that can improve the bird recognition performance remarkably from the noisy recording. The developed algorithm achieves recognition accuracy of 85% at altitude 5 meter, and slightly drops to 75% at altitude 30 meter (Fig. 3). The result is promising, considering in the original proposal we target a detection accuracy that is comparable with clean recordings when the drone is 30 meters away from the ground.

Developing best-practice guidelines to integrate long-term ecoacoustic methods into UK biodiversity monitoring
Good Practice guidelines for long-term ecoacoustic monitoring in the UK

Toward a Measure of Soundscape Dynamical Acoustic Complexity
A successful workshop at the start of the project to build partnerships (O1); PI and Co-I Simpson were invited to share findings at a small R&D workshop1 at Kilpisjarvi Research Station2 , Finland (funded by Oulu University, Biodiverse Anthropocenes programme3 ). This cemented partnerships with Dr Dick at CEH and Dr Caruthers-Jones and built consortia for future Horizon bids and means that we still have budget for a third workshop to finalise bid plans (see O4). O2) Pilot was successful in a) bolstering support for the potential application of information theoretic metrics b) evidencing the value of further investigation into soundscape temporal dynamics and complexity measures.
The astrogram methodology developed during this pilot will be applied in a HEIF funded Ecoacoustic Monitoring Dashboard. This is a collaboration with Lewes and Eastbourne District Council and local Woodland Enterprise Centre 4 . Funded by the Forestry Commission, the project explores the potential for sustainable, commercial timber from small scale woodlands of Sussex and Kent.

Curved metasurfaces for healthcare uses
The project was a successful example of a collaboration of an acoustic team with a design studio. The project has established a framework for such future collaborations, overcoming challenges like the need for a common language. This project brought to TRL4 three of the prototypes and these results were used to apply for funding by the European Innovation Council ("Transition" scheme). The project was not funded, but the team was invited to interview and (under Metasonixx's flag) received a Seal of Excellence. The projects produced several viable concepts for acoustic products for home and offices, some of which have been incorporated in an ERC synergy application. 5. The project introduced new manufacturing methods, which are potentially more sustainable than the ones previously used.

Call 2
An investigation of temporal variability in non-pathological speech: a pilot study towards a robust protocol for remote speech collection for psychological assessment
Preliminary analysis indicates that there are speech characteristics which are affected by simply when we choose to record speech, either at different times of day or on different days of the week. Our findings complement observations in the literature concerning the repeatability of commonly used speech features both in healthy and pathological populations . Results highlight the urgent need to develop evidence-based protocols for the collection of speech to help minimise the effects of know sources of variability, which could otherwise be erroneously attributed to a change in health state. Such a protocol must be codesigned with end-users.
Working on this pilot has allowed the project team to improve their project team's data collection protocols and analytics pipeline, and provided Dr Cummins and Dr Dineley in particular, with valuable project management experience. The grant gave invaluable experience four inspiring researchers. Dr Cummins and Dr Dineley hosted three undergraduates (see co-investment) who assisted in data annotation and analytics. They also trained a graduate research assistant, who is now an NIHR pre-doctoral fellow supervised by Dr Cummins and Dr Carr. All four were from groups underrepresented in data science and were Dr Dineley's first formal co-supervision roles

Binaural Acoustic Responses in Canines
This project has laid the groundwork for developing a novel method for capturing canine HRIRs. While there is further data collection to do, the past six months has allowed development of a methodology

Characterising spatial freshwater soundscapes on an urban-rural gradient
Soundscapes captured in the recordings were characterised using the Acoustic Complexity Index (ACI), which is a widely used soundscape index in both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Software to process the signals from the array was developed by the Co-I based on beamforming algorithms, allowing an evaluation of the variation in ACI values derived from sound arriving from different directions. The relationship between ACI values and standard methods of biodiversity assessment also showed varying patterns, indicating a non-simple relationship between species richness and acoustic complexity. In addition to these methods, the Arbimon platform (https://arbimon.rfcx.org/) was used to characterise common sounds evident in the recordings and then process all the sound files from each site to enumerate the diversity of sound signals and frequency with which they were recorded. This provided an additional method to allow comparison of the freshwater soundscapes.
Comparison of methods for characterising freshwater pond soundscapes has highlighted important differences that need to be accounted for in future research and the custom hydrophone array developed showed strong promise in terms of capturing spatial variation in sound signals within sites.

Feasibility of a Marine Acoustic Sensing Network using the UK Archipelago of Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Infrastructure
Synthesised relevant information about Offshore Renewable Energy assets around the UK shore, both active, in development and planned
Identified an exemplar site for analysis. Benchmarked and validated acoustic propagation models (ACTUP suite) to quantify sounds from typical sources (e.g. ships, ORE devices, maintenance and installation activities) and how they are perceived by manmade sensors and different animals (marine mammals, fish). In June 2023, visited the European Marine Energy Centre to present results and discuss further collaboration. Working on an outline proposal for the UKRI cross-council scheme.

Patterned ionogel based acoustic sensor (PI-BASe)
The pilot project's twin goals of 3D printing a viable ionogel and developing a dataset of rapidly manufactured ionogel properties were met and gave a clear indication of the next steps for this project. The ionogels were confirmed as compatible with digital light processing, however, the method of manufacture resulted in poorer mechanical properties such as a reduced elongation at break. This is predictable in itself and is part of the trade-off for the flexibility inherent in digital light processing-based manufacturing. The poorer reproducibility of the electron double-layer effect is more concerning and could be attributed to the loss of some resolution of the microcone structure as the dimensions were reduced. Achieving comparable gains in capacitance to devices made by moulding could be possible with dedicated projection optics, further reducing our XY resolution to 1-2 um from the present 40um. In addition, more care will need to be taken over the environmental stability of the ionogel formula, especially those comprising a hydrophilic IL such as [EMIM][Cl] which favours moisture absorption in air. A more hydrophobic IL such as those comprising a BMIM cation tend to demonstrate more stable behaviour in ambient conditions. Both acrylic acid and PEGDA are hydrophilic monomers, and therefore the presence of such components in the ionic gel might have also promoted moisture absorption and hence changes to the sensing performance. Therefore, for future work, it is also beneficial to determine the effect of moisture absorption by measuring changes in gel weight over time.
The 3D printed ionogels do have poorer performance than other reported fabrication methods, however, the potential for rapid design steps and development of variation in the structure make this a powerful tool for research and modelling future designs. The next steps in this project will involve generating combined Multiphysics models of the ionic liquid and material strain from the data gathered here and testing the material response to an acoustic signal (rather than direct load as presented here). We hope to compile this information, along with the report above for publication in 2024.

Ultrasonic stimulation and degradation monitoring of electrochemical processes
We have constructed a new measurement rig and successfully acquired measurement data that shows the effect of ultrasonic stimulation on the electro-chemical processes.
Demonstrated that acoustic streaming can very effectively increase the ion transport and disrupt dendrite formation. Energetically, in the current form, it requires too much power to be useful. This is because the ultrasonic transducer indiscriminately dissipates energy over the whole vessel and is a very inefficient way to drive the streaming at the location where it is needed, i.e. the surface boundary layer. Nonetheless, we believe that if optimised the use of ultrasound to disrupt electrode degradation can become potentially very useful and this has been highlighted by the experimental results in this work. Therefore, future work should focus on delivering acoustic energy efficiently where it is needed and on controlling the localised ion transfer. We are engaging academic and industrial partners in conversations and we hope that the newly-built rig and associated measurement data will help as catalyst to initiate new research into the efficient delivery of streaming into an area where it is needed.
Exploitation Route The impact of the UK Industrial Strategy should be maximised by ensuring that acoustics is built into emerging programmes and initiatives at the earliest possible opportunity. Acoustics needs to be properly integrated within the focal themes detailed in the EPSRC Tomorrows Engineering Research Challenges (TERC) report and should become a designated a UKRI priority area, in order to ensure that expertise in the field can be leveraged to its full potential. As active acoustics can increasingly provide solutions to Tomorrows Engineering Research Challenges, the UK's valuable capabilities in this field need to be further connected to vertical markets in order to accelerate the uptake of the latest innovations necessary to secure UK industry's international competitive-edge. The outcomes of this funding will become a foundation for the next grant proposal to be submitted under the right EPSRC call related to the TERC report.
Sectors Aerospace

Defence and Marine

Construction

Creative Economy

Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software)

Education

Electronics

Energy

Environment

Healthcare

Manufacturing

including Industrial Biotechology

Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology

Transport
URL http://www.acoustics.ac.uk
 
Description This is a Network grant which main aim is to fund small pilot studies, bring together researchers working in different areas of acoustics to enhance communication between groups, provide a focus for collaboration and innovation, and to maximise the future impact of acoustics based research in the UK. Since its inception UKAN has organised over 300 meetings and workshops, funded over 200 travel grants, awarded 27 larger networking grants to bring the industry and academia together, ran 4 summer schools to support its early career researchers. Since April 2021 UKAN awarded 18 (£800k in total) pilot projects to develop new research ideas into full scale grant proposals. Now the Network is over 1800 members. The UKAN networking events brought together over 10000 academic and non-academic participants who are interested in the acoustics related research and its impact. This has enabled the industry and government agencies to understand better and connect to make use of the acoustics related research in the UK, enhance the economic productivity and improve legislation. UKAN provided a range of ongoing training opportunities for early career researchers to apply for fellowships, engage in outreach and to support EDI work. UKAN have supported a range of large scale EPSRC research bids, e.g. for AI Hub in Acoustics, CDT in Sound Futures (EP/Y011929/1), programme grants (e.g. EP/S016813/1 and EP/Y015673/1), fellowships (e.g. EP/T019751/1 and MR/W012138/1). Overall, UKAN has contributed to the growth in the UKRI funding for acoustics from £140M in 2017 to £205M in 2023. UKAN has developed research priorities for acoustics and supported EPSRC and government who plan investment in research. UKAN has motivated other networks (e.g. EP/V002198/1 and EP/Y016289/1), one directly emerged from a UKAN SiG, by being an exemplary network with an effective management structure, operation style, EDI principles, strong connections with non-academic and professional bodies. UKAN supported the successful application for the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Sound Futures (EP/Y034708/1).
First Year Of Impact 2017
Sector Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Construction,Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Electronics,Energy,Environment,Healthcare,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology,Transport
Impact Types Societal

Economic

Policy & public services
 
Description Developing best-practice guidelines to integrate long-term ecoacoustic methods into UK biodiversity monitoring
Geographic Reach Europe 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to new or improved professional practice
Impact Based on the peer reviewed literature, this guidance will enable a crossover between academia and the practical use of bioacoustics in areas such as agri-environment monitoring, Biodiversity Net Gain, habitat creation, rewilding and species conservation. The benefits of ecoacoustics are significant and they have the advantage of being objective, eliminating surveyor bias, being easily repeatable and the equipment and data is inexpensive.
URL https://drive.google.com/file/d/12ps-ldG4tlXB6VlujAQLWnw_PxopYvFs/view
 
Description House of Lords Science and Technology Committee
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Participation in a guidance/advisory committee
Impact Details to follow
URL https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/4020b1b9-a72a-48ff-9f8e-4f47c9139865
 
Description Sounding our National Parks
Geographic Reach Multiple continents/international 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to new or improved professional practice
URL https://www.bit.ly/nationalparkssoundscapes
 
Description Determining favourable conservation status for the UK's birds: creating population targets to conserve biodiversity
Amount £100 (GBP)
Funding ID 2784640 
Organisation Natural Environment Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2023 
End 06/2026
 
Description EPSRC CDT in Sustainable Sound Futures
Amount £774,967,600 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/Y034708/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2025 
End 09/2033
 
Description EPSRC UK Acoustics Network Plus
Amount £1,418,895 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/V007866/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2021 
End 03/2025
 
Description Next generation metamaterials: exploiting four dimensions
Amount £7,731,660 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/Y015673/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2024 
End 02/2029
 
Description Replication Analysis
Amount £9,958 (GBP)
Organisation Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM) 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start  
 
Title Bioacoustic monitoring using drones - Hardware prototype 
Description - Hardware prototype. Two hardware prototypes were developed for bird sound recording from a flying drone platform. The first prototype suspends a microphone underneath the drone with a long rope; the second prototype fix a microphone underneath the drone body. A shotgun microphone pointing downwards is used to collect the bird call from the ground and to reject the ego-noise from the ego-noise from the off-axis. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2022 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact The two hardware's are both ready for data collection in real environments. The first prototype has better noise suppression capability while the second prototype has better manoeuvrability. 
 
Title designed and validated two experimental methods to investigate the acoustic attenuation of the material system, which serves as a foundation for a systematic investigation. 
Description This explorative project aims to experimentally demonstrate the feasibility of using nanoporous materials for acoustic attenuation. The expected outcomes include (1) validated experimental methods and custom-made testing setups to guide the comprehensive methodology design of the full-scale proposal for a systematic investigation; (2) a few promising candidate materials that are tested to be effective in acoustic attenuation and suitable for further investigation in the full-scale project; (3) some initial understandings or hypotheses on the mechanisms to identify the scientific significance as well as the experimental or simulation techniques required for an in-depth understanding that could be used to develop material design rules for the identified applications. 
Type Of Material Improvements to research infrastructure 
Year Produced 2022 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact This project provides promising preliminary results on using a new class of materials for acoustic attenuation. Such results have not been applied in a practical situation but has a good potential of bringing ground-breaking technologies. The team aims to continue fundamental research in this direction and engage potential research users to develop application case studies and demonstrators in the next stage. PI is recently awarded the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF) related to this project which can facilitate the wider impact delivery from this project. 
 
Title BTO Acoustic Pipeline 
Description David Jarrett, who led one of the hackathon group in 2022: at 2022 EcoHack, we developed an acoustic classifier to identify four different Curlew vocalisations, which allows researchers to estimate breeding productivity using acoustic recorders. In the 2023 breeding season, various conservation organisations in the UK and Europe gathered acoustic data from Curlew breeding sites and this data is being analysed and reported on at the moment. A version of the classifier which was developed at EcoHack in 2022 will be made available to the sector via the BTO Acoustic Pipeline. https://www.bto.org/our-science/products-and-technologies/bto-acoustic-pipeline 
Type Of Material Computer model/algorithm 
Year Produced 2023 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Secure, reliable, automated processing - The Pipeline uses cutting-edge machine learning techniques and cloud computing to automate the processing of audible and ultrasonic audio data, providing a platform that can scale to accommodate acoustic monitoring projects of any size. 
URL https://www.bto.org/our-science/products-and-technologies/bto-acoustic-pipeline
 
Title Computational Acoustics Knowledgebase 
Description A collection of tutorial materials, user code and data for learning about and doing computational acoustics research. 
Type Of Material Data analysis technique 
Year Produced 2022 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact No measurable impact yet. 
URL http://knowledgebase.acoustics.ac.uk
 
Title Patterned ionogel sensor material data 
Description Data on 3D printed ionogel materials, comprising impedance analyser results (tab seperated txt), ldv data (tab seperated txt), beer-lambert curvature data (tab separated txt), tensile test data (tab separated txt) and sem image data (.tiff). 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2023 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact The pilot project's twin goals of 3D printing a viable ionogel and developing a dataset of rapidly manufactured ionogel properties were met, and gave a clear indication of the next steps for this project. The ionogels were confirmed as compatible with digital light processing, however, the method of manufacture resulted in poorer mechanical properties such as a reduced elongation at break. This is predictable in itself and is part of the trade-off for the flexibility inherent in digital light processing-based manufacturing. The poorer reproducibility of the electron double-layer effect is more concerning and could be attributed to the loss of some resolution of the microcone structure as the dimensions were reduced. Achieving comparable gains in capacitance to devices made by moulding could be possible with dedicated projection optics, further reducing our XY resolution to 1-2 um from the present 40um. In addition, more care will need to be taken over the environmental stability of the ionogel formula, especially those comprising a hydrophilic IL such as [EMIM][Cl] which favours moisture absorption in air. A more hydrophobic IL such as those comprising a BMIM cation tend to demonstrate more stable behaviour in ambient conditions. Both acrylic acid and PEGDA are hydrophilic monomers, and therefore the presence of such components in the ionic gel might have also promoted moisture absorption and hence changes to the sensing performance. Therefore, for future work, it is also beneficial to determine the effect of moisture absorption by measuring changes in gel weight over time. 
URL https://pureportal.strath.ac.uk/en/datasets/c0d374ee-4849-4a17-801d-e222f6947f98
 
Title Quiet Project Dataset 
Description The COVID-19 Lockdown created a new kind of environment both in the UK and globally, never experienced before or likely to occur again. A vital and time-critical working group was formed with the aim of gathering crowd-source high quality baseline noise levels and other supporting information across the UK during the lockdown and subsequent recovery period. The acoustic community were mobilised through existing networks (UK Acoustics Network, Association of Noise Consultants, and Institute of Acoustics) engaging private companies, public organisations, and academics to gather data in accessible places. A website was designed and developed to advertise the project, provide instructions and to formalise the uploading of noise data, observations, and Soundscape feedback. The data was collected at 99 locations by 80 acousticians (64 male, 16 female) using professional grade calibrated instrumentation with 83% of measurements including spectral data. The locations were spread across the British Isles covering 19 urban, 61 suburban, and 19 rural sites. The Lockdown 1 dataset consisted of a total of 1.6 GB of measurements and material (video, photos) covering 834 days between 1st April and 14th July 2020. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2023 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact This makes the award winning Quiet Project the largest ever noise and soundscape database ever recorded. As a government-funded research project the databank will be made publicly available to assist future research. 
URL https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1f9S0FxcPN4DLgkHYqujeMJfVDcczvXsD
 
Title The KCL-UKAN-IPEM dataset of repeated speech recordings of non-pathological speech for the assessment of temporal variability 
Description Recordings of healthy participants completing standard speech elicitation tasks, made on a condenser microphone, 3 smartphones and a consumer headset in a controlled, supervised environment: (1) 28 participants recorded three times in one day, which was repeated on a second day 6 weeks+ later (2) 26 participants recorded on three days in one week, at the same time of day. Recordings followed a strict, systematic schedule. They were conducted according to a protocol designed to minimise variability due to recording set-up and conditions. The actual times of data collection were recorded, supported by information collected at enrolment that included sociodemographic characteristics, voice use habits and basic health data related to speech production. Information collected immediately prior to each recording documented potential confounders specific to that time, including voice that day, hours of sleep and emotional state. The protocol and data reporting, combined with its scope, make this dataset of repeated recordings unique in the field of speech-health research. 34 participants consented to their recordings being made available to other non-commercial researchers subject to their completion and review of a data use agreement. Voice recordings are subject to GDPR legislation as personal data: individuals can - in principle - be identified from recordings due to the unique characteristics of our voices. However, recordings are not labelled with any personally identifying information such as name or DOB nor contain any personally identifying linguistic content; elicitation tasks were chosen such that participants did not speak about themselves in any way. All 54 participants consented to the sharing of non-personally identifiable sex, age, height, voice use activity and speech features, all labelled only with non-personally identifiable participant study ID numbers. Data shared with other non-commercial researchers could be used in speech technology development, such as automatic speech recognition. A detailed description of this dataset and collection protocol will be submitted pre-print and peer-reviewed publication shortly. doi will be available in next year's reporting period. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2023 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact Analysis still in progress - this dataset is unique and multifaceted, enabling investigations of several aspects of variability in speech data pipelines for health assessment beyond the core goal of investigation of non-pathological temporal variability in speech. One analysis paper has been submitted for publication to date. 
 
Title WorldWide SoundScapes 
Description https://ecosound-web.de/ecosound_web/collection/index/106 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2022 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact The WWSS project unites soundscape ecology across all realms of the globe (terrestrial, marine, freshwater, subterranean, as well as transitional realms) and comprises 259 collaborators who contribute 278 validated meta-datasets spanning 8739 sampling locations on the globe. 
URL https://ecosound-web.de/ecosound_web/collection/index/106
 
Description Acoustic attenuation using advanced nanoporous materials 
Organisation University of Birmingham
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution The team investigated the potential of using advanced nanoporous materials for acoustic attenuations. Sponge-like materials such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and zeolites offer extremely small pores that are comparable to the size of water molecules. Squeezing liquid water into these tiny nanopores can create large solid-liquid interfaces and dissipate huge amount of mechanical energy. The team developed techniques to combine pressurisation and acoustic measurement and carried out a feasibility study to demonstrate the acoustic attenuation of the new material system which may bring ground-breaking technologies in acoustic control.
Collaborator Contribution This project is built up collaboratively between investigators in the areas of nanoporous materials (Birmingham) and physical acoustics (Oxford). During this project, the team engaged industrial partners including the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) who can contribute to the follow-up project in larger-scale under-water vessel experiments, and QinetiQ who can do liquid-filled impedance tube tests of the new material system.
Impact (1) We designed and validated two experimental methods to investigate the acoustic attenuation of nanoporous liquids including a water tank and a pressurised testing setup, which serves as a foundation for a systematic investigation. (2) We identified and investigated candidate materials that are effective in acoustic attenuation under certain conditions, opening further investigations into more materials in the full-scale project, with a clearly defined application scenario, i.e., pressure controlled switchable acoustic attenuator. (3) We gained an initial hypothesis on the molecular-scale mechanism: the new attenuation phenomenon might be related to the nano-confined state of water molecules with disrupted hydrogen bonds and enhanced water mobility, this guides the direction of further experimental and modelling investigations. This project provides promising preliminary results on using a new class of materials for acoustic attenuation based on a completely new mechanism. Such results have not been applied in a practical situation but has a good potential of bringing ground-breaking technologies in the acoustic sector. The team aims to continue fundamental research in this direction and engage potential research users to develop application case studies and demonstrators in the next project. Industrial partners engaged so far include NPL and QinetiQ, and the PI is recently awarded the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF) related to this project which can facilitate the wider impact delivery from this project.
Start Year 2022
 
Description Active acoustic metamaterials for non-Hermitian sound propagation phenomena inspired by quantum mechanic 
Organisation University of Southampton
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution UKAN+ was awarded funding to coordinate a portfolio of exploratory projects which will accelerate the acoustic community. The funding will support new, ambitious, speculative research spanning the interdisciplinary science of acoustic related research in the UK.
Collaborator Contribution Widespread sources of noise appear in ducts, e.g. in ventilation systems for buildings, heat pump systems, or machinery exhausts. Controlling sound propagation in ducts is thus highly desired. Within this context, this project will explore advanced sound control techniques using active acoustic metamaterials that mimic non-Hermitian quantum-mechanical wave phenomena. Acoustic metamaterials are periodic structures composed of engineered unit cells that are smaller than the wavelength, like crystals. By carefully designing the properties of the unit cells, acoustic metamaterials can control sound waves in ways that cannot be achieved with conventional sound control materials. Non-Hermitian wave phenomena, including unidirectional acoustic invisibility or unidirectional sound amplification, can be introduced by using active metamaterials that contain sensors and actuators (e.g. loudspeakers). For the realization of such non-Hermitian acoustic metamaterials, however, some key aspects, such as the reconfigurability or dynamic stability, are not yet fully understood. The aim of this project is to develop a reprogrammable acoustic metamaterial architecture for a systematic realization of new non-Hermitian phenomena that will enable advanced manipulation of sound waves. This pilot study will involve theoretical and numerical investigations to design a realizable non-Hermitian metamaterial unit cell, which will then be manufactured and tested in a bespoke duct-like testbed.
Impact TBC
Start Year 2024
 
Description An investigation of temporal variability in non-pathological speech: a pilot study towards a robust protocol for remote speech collection for psychological assessment 
Organisation King's College London
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution UKAN+ was awarded funding to coordinate a portfolio of exploratory projects which will accelerate the acoustic community. The funding will support new, ambitious, speculative research spanning the interdisciplinary science of acoustic related research in the UK. The award is to provide funding to address the Acoustics Research Priorities which UKAN+ has identified. In September 2022 UKAN+ opened our second call. 6 Pilot projects were successful.
Collaborator Contribution As acoustic signals, our voices are a valuable window into our mental health. They reflect not only our mood but also the functioning of our brain and its ability to coordinate the 100+ muscles needed to produce speech. Using recordings made on mobile devices, speech analysis could meet the large unmet need for convenient, objective tools that monitor mental health. However, speech analysis is not yet ready for use as a reliable clinical tool in the general population. In this context, how speech is recorded and which metrics to extract for processing are currently neglected steps in analysis pipelines. Improving our understanding of the natural variability of an individual's voice, that is not caused by illness, and its impact on AI analyses of speech is one aspect that can facilitate translation. For example, could a croaky 'morning' voice hide an improvement in our mood? To begin to tackle this, this project has three core objectives: (i) to record healthy volunteers speaking in the morning, afternoon, and evening of a single day; and on three further days at the same time; (ii) to assess the sensitivity of different speech features to variations in individuals' speech; and (iii) to assess the performance of AI analyses performing depression detection using speech features selected according to their sensitivity to within- and between-day variations in people's voices. This project is led by Dr Nicholas Cummins and Dr Judith Dineley, Department of Biostatistics and Health Informatics at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London.
Impact None to date.
Start Year 2023
 
Description Binaural Acoustic Response in Canines (BARC) 
Organisation University of York
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution UKAN+ was awarded funding to coordinate a portfolio of exploratory projects which will accelerate the acoustic community. The funding will support new, ambitious, speculative research spanning the interdisciplinary science of acoustic related research in the UK. The award is to provide funding to address the Acoustics Research Priorities which UKAN+ has identified. In September 2022 UKAN+ opened our second call. 6 Pilot projects were successful.
Collaborator Contribution Assistance dogs carry out a variety of tasks that enable people to lead independent lives. When training for and executing these roles, the dogs rely heavily on spoken word cues from their handlers and learn to react to important sounds in their environment. However, very little is known about how their spatial hearing affects how they carry out these jobs. How well can a guide dog localise sounds associated with danger, such as the sound of oncoming traffic? How difficult is it for a hearing dog to localise the sound of a phone ringing? Further complicating our understanding of dog spatial hearing is the variety of ear shapes and sizes in and between breeds. Recent advances in the study of human spatial hearing use scanned 3D models of human ears to model sound localisation. We will these models and investigate dog spatial hearing by 1) Creating models of dog's ears using 3D scanners 2) using these 3D scans to generate Head Related Transfer Functions, and 3) determining the accuracy of the models by comparing them to Head Related Transfer Functions collected using traditional methods. We hope to use these models to inform assistance animal training methods.
Impact None to date.
Start Year 2023
 
Description Bioacoustic monitoring using drones 
Organisation Queen Mary University of London
Department Queen Mary Innovation
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution UKAN+ was awarded funding to coordinate a portfolio of exploratory projects which will accelerate the acoustic community. The funding will support new, ambitious, speculative research spanning the interdisciplinary science of acoustic related research in the UK.
Collaborator Contribution The project aims to develop a drone audition prototype system for bioacoustic monitoring and address the challenging ego-noise suppression problem. The project has three objectives. 1) To develop a hardware prototype that captures environmental sound with an audio recorder carried by a quadcopter drone; 2) to collect wildlife vocalization dataset with the developed prototype; and 3) to develop wildlife species detection and identification algorithm in the presence of ego-noise and validate the performance with the collected data.
Impact To follow
Start Year 2021
 
Description Characterising Spatial Freshwater Soundscapes On An Urban-Rural Gradient 
Organisation Edinburgh Napier University
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution UKAN+ was awarded funding to coordinate a portfolio of exploratory projects which will accelerate the acoustic community. The funding will support new, ambitious, speculative research spanning the interdisciplinary science of acoustic related research in the UK. The award is to provide funding to address the Acoustics Research Priorities which UKAN+ has identified. In September 2022 UKAN+ opened our second call. 6 Pilot projects were successful
Collaborator Contribution Project Investigator: Professor Rob Briers, Edinburgh Napier University Co-I: Dr Alastair Moore, SquareSet Sound There is significant interest in the potential for measures of freshwater soundscapes to act as a proxy for biodiversity in the same way as has been developed for terrestrial ecosystems. Spatial variability in sound within freshwaters could have a significant influence on the outcome of any assessment and is a key consideration in relation to sampling methods. Effects of urbanisation such as pollution and differences in habitat may also influence both diversity and identity of sound-producing species in urban and rural ponds. These differences are likely to be reflected in bioacoustic characterisation and may provide an indicator of pressures on the sites. This project aims to compare existing acoustic sampling methods with a new methodology based on sensor arrays and utilising spatial audio algorithms to examine spatial variability and directionality of sounds. It will also determine the variation in acoustic characteristics of ponds along an urban-rural gradient and the implications of this for acoustic-based biodiversity assessment.
Impact None to date.
Start Year 2023
 
Description Curved metasurfaces for healthcare uses 
Organisation University of Sussex
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution UKAN+ was awarded funding to coordinate a portfolio of exploratory projects which will accelerate the acoustic community. The funding will support new, ambitious, speculative research spanning the interdisciplinary science of acoustic related research in the UK. This project was a close collaboration between the University of Sussex (Gianluca Memoli, Chinmay Rajguru, Yuanyuan Zhao, Abdelhalim Azbaid El-Ouahabi, Laurence Bush), Metasonixx (Letizia Chisari, Jonathan Eccles) and Kivi Studio (Elzbieta Siwy, Britton Kroessler). Prof. Sebastien Guenneau participated to some of the meetings with his invaluable insight. The team worked remotely, in design studios across London and at the University of Sussex
Collaborator Contribution At proposal stage we planned to run the following tasks sequentially: a. Simulate the effect of transporting existing phase distributions, already successfully tested for noisecancellation on flat panels, on 3-dimensional surfaces bound by curvilinear coordinates. This will be achieved using COMSOL and/or finite differences. b. Realise and characterise two prototypes, representing different foldable configurations, to be presented at an exhibition in London or Brighton. And to produce the following: 2 prototypes, 1 trade show, 1 journal paper. However, we soon realised that this method was not efficient, so we decided to capitalise our different skills and run an interactive process: 1. Knowledge sharing on acoustics and technical requirements, brainstorming on possible designs (All) 2. Design experimentation and prototyping (Kivi), while in parallel simulation of designs (Metasonixx) 3. Testing of TRL3 demonstrators (University of Sussex)
Impact Acoustic metamaterials have been slowly revolutionising sound management. However, until today they have been stuck in two-dimensional planes. The "Curved surfaces" project brought together scientists from the University of Sussex, Metasonixx, with designers from Kivi Studio to create the first curved acoustic metasurfaces. The project's context was hospitals where noise levels can be as high as 110 dB. It realised over 20 prototypes and introduced new sustainable materials and production methods. Taking inspiration from biomimicry and origami, it opened new possibilities for curved acoustic metasurfaces Impact of collaboration: 1. The project was a successful example of a collaboration of an acoustic team with a design studio. Scientific teams are often focused on the technological aspects of innovation, while designers were focused on end users and sustainable manufacturing. The project has established a framework for such future collaborations, overcoming challenges like the need for a common language. This is a precedent for collaborations within the multifaced aspects of the acoustic community in UKAN+. 2. This project brought to TRL4 three of the prototypes and these results were used to apply for funding by the European Innovation Council ("Transition" scheme). The project was not funded, but the team was invited to interview and (under Metasonixx's flag) received a Seal of Excellence. 3. The project focused on design for hospital wards and MRI machines, so a collaboration with researchers in France and Spain has been discussed 4. The projects produced several viable concepts for acoustic products for home and offices, some of which have been incorporated in an ERC synergy application. 5. The project introduced new manufacturing methods, which are potentially more sustainable than the ones previously used. Kivi also introduced cork, which is aesthetically more pleasing. We have a presentation that showcases the prototypes, concepts and overall process of the project, however some of the prototypes are going through a patenting evaluation and cannot be shared at this time
Start Year 2022
 
Description Developing best-practice guidelines to integrate long-term ecoacoustic methods into UK biodiversity monitoring 
Organisation Manchester Metropolitan University
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution We hosted a symposium, also co-funded by UKAN, attended by over 160 people, to introduce and discuss the idea of the guidelines with the UK ecoacoustic community. Following this, we have convened an expert panel to co-author and advise on the guidelines, resulting in a Slack group with 25 members and the final guidelines having 18 co-authors.
Collaborator Contribution We hosted a symposium, also co-funded by UKAN, attended by over 160 people, to introduce and discuss the idea of the guidelines with the UK ecoacoustic community. Following this, we have convened an expert panel to co-author and advise on the guidelines, resulting in a Slack group with 25 members and the final guidelines having 18 co-authors.
Impact Passive acoustic monitoring has great potential as a cost-effective method for long-term biodiversity monitoring. However, to maximise its efficacy, standardisation of survey protocols is necessary to ensure data are comparable and permit reliable inferences. These guidelines outline a basic long-term acoustic monitoring protocol that can be adapted to suit a range of projects according to specific objectives and size. We provide an executive summary giving basic recommendations for audible-range terrestrial ecosystem monitoring, a Quick Start Guide based on a synthesis of the latest academic research, and over 100 pages of in-depth discussion of the requirements and considerations for undertaking good-practice use of long-term ecoacoustic monitoring. Deliverables 1 and 2 have been achieved. The final guidelines will undergo some professional formatting so that Deliverable 3 will be completed by the end of January 2023 (agreed with UKAN+/ZH). This means that the guidelines will be released in time for the upsurge in field studies at the start of spring, and is likely to maximise impact. We know that the guidelines are eagerly anticipated by the community, and have been discussed at several recent high profile academic events (e.g. the British Ecological Society annual conference 2022 in Edinburgh and EcoHack 2022 in Stirling).
Start Year 2022
 
Description Developing novel methods using ambient noise interferometry for sustained monitoring of seafloor and ocean processes using fibre-optic cables 
Organisation National Oceanography Centre
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution UKAN+ was awarded funding to coordinate a portfolio of exploratory projects which will accelerate the acoustic community. The funding will support new, ambitious, speculative research spanning the interdisciplinary science of acoustic related research in the UK.
Collaborator Contribution Ocean observation and monitoring is key to understanding the impacts of climate change and human activities, improving maritime safety, and detecting extreme weather events and natural hazards that threaten coastal communities and seafloor infrastructure. Effective environmental monitoring requires high spatial, temporal and depth resolutions, yet sustained observations exist only at a limited number of point locations or are limited to the sea surface. Distributed fibre-optic sensing on seafloor cables is a rapidly-developing technology shown to detect acoustic signals generated by a range of natural sources such as earthquakes, waves, storms and marine mammals, as well as anthropogenic sources such as ships, raising the possibility of utilising the network of local and global cables laid for telecommunications and energy as an array of seafloor sensors. This project aims to assess the capability of distributed fibre-optic sensing on seafloor cables for environmental measurements, by applying ambient noise interferometry (ANI) techniques commonly used in other acoustic applications. We aim to recover and identify the wavefield resulting from ANI, and subsequently develop methodologies for the use of different arrivals to analyse or monitor the sub-surface, seabed and water column, such as the measurement of ocean sound speed and temperature.
Impact tbc
Start Year 2024
 
Description Ecoacoustics and Long-term Ecological Monitoring Workshop 
Organisation University of Oulu
Country Finland 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution I was invited for a week long research workshop as an expert in ecoacoustics to support the design of acoustic surveying and analysis methods at Kilpisjarvi biological station
Collaborator Contribution University of Oulu, Biodiverse Anthropocenes funded the workshop. Kilpisjarvi biological station hosted the workshop.
Impact Report and collaborative funding bids will follow.
Start Year 2023
 
Description Feasibility of a Marine Acoustic Sensing Network using the UK Archipelago of Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Infrastructure 
Organisation University of Bath
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution UKAN+ was awarded funding to coordinate a portfolio of exploratory projects which will accelerate the acoustic community. The funding will support new, ambitious, speculative research spanning the interdisciplinary science of acoustic related research in the UK. The award is to provide funding to address the Acoustics Research Priorities which UKAN+ has identified. In September 2022 UKAN+ opened our second call. 6 Pilot projects were successful.
Collaborator Contribution Project Investigator: Dr Anna Young The UK has an extensive network of offshore renewable energy (ORE) infrastructure for wind and tidal power generation, and this is growing rapidly to meet the ambition of a net-zero future by 2050. Offshore wind power capacity was 11 GW in 2021 (approximately 10% of the UK's consumption). Tidal power capacity is currently <10 MW but will be expanding by over 400% to 41 MW in the next 5 years with three new or expanding sites in Scotland and Wales. Floating offshore wind has also had its first success in the recent Government Contract for Difference (CfD) auction (32 MW to be installed). These rapid expansions in ORE generation give significant opportunities and challenges for infrastructure design and use. In this project we will explore the potential of multi-purposing the UK's ORE infrastructure to support an extensive underwater acoustic monitoring and surveillance network. Potential applications include monitoring of infrastructure integrity, defence and security of UK waters, biodiversity and population monitoring, underwater navigation and communication, and oceanographic and climate science. The project is led by Dr Anna Young, Dr Phillipe Blondel and Dr Cormac Reale at the University of Bath and we invite collaboration from interested parties.
Impact None to date.
Start Year 2023
 
Description Frontiers for Young Minds (FfYM) / UKAN 
Organisation Frontiers Media SA
Department Frontiers for Young Minds (FfYM)
Country Switzerland 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Appointing 4 editors, 25 authours and 20 Science mentors facilitating the publication of 25 Articles during 2021 to showcase / celebrate first International Year of Sound: a UNESCO triggered celebration of sound and how it enters our lives in so many ways. This collection will explore the many faceted science of sound: how humankind and other animals perceive it, its many uses, and the problems it can bring to us and the environment. Sound cuts across many disciplines: from medicine and neuroscience to the environment. It applies mathematics and technology to these domains. Sound is a global health concern: Hearing loss affects 5% of the world's population (WHO estimate). A special collection about sound could inspire a new generation of scientists, medics and engineers. Our experts from the UK Acoustics Network (>1000 members), and the International Year of Sound team (195 participating countries) will cover a wide range of topics cutting across journal specialties. We are collating articles which portray the diversity and wonder of how sound reflects and affects the world, and how it reflects and affects us. These articles can either review a core concept in acoustics or cover a recent scientific article by the authors, rewritten for a young audience (8-15).
Collaborator Contribution Access and support from their editorial team and illustrator/copywriter and international membership of readers.
Impact Webpage with 2,403 views Muntidisciplinary: acoustics, sound and vibration relating to the broad themes of biodiversity, earth and its resources, neuroscience, health and mathematics
Start Year 2020
 
Description HEAR-ABLE 
Organisation University of Manchester
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution UKAN+ was awarded funding to coordinate a portfolio of exploratory projects which will accelerate the acoustic community. The funding will support new, ambitious, speculative research spanning the interdisciplinary science of acoustic related research in the UK.
Collaborator Contribution Hearing loss is associated with compromised gait and movement, and greater odds of falling - the leading cause of injury-related deaths in older people. However, evidence that hearing aids improve gait and movement is mixed. We propose this is because auditory input has not been integral to performance of outcome measures in prior studies. The goal of our research is to demonstrate that hearing aids not only improve communication, but also help people with hearing loss (PwHL) utilise auditory cues that enable them to move more safely and confidently during everyday tasks, such as crossing the road. To achieve this, we will use virtual reality (VR) tasks to manipulate the audiovisual environment while measuring aspects of motion (balance, gait), cognitive function, and confidence during task performance. We will use VR because we can create realistic audiovisual environments in a safe and controlled setting. The aim of our initial pilot project is to examine whether our proposed VR tasks are ecologically valid and relevant to older PwHL, and to assess the feasibility and acceptability of assessing movement and balance using VR and motion capture. Ultimately, this might help to improve uptake and use of hearing aids.
Impact tbc
Start Year 2024
 
Description International Year of Sound (IYS2020) 
Organisation International Year of Sound
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution We are a UK representative publicising IYS2020 and encouraging people to host events and publicise them on IYS2020 website attracting global attention to UK activity, skills and expertise in acoustics. UKAN provide two acoustic demonstrations at the Launch of IYS2020 on 30th January in the Grand Amphitheatre, Sorbonne University.
Collaborator Contribution Offering a global platform to share information on activity and priorities, increasing network, collaborations and contacts.
Impact Sharing resources on an international platform such as UKAN supported 'Acoustics Ventilation Overheating: Residential Design', published by the ANC Jan 2020
Start Year 2019
 
Description Kicking off biodegradable eco-acoustic sensing for scalable, far-reaching, and sustainable biodiversity monitoring 
Organisation Imperial College London
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution UKAN+ was awarded funding to coordinate a portfolio of exploratory projects which will accelerate the acoustic community. The funding will support new, ambitious, speculative research spanning the interdisciplinary science of acoustic related research in the UK.
Collaborator Contribution Effective management and protection of biodiversity is essential for a sustainable future. However, existing biodiversity surveys are laborious and slow, hindering efforts to design data-driven policy and management approaches. In this project, we will explore how conducting surveys with a proposed system of aerially deployed biodegradable microphones can best deliver meaningful biodiversity data. With simulations using existing large eco-acoustic datasets, we will investigate how variable audio quality and sampling strategies affect derived biodiversity metrics. We will also conduct a small field trial to collect eco-acoustic data from an early prototype of a biodegradable microphone.
Impact tbc
Start Year 2024
 
Description Patterned ionogel based acoustic sensors (PI-BASe) 
Organisation University of Strathclyde
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution UKAN+ was awarded funding to coordinate a portfolio of exploratory projects which will accelerate the acoustic community. The funding will support new, ambitious, speculative research spanning the interdisciplinary science of acoustic related research in the UK. The award is to provide funding to address the Acoustics Research Priorities which UKAN+ has identified. In September 2022 UKAN+ opened our second call. 6 Pilot projects were successful.
Collaborator Contribution Project Investigator: Dr. Andy Reid The acoustic properties of gels could be game changing if applied to acoustic sensors. Their chemical and material properties can be tailored so that they match the acoustic properties of their environment, such as water, tissue or polymer composites. An acoustic sensor made with this type of material would not be as acoustically intrusive as a rigid ceramic sensor. The large energy loss of a piezoelectric transducer due to the sharp change in acoustic impedance could be avoided, rather than mitigated with coupling gels and matching layers. This work explores the use of ionogels as acoustic sensors: which are room temperature stable ionic liquids captured in a polymer matrix. Where an ionogel contacts an electrode, a strong interfacial capacitance is formed as the ions from the gel accumulate on the counter charged electrode. This effect is the electrical double layer effect, and creates an extremely high capacitance over a length scale of nanometres. If we exploit this effect by giving the gel a patterned surface, the contact area between the electrode and the gel will change in response to pressure, leading to a rapid change in capacitance and a highly-sensitive impedance-based sensor.
Impact None to date.
Start Year 2023
 
Description Surface breaking crack sizing on advanced gas-cooled reactor fuel rods using laser ultrasonics 
Organisation University of Strathclyde
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution UKAN+ was awarded funding to coordinate a portfolio of exploratory projects which will accelerate the acoustic community. The funding will support new, ambitious, speculative research spanning the interdisciplinary science of acoustic related research in the UK.
Collaborator Contribution Spent nuclear fuel rods are stored underwater for decades and keeping them safe for decades is crucial. Tiny cracks, no thicker than a single hair, can form over time. These cracks need to be detected and monitored. Checking the appearance of these cracks is tricky: some methods struggle with the presence of water and the rods' ribbed design hinders others. Laser ultrasonics is a non-destructive testing method that uses lasers to "listen" for cracks. One laser heats the metal, creating tiny ultrasonic vibrations, while another laser detects these vibrations, revealing the location and the depth and width of cracks, if present. This project aims to prove that laser ultrasonics can be the tool for inspecting these fuel rods. It is remote, safe in radioactive environments, and works on complex shapes. By finding these tiny cracks early, we can ensure the safe storage of our nuclear fuel and protect people and the environment for generations to come.
Impact tbc
Start Year 2024
 
Description The University of Sheffield and University of the Arts London 
Organisation University of the Arts London
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Run Design Sprints with Firms to Develop Strategies. This contribution to the project aims to work closely with approximately 11 PSFs using AI across two sectors to undertake focussed exploratory prototyping projects using a 'design sprint' approach through which the potentials and implications of A.I. are explored and assessed. Led by CI KIMBELL, bringing expertise of multi-disciplinary co-design.
Collaborator Contribution The NextGenPSF project approaches the AI challenge as a 'design challenge' using mixed methods from social science research. By maintaining a focus on exploring potential futures in the present through design thinking and scenario planning is assisting the team to uncover the existing and latent needs of PSFs by allowing participants to explore and assess the current state of and potential for A.I. and the expected trajectories of technological developments over the next few years. The Sheffield partner brings cross-cutting expertise across the project in business model innovation.
Impact The project continues its qualitative research and is exploring the prototypying and co-designing workshops. To date the project has hosted 2 multi-firm and 2 bespoke sprints with a push increase the relationship with law and accountancy firms.
Start Year 2018
 
Description Toward a Measure of Soundscape Dynamical Acoustic Complexity using Causal Analysis and AI 
Organisation University of Sussex
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution UKAN+ was awarded funding to coordinate a portfolio of exploratory projects which will accelerate the acoustic community. The funding will support new, ambitious, speculative research spanning the interdisciplinary science of acoustic related research in the UK.
Collaborator Contribution This project will build evidence and partnerships for a large-scale grant to validate measures of the emergent complexity of soundscapes through four objectives: O1) Partnerships. To establish partnerships with 1) ecological restoration programmes 2) policy actors and 3) conservation technology organisations through a series of workshops (Q4) O2) Pilot. To establish the potential value of this approach by carrying out exploratory analyses on existing terrestrial, marine and freshwater data sets. O3) Publish. To publish a peer-reviewed position paper and a technical report. O4) Grant. To write at least one large grant (~4 year, £2M) to validate the approach.
Impact To follow
Start Year 2022
 
Description UK Acoustics Network Plus and Network 
Organisation University of Sheffield
Department Department of Mechanical Engineering
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Craster is co-director of the UK Acoustics Network Plus EP/V007866/1 and the Network EP/R005001/1 Members of the team & the postdocs and fellows that came to the research groups during the programme grant have played a strong role in the success of the Network Plus and Network.
Collaborator Contribution The critical mass of the programme grant and the research done within it gave momentum to the Network. The UK Acoustics Network (of which Craster was co-director) ran from 2017-2021 and interacted strongly with the programme grant. The special interest group in acoustic metamaterials was led by Craster until 2022 and this acted to motivate the UK Metamaterials Network.
Impact There is a separate ResearchFish entry for the UK Acoustics Network and Network Plus. www.acoustics.ac.uk Currently (as of 2024) there are over 1700 members, half are from industry and half from academia. It has run several hundred events nationwide, summer schools and a pilot funding scheme. There are a vast number of partners and please look at the UKAN and UKAN+ researchfish entries for details.
Start Year 2017
 
Description Ultrasonic stimulation and degradation monitoring of electrochemical processes 
Organisation Imperial College London
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution UKAN+ was awarded funding to coordinate a portfolio of exploratory projects which will accelerate the acoustic community. The funding will support new, ambitious, speculative research spanning the interdisciplinary science of acoustic related research in the UK. The award is to provide funding to address the Acoustics Research Priorities which UKAN+ has identified. In September 2022 UKAN+ opened our second call. 6 Pilot projects were successful.
Collaborator Contribution Project Investigator: Dr. Frederic Cegla Co-I: Dr. Yifeng Zhang (ECR) NDE group, Mech Eng., Imperial College London The net-zero energy transition requires us to shift more and more of our energy generation towards renewable sources for which electrochemical processes are very important. These electrochemical systems are usually diffusion limited and if excessively large charge transfers are imposed degradation in the form of dendrite growth can form. Dendrites are needle like structures that form on the electrode surfaces due to non-uniform ion exchange mechanisms that are driven by the high charge/dis-charge rates. The investigators have already investigated the use of ultrasound to monitor degradation on the electrode surfaces (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2022.231730) and this project will further investigate if ultrasonic stimulation can enhance diffusion at the electrode/electrolyte interface thus enabling faster charge transfer rates before degradation onset occurs.
Impact None to date
Start Year 2023
 
Description Workshop on sound recording analysis 
Organisation University of Stirling
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution The first edition of EcoHacK - a hands-on workshop on ecological sound recording analysis -took place between the 31st of October and the 2nd of November 2022 at the University of Stirling, United Kingdom. The event was fully sponsored by the UK Acoustic Network and the venue was provided by the University of Stirling.
Collaborator Contribution With the advent of low-cost passive detectors and the recent development of new acoustic sampling methods, the collection of ecological sounds in the field has gained momentum amongst researchers and practitioners worldwide to answer key ecological questions. The analysis of sound recordings was traditionally done manually but quickly became a time-consuming process. To overcome this issue, acoustic indices have recently been developed to summarize the sonic environment. Furthermore, the use of sound recognition algorithms based on machine learning now allows to discriminate with high confidence specific sounds of interest. As these modern techniques are evolving rapidly, this workshop provided an opportunity to work collaboratively on projects (hackathon format), learn, discuss, and exchange on state-of-the-art methods in eco-acoustics. The main objectives of EcoHacK were to: • bring together students, early-career, postdoctoral and senior researchers as well as key stakeholders (e.g. charities and private sector bodies) interested in sound recognition, bioacoustic, and soundscape ecology, • foster links and collaboration between institutions and across disciplines, as well as encouraging dialogue between the academic and private sector, • discuss, exchange, and share experiences and best practices in sound recording analysis, • explore novel ways of linking acoustic data with environmental variables at different spatiotemporal scales, • work collaboratively on eco-acoustics projects in an intensive, focused three days long "hackathon" format
Impact Most of the time (11 hours in total) of the workshop was dedicated to the Hackathon, an event where participants engage in rapid and collaborative programming to find high-quality solution to an emerging issue. The idea of the hackathon was also to gather participants to work together during a short period of time on a subject that can be outside of their daily routine, or to learn about other techniques used by other researchers. We asked the participants during the registration to propose a project for the hackathon and to give a short presentation during the first day. The list of projects can be found here (https://github.com/brain-zh/EcoHacK-2022). After some discussions around the 15 different projects, there were a strong will from participants to work on three main projects: • Developing a Shiny App to visualise eco-acoustic recordings from different sources • Creating an interactive Acoustic Index Manual that offers a step-by-step breakdown of the index calculations, coupled with example simulated and real-world recordings, to aid wider understanding within eco-acoustics and beyond. • Using different machine learning techniques for classifying Eurasian Curlew vocalisations to different call types to make inferences on productivity and predation at breeding sites. Participants presented their results the last day and it was a great opportunity for the community to reflect about the methods used. For instance, three working groups developed different deep learning algorithms for classifying Curlew vocalizations and the final project presentation gave them time to compare and discuss about algorithm performance and validity. Other notable outputs from the Hackathon are (i) the creation of the Acoustic Index Manual that participants plan to submit in a peer reviewed paper, and (ii) the development of a Shiny App to visualize recordings that will be used for creating the Acoustic Index Manual. We created a slack group for facilitating data/resources sharing during the event and communication post-event: ecohackgroupe.slack.com.
Start Year 2022
 
Description 'Seeing with Sound' Interactive display 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact UKAN, and UKAN+ via the Bioacoustics SIG have funded an exciting new outreach interactive game 'Seeing With Sound', which has just gone on display at the @WinSciCentre. Winchester Science Centre is the only science and discovery centre in the central South of England and one of the largest in the country, with a strategic vision of sparking curiosity and a mission to build science capital for all. Here is what they say about the new exhibit:

"Have you spotted the new exhibit at the Winchester Science Centre? It's based on scientist Marc Holderied's research, from @BASElabBristol, into bats' use of echolocation to locate their prey.

Have a go and see how you'd get on as a bat. Discover how moths have developed a way to hide from hungry bats. Let's go!"

The scientist behind the research, and Bioacoustics SIG co-leader Prof Marc Holderied from the University of Bristol says:

"Moths possess an amazing defence against detection by echolocating bats - an acoustic invisibility cloak. The tiny hairs and scales covering their bodies and wings are such incredibly efficient sound absorbers that they are helping us develop better and thinner noise control solutions for our homes and offices."

The details of the above event were shared with the UKAN+ community (1414 at time of publish) via the monthly newsletter.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://twitter.com/WinSciCentre
 
Description AI Hub Stakeholder Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact UKAN+ leadership wished to co-create a bid for an EPSRC-funded Hub in AI for Acoustic and Multimodal Data, being led by the UK Acoustics Network. AI Hubs will be large (up to £10M EPSRC funding) 5-year critical-mass investments. UKAN+ leadership wished to hear the views about the real-world challenges and applications in attendees area that could benefit from AI technologies, and the underpinning research that is needed to address these challenges. The primary objective was to understand how attendees could contribute to the success of such an AI Hub.
A pair of online 90-min workshops to gather views from potential stakeholders in industry, government and third sector organizations were arranged.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Acoustics 2021 joint UKAN+ and IoA event on effective collaboration between academia and industry 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact The session on effective collaboration talks from

Prof. Barry M. Gibbs (Honorary Professor in the Acoustics Research Unit, University of Liverpool, Past President of the Institute of Acoustics)
Nick Sheppard (Technical Director, Thales)
Dr Antonio Torija Martinez (Lecturer in Acoustic Engineering, University of Salford)
Andrew Mitchell (Doctoral Researcher, University College London).

Each speaker reflected on their own experiences, through knowledge transfer partnerships, funded research projects and collaborative projects, to focus on what makes for effective and successful collaboration. Following the presentations there was a panel discussion, opened by Kirill Horoshenkov (Professor of Acoustics, University of Sheffield), which outlined the recent UKAN+ survey on research priorities, followed by a wider discussion regarding effective collaboration between academia and industry and innovation and future research from the perspective of each of the speakers.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.ioa.org.uk/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=662
 
Description Acoustics 2023 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Yicheng Yu presented Pipebots at Acoustics 2023, he gave a talk at the conference on 8th December 2023.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://acoustics23sydney.org/
 
Description Aeroacoustics SIG Conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The national aeroacoustics conference was held in Manchester to facilitate communication of research trends and themes. Areas represented at the conference included propeller noise, psycho acoustics, jet noise, community noise from buildings and atmospheric effects. A variety of advanced simulation methods, experimental techniques and metamaterials were shown by the speakers. All presentations generated lively debates with lots of questions. Industry was represented, with Audiometrix Solutions showing the latest microphone technology.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/ukan-aeroacoustics-sig-conference/
 
Description An investigation of temporal variability in non-pathological speech: a pilot study towards a robust protocol for remote speech collection for psychological assessment 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Dr Cummins has spoken on the project during an invite talks at mWELL, an international workshop on Affective Computing for Mental Wellbeing. He will include results from the work in an upcoming keynote presentation at ASRU 2023
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://mwell.tbm.tudelft.nl/
 
Description An investigation of temporal variability in non-pathological speech: a pilot study towards a robust protocol for remote speech collection for psychological assessment 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Dr Cummins and Dr Dineley both spoke at the inaugural meeting of the KCL and SLAM CAMHS Digital lab. They are also part of a
cross-disciplinary working group planning infrastructure for technology-based research in the new Pears Maudsley Centre for Children and Young People. Insights from the pilot will feed directly into these efforts.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.camhsdlab.co.uk/
 
Description Art of Being an Acoustician 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact On the 21st April 2023 the inaugural Art of Being an Acoustician meeting was held at the Little Ship Club, London. The idea for this event was first broached by Past IoA President Stephen Turner as complementary to the long-running Art of Being a Consultant. UKAN's Early Career Specialist Interest Group supported the concept for the creation of a researched focused event where the career path and experience of senior acousticians, current acousticians and new acousticians could be aired. To this end Professor Stephen Dance invited the presenters from as broad a background as possible government, academic, consultancy, through to product development and industrial research. Steve placed the REF21 real world impact case studies on to Lindsey's wheel of acoustics to demonstrate the spread of UK research. Dr Lin Wang and Ms Josie Nixon represented the UKAN/IOA early career membership demonstrating integration of the two bodies.

The event ended with Professor Dance explaining the need to find a path to the future, perhaps through UKAN++. Professor Richard Craster greeted all the delegates and presenters at the bar, where discussions continued. We hope the delegates, from apprentices and Diploma students to PhD researchers enjoyed the event.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/?mailpoet_router&endpoint=view_in_browser&action=view&data=WzM0MiwiN2M3MTAzO...
 
Description Basic Auditory Science 2023 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This relevant to anyone in the UK and the world interested in the science of Hearing, Acoustics and Audiology. The ethos of the meeting is to facilitate the friendly exchange of work and ideas while providing excellent value for money.

It was a two-day meeting, with presentations over several sessions (these will run as plenary) and posters always on display in a separate space.

The presentation sessions were as follows:

Hearing-assistive technologies and modelling. CHAIR: Mark Fletcher (Southampton)
Spatial hearing and immersive audio rendering. CHAIR: Lorenzo Picinali (Imperial)
The physiology of hearing. CHAIR: Kerry Walker (Oxford)
Objective measures of hearing (EEG, fNIRS, fMRI etc.). CHAIR: Chris Sumner (Nottingham Trent)
Psychoacoustics and cognitive aspects of normal and impaired hearing. CHAIR: Brian Moore (Cambridge)
Multi-modal hearing and hearing-assistive technologies. CHAIR: Amir Hussain (Edinburgh Napier)
Effects of noise exposure on hearing and therapeutic training. CHAIR: Chris Plack (Manchester)

The BAS 2023 meeting was co-funded by the SONICOM project (www.sonicom.eu - The SONICOM project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no.101017743.) and the UK Acoustics Network Plus (UKAN+ - https://acoustics.ac.uk/)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/?mailpoet_router&endpoint=view_in_browser&action=view&data=WzM1OCwiM2U4OTc0M...
 
Description Bradford Science Festival 2021 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Professor Kirill Horoshenkov and Dr Viktor Doychinov took part in the Bradford Science Festival this year. This year was bigger than ever, with shows and performances, installations, make and takes, demonstrations, experiments, crafting activities and more.

Dr Doychinov ran a small stand about Pipebots with a short activity for children to participate in. The stand was busy day and Professor Horoshenkov and Dr Doychinov talked to approximnately 40 families about Pipebots, UKAN+ and robotics and wireless communications in general.

· A whopping 10,000 visitors came to the Museum during the festival
· There were over 25,000 visitor engagements in STEM activities
· Over 70 contractors and organisations took part in the festival

The event also had some great press coverage this year. Festival photos featured in the Guardian's photos of the week section; The i and The Daily Telegraph along with the local press the Yorkshire Post and Telegraph and Argus.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/what-was-on/bradford-science-festival-2021
 
Description Buddy Scheme for Inter-noise 2022 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The purpose of the scheme is to enable people who are not confident about attending Internoise 2022 ('buddies') to have a point of contact ('mentor') throughout the conference starting with the breakfast on the first day and other social/networking events (e.g. conference dinner) so that they feel less nervous about the conference and more inclined to attend. The scheme will also enable people to meet other attendees of the conference, as well as a few of the Leaders of the Institute of Acoustics, with their mentor there to introduce them.

There will be two buddies to each mentor to maximise opportunities for buddies to be involved in the conference. It will be up to buddies and mentors to decide how often they would like to meet
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/inter-noise-2022/
 
Description Building a Career in Acoustics 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Undergraduate students
Results and Impact On Friday 10th March 2023, the Early Career Special Interest Group (SIG) ran an event on 'Building a Career in Acoustics' in Manchester. The day started with a tour of the Acoustics laboratories at the University of Salford, followed by several talks and a panel discussion, and ending with a social/networking session. The speakers were Prof. Trevor Cox, Jo Webb and Dr. Antonio Torija Martinez (University of Salford), Stephen Turner (Stephen Turner Acoustics), Dr. Elly Martin (University College London), Emeritus Prof. Robin Langley (University of Cambridge), and Stefanie Edler-Wollstein (a consultant in the Postdoc and Fellows Development Centre at Imperial College London). The organisers were Drs. Simone Graetzer and Antonio Torija Martinez (Acoustics Research Group, University of Salford). To access more information about the event and the speakers, go to https://acoustics.ac.uk/building-a-career-in-acoustics/ and https://acoustics.ac.uk/building-a-career-in-acoustics-programme/.

Of the early career attendees, the vast majority said that the event exceeded their expectations and that the speakers were excellent. Attendees commented that the range and expertise of the speakers was excellent, and that it was particularly helpful that the speakers talked about both their successes and "failures". On this point, one early career attendee noted that '[i]t is nice to know that even highly successful people have had setbacks, which helps a lot'. Another attendee said it was 'great to chat and get to know the other people in the field'. Mid/senior career attendees and presenters reported that 'the presentations and panel session were really insightful', that it was an enjoyable, successful event, and a 'really excellent idea', with great panel discussion questions. Attendees suggested that we could run a similar event each year, with topics such as how to succeed in research within industry, how to write a technical research proposal, possible directions to take in a career in Acoustics, how to do effective outreach and public engagement, how to do effective networking, and how to establish a research team. If you have any thoughts on future events or anything else relating to this event or the Early Career SIG as a whole, send us an email at earlycareersgroup@acoustics.ac.uk.

The event videos and slides are now available in the Resources section of the UKAN+ website. The videos are now available on the UKAN+ YouTube channel
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/resources/
 
Description COUCH TO £500K: TURNING AN IDEA INTO A FELLOWSHIP PROPOSAL 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Eleven UKAN+ members attended a ten-session structured programme about writing a Fellowship proposal during the 2022-2023 academic year. The training incorporated a mix of instruction, peer-to-peer learning, writing
tasks, and in-depth participant feedback to allow attendees to better understand the funding process in general, the person-specific aspects of a Fellowship in particular, and the importance of clear communication in all grant proposals. Participants generated a draft proposal over the programme, while the active learning approach was designed to embed understanding for the long term.

This fellowship-specific version of the programme consisted of the following elements:
? Each session was 2.5 hours long. The programme was divided into an introductory first stage that was open to all (Sessions 1-2) and an in-depth second stage to the named participants (Sessions 3-10).
? Content included taught material, peer-to-peer activities, reflection points, question-and-answer time, and homework assignments that allowed participants to build up a draft fellowship proposal over the duration of the programme.
? Individual feedback was provided on homework assignments, both with regards to general content and to improve the clarity of the language.
? Participants had the opportunity to participate in mock interviews as well as experience reviewing a draft proposal.
? The trainers, Professor Dan Allwood and Dr Elaine Massung, were available via email for any additional questions outside of the programme.
? Programme materials and offline recordings were hosted on a cohort-specific course website and will remain available to participants for a year after the end of the programme. Course feedback from participants was very positive and the one proposal outcome to date has seen a participant be awarded a university fellowship.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022,2023
 
Description Computational Acoustics in Industry Sandpit 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact The Computational Acoustic SIG leadership team ran a sandpit event held at UCL in April 2023. The sandpit ran over one and a half days and its purpose was to promote academic engagement with industry, and foster new collaborative research that generates novel ideas for solutions to real-world acoustic problems. External organisations presented computational acoustics challenge/problems to an audience of interested academics and postgraduates from the acoustic community. The audience then organised into smaller groups to delve deeper into the important aspects of the challenge and, from this, they then formulate a research approach and determine the resources needed to tackle each challenge. Academics, postdoctoral researchers and postgraduates working working in the fields of theoretical and computational acoustics are welcome to attend.
Event was advertised here - https://acoustics.ac.uk/computational-acoustics-in-industry-sandpit/
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/?mailpoet_router&endpoint=view_in_browser&action=view&data=WzM1OCwiM2U4OTc0M...
 
Description Connecting SIG Event 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Presentation of research topics in Mathematical Analysis in Acoustics based on critical research challenges for acoustic survey. Lot of networking opportunities and future collaborations.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description EAA / UKAN Computational Acoustics Summer School 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact This Summer School offered graduate-level training in the fundamental and applied aspects of computational acoustics. It covered the main numerical methods currently in use in industry and under development in academia, such as finite element method, finite-difference method, boundary element method, and geometrical methods. The course included the required theoretical foundation needed to understand the properties of numerical schemes for acoustics. Taught by leading academics and researchers in the field, the course was intended for researchers and engineers from both academia and industry.

Scientific Organisers
Olivier Dazel, Le Mans Université
Gwénaël Gabard, Le Mans Université
Jonathan Hargreaves, University of Salford
Vicente Cutanda Henriquez, Technical University of Denmark (DTU)
Nick Ovenden, University College London
Andrew Gibbs, University College London
Amelia Gully, University of York
Maarten Hornikx, Eindhoven University of Technology
Peter Svensson, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/4468/
 
Description Early Career Connecting SIGs events 2023-2024 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact The Early Career Executive Board ran a second series of Connecting SIGs events. These brought together the SIGs overseen by each Early Career Acoustic Champion, as shown below.

AI Champion, Arshdeep Singh: Acoustic Sensors, Computational Acoustics, Mathematical Analysis in Acoustics and Biomedical Acoustics SIGs
Sustainability Champion, Merate Barakat: Acoustic or Ultrasonic NDE, Acoustic Metamaterials, Underwater Acoustics and Animal Bio-acoustics SIGs
Manufacturing and Transport Champion, Xudong Niu: Aero-acoustics, Vibro-acoustics, Noise and Soundscape and Physical Acoustics SIGs
Wellbeing Champion, Simone Graetzer: Communication and Room Acoustics, Hearing and Spatial Acoustics and Immersive Audio SIGs
Each Connecting SIGs event comprised of a number of talks about the various research areas covered by the SIGs, and discussions about the current state and future of the research theme. In addition, they may include some short talks ("pitches") by individual members about their current research. The idea is to bring together the members of the SIGs to discuss possible collaborations and applications for UKAN+ funding. All UKAN+ members from all stages of their career are welcome.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023,2024
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/connecting-sigs-2023-2024/
 
Description EcoHacK-2022 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The first edition of EcoHacK - a hands-on workshop on ecological sound recording analysis -took place between the 31st of October and the 2nd of November 2022 at the University of Stirling, United Kingdom. The event was fully sponsored by the UK Acoustic Network and the venue was provided by the University of Stirling.

With the advent of low-cost passive detectors and the recent development of new acoustic sampling methods, the collection of ecological sounds in the field has gained momentum amongst researchers and practitioners worldwide to answer key ecological questions. The analysis of sound recordings was traditionally done manually but quickly became a time-consuming process. To overcome this issue, acoustic indices have recently been developed to summarize the sonic environment. Furthermore, the use of sound recognition algorithms based on machine learning now allows to discriminate with high confidence specific sounds of interest. As these modern techniques are evolving rapidly, this workshop provided an opportunity to work collaboratively on projects (hackathon format), learn, discuss, and exchange on state-of-the-art methods in eco-acoustics.
The main objectives of EcoHacK were to:
• bring together students, early-career, postdoctoral and senior researchers as well as key stakeholders (e.g. charities and private sector bodies) interested in sound recognition, bioacoustic, and soundscape ecology,
• foster links and collaboration between institutions and across disciplines, as well as encouraging dialogue between the academic and private sector,
• discuss, exchange, and share experiences and best practices in sound recording analysis,
• explore novel ways of linking acoustic data with environmental variables at different spatiotemporal scales,
• work collaboratively on eco-acoustics projects in an intensive, focused three days long "hackathon" format.
2. Structure of the workshop
The programme included three workshop talks, one keynote talk, two blitz talk session (unconference event, with 3 short presentation/discussion), one project pitch session (with 15 short presentations), a hackathon, two courses and a project presentation session at the end of the workshop.
2.1. Workshop and keynote talks The workshop talks were designed to introduce the principles behind the use of eco-acoustic indices and machine learning in biological sound analysis. The talks were given by:
• Dr Amandine Gasc, researcher at the French Institute of Research and Development (IRD): 'An introduction to eco-acoustic indices'
• Dr Tom Bradfer-Lawrence, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Stirling: 'Acoustic indices for soundscapes and species'
• Dr Nicolas Farrugia, associate professor at IMT Atlantique, France: 'Applications of recent advances in machine learning to eco-acoustic indices: transfer, few shot and self-supervised learning'
The keynote talk was given by Dr Oliver Metcalf who is a postdoctoral fellow at the Manchester Metropolitan University and the UKAN+ Early Career rep for the Bioacoustics Special Interest Group.
His talk was entitled 'Acoustic monitoring of Amazon wildlife in human-modified landscapes'.

Most of the time (11 hours in total) of the workshop was dedicated to the Hackathon, an event where participants engage in rapid and collaborative programming to find high-quality solution to an emerging issue. The idea of the hackathon was also to gather participants to work together during a short period of time on a subject that can be outside of their daily routine, or to learn about other techniques used by other researchers.

23 participants from the UK, Portugal, Switzerland, France, Czech Republic, Norway, and Sweden attended the event. Most of the participants were postgraduate students (N = 14), followed by postdoctoral fellows (N = 4), lecturers (N = 4) and a data scientist (N = 1).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Facing the Music: Acoustics for the benefit of musicians 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact An Inaugural Lecture by Professor Stephen Dance, School of the Built Environment and Architecture.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/facing-the-music-acoustics-for-the-benefit-of-musicians/
 
Description February online event - UK Metamaterials SIG 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Online Group discussion
9 short talks from UK speakers in academia and industry. Group discussion intended to steer future engagement.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL http://tinyurl.com/metamaterial-showcase
 
Description Frontiers for Young Minds 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Scientific articles written by scientists and reviewed by a board of kids and teens
2020/21 was the first International Year of Sound, initiated by the International Commission for Acoustics, in response to UNESCO resolution 39C/49, as a celebration of sound and how it enters our lives in so many ways.

To celebrate the year of sound, a collection of articles were written by experts from the UK Acoustics Network and the International Year of Sound team. These articles explore the fascinating world of sound and how it benefits and causes problems to people, other animals, and our environment.

Centred around a single theme of research and hosted by researchers, all articles within Frontier for Young Minds Collections are freely downloadable and available as an eBook upon their completion.

As at March 2022, over 110,000 views.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://kids.frontiersin.org/collections/17985/a-world-of-sound
 
Description Hearing, Audio and Audiological Sciences Meeting Sept 2022 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Undergraduate students
Results and Impact The UK Acoustics Network "Hearing, Audio and Audiological Sciences Meeting" took place in Southampton University on the 12-13 September 2022, hosted by the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research.
This meeting represented the post-pandemic reboot of the Basic Auditory Science meeting, a long-running meeting of UK hearing scientists, which was originally conceived of as The British Society for Audiology Short Papers Meeting, the brainchild of auditory physiologist Ted Evans. The ethos of the meeting is to facilitate the friendly exchange of work and ideas, while providing an excellent value for money. This year, 115 students and academics attended the meeting.
Across two half-day sessions there were 21 talks across covering a wide range of topics across 7 sessions: Hearing-Assistive Technologies; Spatial Hearing and Immersive Audio Rendering; Advances in Our Understanding of Hearing from Neuroimaging; The Physiology of Hearing; Measuring and Understanding Hearing Loss; Modelling and Measuring Hearing and Hearing-Assistive Devices; and New Technologies for the Hearing Sciences. In between talks, attendees met around the 49 posters which covered a wide range of topics. The full programme, with abstracts, can be accessed here: https://acoustics.ac.uk/uk-hearing-audio-and-audiology-sciences-meeting/.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/uk-hearing-audio-and-audiology-sciences-meeting/
 
Description Hearing, Audio and Audiology Sciences Meeting 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This conference is of interest to anyone in the UK and the world who has an interest in the science of Hearing, Audio and Audiology. The plan is for a two-day meeting, in the mould of Basic Auditory Science & BSA Short Papers meetings of Legend.

The aims of the conference are to meet the need for in-person scientific exchange after the COVID disruption

Expanded the scope of the meeting to include more interdisciplinary aspects that are part of UKAN. Specifically, we invite participation of other UKAN SIGs: Bioacoustics, Biomedical, Communication, spatial and immersive audio). The goal is to enable to look over the horizon: if we want to solve the big problems of the future, we need to get out of our comfort zone and we need to engage the next generation!
The meeting will start mid-morning on Monday and end mid-afternoon Tuesday, with most of the presentation being via poster, and several sessions of talks (~10 talks across two days).
University accommodation is provided - bookable at the time of registration - low cost (determined by our university's non-negotiable costs: accommodation, morning coffee, room rent).
We hope to provide a free BBQ Monday night for everyone to attend in a more social environment
Opportunity to listen to talks online, streamed as much content as possible to allow people to participate who can't travel (poster sessions are not streamed).
Opportunity to present 'electronic posters' on numerous large screens.
Tours through the ISVR new world-leading anechoic chambers.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description IOP PAG Tutorial day (22nd September 2023) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Sonochemistry refers broadly to the application of acoustics/ultrasonics to accelerate chemical and physical processes, most often mediated by cavitation-bubble activity. A huge range of applications have been demonstrated in the scientific literature, employing a wide variety of source transducers, within many different experimental configurations. A vast parameter-space is available for exploitation, to refine and potentially upscale applications, but this also makes identification of optimal parameters extremely challenging.

At this Physical Acoustics Group Tutorial Day, novel applications, up-scaling and cavitation metrology were discussed, as well as presentations from leading researchers from across the UK including Dr. Frederic Cegl on the UKAN+ funded project - Ultrasonic stimulation and degradation monitoring of electrochemical processes
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://iop.eventsair.com/pagtd2023/
 
Description Inclusive Design with Multi-senses 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact On the 14th of April 2023, a symposium was held at the STEAMhouse Birmingham on "Inclusive Design with Multi-senses", supported by the UKAN+. Inclusive design, referring to the Design Council, is an approach to designing products, services, and environments that considers the needs and abilities of a diverse range of people. Taking a multi-sensory perspective, what adds to the inclusive design agenda and values? What is the role of sound in this integrated approach? How to approach inclusive design with multi-senses? Addressing these questions, Dr Jieling Xiao from Birmingham City University and Dr Francesco Aletta from UCL invited a group of leading scholars in the sensory studies field to share their thoughts.

Professor Charles Spence from the University of Oxford re-introduced the concept of sensotypes and sensory spectrum. Dr Victoria Bates from the University of Bristol uncovered historical noise surveys in hospitals and questioned whose voices were heard and whose were excluded. Prof Jian Kang shared multiple case studies on the cross-modal perceptions between sound and other senses in the built environment. Dr Carolina Vasilikou from Manchester Metropolitan University shared methods of sensory wayfinding with underrepresented groups. Dr PerMagnus Lindborg from Hong Kong City University introduced a new methodological framework in the Multimodal Hong Kong (MMHK) project to document soundscapes and smellscapes of places for cultural heritages in HK. Prof. Jonathan Reinarz from University of Birmingham revisited the Odour Preference research by Robert Moncrieff in 1966 with new insights. Dr Antonella Raddichi from Birmingham City University shared the inclusive design agenda for artificial lighting in urban public spaces. Dr Cecilia Bembibre shared the smell heritage framework and the latest work by Odeuropa network. Dr Dmitrijs Dmitrenko from the University of Sussex showed innovative ways that olfactory perceptions are considered in automotive design to be explored in the built environment settings.

A mini-exhibition called "The Dual City Multi-sensory Experience of Markets" offered an interactive experience of the everyday sounds and smells in the Birmingham Bullring Markets and Shek Kip Mei Estate Market in Hong Kong through objects, interviews and open-access documentaries. The symposium ended with a co-design workshop facilitated by the STEAMhouse Innovation manager Harry Conway providing a new method for delegates to understand the sensory needs for specific "sensotypes" and produce "sensolutions" for specific spatial scenarios.

Among the various senses, sound assumes a leading role in this context. Sound not only serves as a means of communication but also provides essential information and cues for navigation, safety, and engagement. Inclusive design that incorporates sound considers the diverse needs of individuals and promotes an environment where everyone can participate and thrive. By recognizing the significance of sound and harnessing its potential, designers can create inclusive spaces and products that cater to a broader spectrum of users, fostering a more equitable and accessible society.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/symposium-inclusive-design-with-multi-senses/
 
Description Ingleborough Soundscape Project: Final Report 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact In 2019 we set out to examine whether the success of contrasting rewilding initiatives in the Ingleborough National Nature Reserve could be gauged by using acoustic monitoring. We also took the opportunity to model the impact of transportation noise within the Yorkshire Dales National Park; by using SoundPLAN software. The findings of this two-year study are ready to share with interested parties. This event in April 2022 provided an overview of the Ingleborough Soundscape Project via a series of presentations from the authors of the Final Report, followed by a half-hour Q&A session.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description International Year of Sound (2020 - 2021) - The year 2020, now extended to 2021 due to the pandemic. 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The International Year of Sound is a project that the International Commission for Acoustics (ICA), an Affiliated Member of the ISC, has been preparing for many years.

The theme of the international year is the Importance of Sound for Society and the World and is underscored by the UNESCO Charter of Sound and resolution 39C/49 on the ''Importance of sound in today's world - Promoting best practices''. Other partners for the international year include "La Semaine du Son" (LSdS), the International Science Council and ISC members the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) and the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (IUTAM).

The main goal of any international year is to to promote international collaboration and to raise awareness on how science contributes to innovation for the benefit for all society.

The year 2020, now extended to 2021 due to the pandemic, has therefore been declared the International Year of Sound, which celebrates the global importance of sound in both technology and quality of life.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://council.science/current/news/year-of-sound-2020-21/
 
Description Invited talk by Dr Nicholas Cummins at a workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact The Potential and Challenges of Using Smartphones Voice Recordings to Monitor Health
2023 Workshop on Automatic Speech Recognition and Understanding, Taipei, December 2023, attended by academic and tech industry researchers.
Results were presented from EPSRC and MRC IAA awards as part of a discussion of the challenges faced in the clinical translation of speech-based health monitoring.
It resulted in discussions with a senior figure in the speech processing community who was interested in the findings and wanted to become involved in research community efforts in the area of work concerned.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL http://www.asru2023.org/motion.asp?siteid=1007526&menuid=49644&prodid=189805
 
Description JustNoise Podcast 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact UKAN+ is happy to support The Rest Is Just Noise, a monthly podcast which explores the relationship between sound and our cities. Each episode our passionate and excitable hosts are joined by an expert guest from fields such as acoustics, architecture, and environmental psychology, to discuss their latest work and introduce our audience to the science, beauty, and noise of urban sound. Each episode is hosted by UCL soundscape researchers Andrew Mitchell, Francesco Aletta, and Tin Oberman, and has featured guests like Ellie Ratcliffe (the "Queen of the Birds" from University of Surrey), Marion Burgess from the Year of Sound, and Gascia Ouzounian from the University of Oxford.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rest-is-just-noise/id1547078918?itsct=podcast_box_link&its...
 
Description KPMG Leadership programme 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Raising awareness of acoustics through the KPMG Leadership programme using Experiential Lecturing (30 Directors form FTSE100 companies)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Knowledgebase Hackathon 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact On 16th and 17th June 2022, the Computational Acoustics SIG are holding a hackathon centred around the knowledgebase. If you'd like to improve the existing materials, add something new, contribute your own code or just find out a bit more about the project, please join us! During each day we will have multiple breakout rooms running where we will be discussing and developing different areas of the knowledgebase, getting to grips with GitHub and the process of contributing to community projects, and other relevant ideas. Whether you're an experienced site developer wanting to get stuck in, or you just want to let us know how you think we could improve the resource, please do try to pop in.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/knowledgebase-hackathon/
 
Description Masterclass in Public Engagement 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Undergraduate students
Results and Impact Sophie Duncan from the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement will share insights into the why and how of public engagement, and share a framework for impactful engagement to help you explore and enhance your approach. Trevor Cox from the Acoustics UK network will give an example of how they have developed their PE strategy.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/masterclass-in-public-engagement/
 
Description Mathematical theory and applications of multiple wave scattering Programme 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The Winter School aims to engage early career researchers in the MWS programme. It will feature a series of introductory lectures from key names in the field of multiple wave scattering. The lectures will cover theory, methods and applications, and will appeal to a broad span of researchers, including engineers, physicists and mathematicians. We are also planning group research activities, which will be run by the organisers and guest lecturers, and involve some element of competition!
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description MetaMAT 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact MetaMAT brings together the UK, European and wider international metamaterials research communities in partnership with the UK Acoustic Network, Imperial College London, the research institute FEMTO-ST (CNRS, University of Franche-Comté ), the Laboratory of Acoustics of Le Mans Université and CNRS (LAUM), in France and the European Association of Mechanical, Acoustic and Thermal Metamaterials, by organising weekly webinars in the fields of metamaterials for researchers working in the physical and engineering sciences.

The idea of organising online seminars originated in spring 2020, due to the pandemics conditions at the initiative of the members of the European Association of Mechanical,
Acoustic and Thermal Metamaterials Contact us!; the CNRS-Imperial & International Research Laboratory https://www.imperial.ac.uk/abraham-de-moivre.

MetaMAT Ltd, in London and BTU trust SAS, in Paris are the main industrial partners of MetaMAT and are interested in establishing a vital link between research and academia and industry in material sciences, civil engineering and arts, providing an unifying approach applicable in several technological fields, exploiting the similarity of the related physics.

Bogdan Ungureanu, with the assistance of his colleagues Sébastien Guenneau and Muamer Kadic, has brought together more than 100 global experts from the field of metamaterials to the METAMAT platform. The novelty brought by MetaMAT besides organising free access, weekly livestream webinars is that each webinar remains freely and perpetually accessible (notably though the YouTube MetaMAT channel) and receives a citable DOI and searchable transcripts.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://meta-mat.org/
 
Description Metamaterials for Orchestra pits 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact On-line seminar
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Mimicking Auditory Function: Models, Metamaterials and Simulation 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact A mutli-disciplinary workshop to bring together people from previously unconnected fields who work on developing devices, systems and models that mimic the function of the auditory periphery (cochlea).

This will include researchers working on the development of Phenomenological and physiologically inspired hearing models, cochlea-inspired sensors and graded metamaterials, bio-physical models for cochlear mechanics.
This was a hybrid event, running via Zoom and in-person at Imperial College London
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description NDE SIG - Educational Ultrasonic Inspection Education Suite 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Procured and setup a 15 seat Educational Ultrasonic Inspection Education Suite which introduces Ultrasonic inspection principles with a focus on weld inspection.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021,2022
 
Description New Developments in Musical Acoustics 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The IOA Musical Acoustics Group is delighted to announce, after a long absence, our annual one-day autumn meeting is to return on Wednesday 19 October 2022. The event will be sponsored by UK Acoustics Network.

The venue was Birmingham City University, the theme "New Developments in Musical Acoustics". Topics related to the theme, in areas such as

musical instruments,
singing voice,
hearing,
perception,
machine learning,
simulation,
architecture and performance science.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.ioa.org.uk/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=734
 
Description New Scientist Live - London 2022 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact New Scientist Live 2022 welcomed 23,386 attendees, and the average dwell time on Saturday and Sunday was fantastic at over five hours. It was fantastic to be back at ExCeL London meeting such engaged visitors, learning from inspirational speakers, and of course enjoying the fabulous exhibits! For the first time, the event was streamed and show floor content to a further 2,195 international viewers. The widening participation programme was very well received, 2,810 students from schools with a high proportion of disadvantaged students were welcomed through the NSL complimentary tickets,

UKAN+ stall advertising material -
Everything around us makes a sound or vibrates, from the smallest molecules to the largest of buildings, acoustics is pretty much in all walks of everyday life. Our visitors have the opportunity to perform hands-on experiments based on various types of Acoustics and participate in a series of ''scientific games'' accessible to everyone. Our team, consisting of PhD researchers and academics from the UK Acoustics Network Plus (UKAN+) showcase a plethora of acoustic technology, some of which include: an ultrasound machine, sound haptics and acoustic levitator.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description One day symposium 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Following the successful first PhD Student day at the University of Bath in 2019, the UK Acoustics Network (UKAN) Special Interest Group for Underwater Acoustics (SIGUA) held its second one day symposium.

Final programme:

0930 Gary Heald Dstl Opening
0940 Ben Thomas University of Bath Invited talk: The PhD: A journey, not a destination.
1000 Jack Greenhalgh University of Bristol Phd talk#1: Ecoacoustics as a novel tool for assessing pond restoration success: Results of a pilot study
1020 George Masters Newcastle University Phd talk#2: Extremely high data rates in underwater acoustic communications
1040 Evan Ricketts Cardiff University Phd talk#3: Resonant Triads of Acoustic Gravity Waves in Shallow Water
1100

Break
1130 Oscar Bryan University of Bath Phd talk#4: Machine learning that utilises multiple sonar views for object classification in historic chemical munitions dumpsites
1150 Ellen White University of Southampton Phd talk#5: Deep Delphinids: Applied Deep Learning for Big Marine Acoustic Datasets
1210 Ben Ford & Ben Thomas NPL & University of Bath Research Sounding Early Career Competition
1230

Lunch / Networking
1400 Adrian Brown Atlas Elektronik UK Invited talk: Measurements, modelling and analysis
1420 Jose Almanza Medina University of York Phd talk#6: Underwater motion estimation using DL networks with sonar images with different FoV
1440 Shaula Garibbo University of Bath Phd talk#7: Low frequency ocean acoustics at the Lofoten Vesteralen Observatory, Norway - 1 year later
1500

Break
1525 Andy Smerdon University of Aberdeen Phd talk#8: Inversion of near-bed sediment load, particle size, settling velocity and turbulence from a multi-frequency acoustic backscatter instrument
1545 Edward Clark University of Bath Phd talk#9: Exploring the use of AI in marine acoustic sensor management
1605 Kirill Horoshenkov University of Sheffield Invited talk: UK Acoustics Network Plus
1625 Nikhil Banda Seiche Closing
1630 onwards

ECR Network Event

The aim of the day was to allow PhD students to present details about their research to like-minded colleagues and promote feedback and discussion. Aim was to to attract students at all stages of their PhD, including people who may have completed their PhD in the last couple of years.

Event of interest to all researchers, practitioners and users of underwater acoustics in government, industry, and academia and members of the SIGUA were encouraged to attend.

During the day showcased entries to the Research Soundings Early Career Competition and the winner will be invited to give a talk about their research and to describe their winning audio clip.

Opportunity to hear from everyone about the research challenges that they see as a priority for underwater acoustics. If you are interested in sharing your ideas we will be arranging a series of video interviews during the day that can then be used to support future SIGUA workshops and other events.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description PROPOSAL LAUNCHPAD: IDEAS GENERATION FOR RESEARCHERS: 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Eighteen members of UKAN+ applied to join this five-session programme that helps participants generate ideas for research proposals that move beyond trendy topics or the latest buzzwords and instead stand out from the
crowd in a positive way. Each session guided researchers through practices that will support them in developing viable research ideas through feedstock collection, preliminary project research, horizon scanning, and idea evaluation.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/proposal-launchpad-idea-generation-for-ecrs/
 
Description Phononics 2023 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact https://phononics2023.org/conf/index.php/phononics/2023
Phononics 2023 was the sixth conference dedicated to analysis and manipulation of phonons (vibrations in solids), connecting researchers interested in phononic crystals, acoustic, elastic, nanophononic, and thermal metamaterials, metasurfaces, wave propagation in periodic structures, nano-scale phonon transport, optomechanics and phonon coupling.

More specifically, the conference scientific focus was on the following nine central themes underlying current research in the field of phononics:

1. Phononic Crystals; Fundamentals, Design and Fabrication.
2. Acoustic and Elastic Metamaterials; Fundamentals, Design and Fabrication
3. Acoustic and Elastic Metasurfaces; Fundamentals, Design and Fabrication
4. Temporally modulated Phononic Media
5. Topological Acoustics and Phononics
6. Nonlinear Phononics
7. Thermal Phonons
8. Mathematical Methods Underpinning Phononics
9. Applied Phononics
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://phononics2023.org/conf/index.php/phononics/2023
 
Description Pipebots webinar - NDE (EMAT) sensor platform for robotic contact inspections - Dr Frederic Cegla, Imperial College London 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Dr Frederic Cegla from Imperial College London gave a talk at the Pipebots webinar series on Thursday 13th January 2022. The talk, titled 'NDE (EMAT) sensor platform for robotic contact inspections' was well attended by the Pipebots team and members of UKAN. There was a good disucssion following the talk. Dr Cegla was interested in hearing more about the Pipebots programme grant and suggested a webinar with his reseach group.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description RAEng - 2020 New Fellows' Celebration Event 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Professor Kirill Horoshenkov attended the RAEng - 2020 New Fellows' Celebration event at The Royal Academy of Engineering on 22nd September 2022. The event was well attended and provided the opportunity to meet with colleagues to discuss opportunities for collaboration. Following the event, Prof Horoshenkov met with Prof Tong Sun OBE FREng from City, University of London to discuss opportunities for collaboration. Prof Sun is also giving a talk at the Pipebots webinar series on 28th October 2021.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Research soundings competition 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact What does your research sound like?

Underwater SIG challenged the membership to present research through the medium of sound and help us to highlight the importance of underwater acoustics in everyday life.  The request was for a 30-second audio clip related to your work with up to 150 words explanation to accompany it to underwater@acoustics.ac.uk with the subject "RESEARCH SOUNDINGS".  The audio clip can contain any audible sound except for the human language.

Submissions were judged on creativity, clearness of the relationship between the sound and the research, and the quality of the explanation of the sound.  All submissions will be made available on the UKAN+ website and will be on display at the UKAN+ Underwater Acoustics PhD student symposium day (13 December 2021).  The competition was open to UKAN+ members from industry and academia in the early stages of their careers. Particularly encouraged participation from PhD students, post-doctoral researchers, and early career acousticians, engineers and lecturers.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Sensors SIG Early Career networking event 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact The purpose of this event was to encourage networking and exchange amongst early career researchers in the acoustics community. We had two invited speakers (one industry and one academic) to set the scene with technical talks but also talking about career development. We had an informal poster session and students got to know each other over that and round table lunch-time discussions.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Silenzi in Scotland: Soundscape Workshop in Braemar and Soundwalk in Glen Lui 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact The event took place in Braemar area, Aberdeenshire, on Sunday the 28th May, supported by UCL Global Engagement Fund and UKAN+. The event was part of the UCL Global Engagement project Silenzi in Scotland, which is about the collaboration between the UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering, Silenzi in Quota (silence in the highlands), EURAC and University of Trento. The soundwalk and the workshop were led by Tin Oberman (University College London) and Simone Torresin (University of Trento).

25 people of various backgrounds joined the walk and were able to enjoy the beautiful weather and the subsequent workshop. The participants were acoustics and noise consultants, PhD students, academics, sound engineers, local residents and people working for National Parks, amongst the others. The soundwalk was conducted as per ISO/TS 12913-2 with the Method A questionnaire. There were 6 measurement points and the walk eventually took slightly longer than 5 hrs. Many ambitious participants were taking their own recordings too, some even with a binaural head and torso simulator.

The subsequent workshop in the Braemar Village Hall featured the following talks:
Tin Oberman, Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering, UCL (UK): Soundscape ISO 12913 series in the context of National Parks
Simone Torresin, University of Trento and the Silenzi in Quota Team (Italy): Silenzi in Quota: "measuring" soundscapes in the Dolomites
Jan Dick, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, CEH, Bush Estate, Penicuik, Edinburgh (UK): Soundscape as cultural ecosystem service
Very positive feedback was observed on social networks and it was especially nice to hear from the park staff and the professional park's guide how their awareness of the environmental sounds increased and that they will start implementing some of the tricks they observed during the walk and the workshop in their own practice.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Symposium on Acoustics of Poroelastic Materials (SAPEM 2021) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The topics of this 2021's edition are:


Noise control materials (lightweight, transportation, electronics),
Modeling (physical & computational),
Characterization & measurement techniques,
Multi-functional porous materials,
Multi-scale and nanoporous materials,
New materials (including natural, recycled, 3D-printed, structured materials).
Special attention will be paid to reserving time for discussion.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://sapem2021.matelys.com/
 
Description Symposium on ultrasonic waves and data science 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This symposium is part of the larger British Applied Mathematics Colloquium.

Ultrasonic Waves Symposium

Ever more sensors are being used to monitor industrial processes in real-time, to improve safety, product quality, and to increase automation. Elastic/ultrasonic waves are easy to generate, can propagate well in most solids, and are sensitive to features such as stress, material aging, and cracks. With the increased use of sensors, the barrier now to wider adoption and success is to understand the data received. That is, to have robust models that link wave speeds and amplitudes to mechanical features in the solid.

Much of ultrasonic elastic wave propagation and scattering is well understood and modelled, provided the material itself is completely defined or known. However, when some mechanical properties are unknown, as is typical for sensing applications, there are still many open problems remaining, such as sensing small defects of unknown shape, measuring stress, accounting for uncertainty, imaging of soft tissues, incorporating multi-physics effects, etc.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vp1oxWz0EQt2od0A8uxioDMsBGx4d4-M/view
 
Description The Art of Being a Consultant 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Undergraduate students
Results and Impact The IOA Early Careers Group joined with UKAN+ Early Careers Special Interest Group to create a special two-day conference.

The Art of Being a Consultant on Thursday 20 April 2023 was aimed at future acousticians looking to join, or who have recently joined the acoustic consultancy world. The day explored what being an acoustic consultant is, how you do the job and the rules around consultancy.

The speakers will present on how they got to where they are in acoustics, talk about their past experiences and provide useful information on how to be the best in your chosen career.

PROGRAMME

09:30 Registration and refreshments
09:50 Welcome & introduction - Meeting Chair, Josie Nixon, Early Careers Group Chair
Session 1
10:10 What is acoustics consultancy?
David Boaden, Managing Consultant, AIRO
10:35 Negotiating Contracts
Mark Murphy, Principal Acoustician, Experience Studios
11:00 Refreshments
Session 2
11:30 Doing the Job
Russell Richardson, Director, RBA Acoustics
11:55 IOA Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in consultancy
Angela Lamacraft, Senior Consultant, Sustainable Acoustics
12:20 Working with Teams
Mike Hewett, Principal Acoustician, Acoustical Control Engineers & Consultants
12:45 Lunch
Session 3
13:45 Writing the Report

Stephen Turner, Director, ST Acoustics
14:10 Quality issues
Ed Clarke, Director, Clarke Saunders Associates
14:35 Refreshments
Session 4
15:00 Rules of the Game - the Ethics of Consultancy
Robert Adnitt, Director, Adnitt Acoustics
15:25 Gaining Professional Recognition, CPD - why it matters
Rachel Canham, Director, Walker Beak Mason
15:50 Discussion Session
16:30 Close and drinks at the bar
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Twitter - The UK Acoustics Network 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact f
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://twitter.com/acoustics_uk
 
Description UK Acoustics Network Steering Committee and Advisory Board 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The advisory board acts as a sounding board for the UKAN+ network. The advisory board helps with various issues, such as financing, strategic guidance, and so on. The advisory board meets annually and offeres their expert guidance.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018,2019,2020,2021,2022,2023
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/advisory-board/
 
Description UKAN Impactful Public Engagement Programme 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The UKAN Impactful Public Engagement Programme aimed to support UKAN members to develop their knowledge and skills in public engagement. Running from March - September 2022, this online programme supported delegates to gain insights and understanding about public engagement, hear from speakers with a range of different practices and perspectives, and work on their own public engagement project.
Learning objectives included:
• To gain understanding on how to plan public engagement with your work, including the
use of evaluation to improve and evidence the value of your public engagement work
• To develop understanding in how to achieve impact from public engagement activity
• To explore how to develop partnerships to develop public engagement programmes
• To create a project plan for your own public engagement project
The programme included:
• Three online events: 2-day long events with training modules, external speakers, plenary
discussion, and small group activities to consolidate learning; and one 2 hour event to
further develop participant public engagement plans, gain peer feedback on them, and to
problem solve together.
• Opportunities to build connections, learn from one another, and develop peer support
networks.
• Learning groups: Peer learning was supported through learning groups of up to 6
participants. Groups also had access to mentors with expertise in public engagement.
• Self-directed learning: Delegates were provided with content to support their planning,
including a template to support development of their public engagement approach.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description UKAN Workshop on Soundscapes 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact his workshop took place in person on the 5th of April, please see the flyer here.

The purpose of this workshop was to explore UK research in soundscapes, encourage knowledge exchange and discuss future directions, and provided an opportunity to form teams and consortia for future research collaborations and funding proposals.

The workshop focused on both outdoor and indoor soundscapes, and moved beyond the more traditional research on the subject, looking at different aspects such as sensing, AI, policy, etc.

Participants had the opportunity to explore research from different areas and topics, meeting others who might not normally attend the same conference venues.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/20220405-UKAN-Workshop-on-Soundscapes-Invite-v4.p...
 
Description UKAN+ 'Summer School' (UKANSS23) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact UKAN+ 'Summer School' (UKANSS23), the third in the series, aim was twofold: to provide training (1) in Digital Signal Processing (DSP) with applications to Acoustics and (2) in preparing research fellowship applications. This combination was particularly useful for people wanting to move into Acoustics or acoustical applications of their work and access a new source of funding. Providing this training is consistent with the goals of UKAN+ (1) to support the next generation of acousticians - including providing support to people entering Acoustics as a new research field - and (2) to facilitate cross-disciplinary research. The idea for the technical theme this year came from early career acousticians attending the second UKAN Summer School, who requested a school on DSP in a central location.

Eight-seven percent of attendees rated the event at 8, 9 or 10 out of 10, where 0 is 'did not meet expectations' and 10 is 'exceeded expectations'. The same percentage rated the expertise of the presenters on the topic as 'excellent', followed by 8.7% who said 'good'. The venue was rated as either 'excellent' or 'good'. We have some more detailed feedback (very largely positive) and some suggestions for the topics/themes of future summer schools.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/ukan-summer-school-2023/
 
Description UKAN+ ANNUAL MEETING 2022 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact UKAN+ invited members to attend our first in person* meeting in Manchester.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/ukan-annual-meeting/
 
Description UKAN+ Annual Conference 2023: Maximising the funding of acoustics 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The 2023 Annual Conference was an opportunity to meet fellow UKAN+ members as well as hear from some inspiring speakers. Speakers included
Speaker 1 - Tony Walker (Innovate UK)
Speaker 2 - Dominique Kleyn (Imperial)
Speaker 3 - Tryfon Antonakakis (Multiwave Technologies AG)
Speaker 4 - Russell Richardson (Director, RBA Acoustics & Chair, Association of Noise Consultants)
Speaker 5 - Orchisama Das (Sonos Inc)
Speaker 6 - Valerie Pinfield (Loughborough)
Speaker 7 - Andy Lawerence
Speaker 8 -Hasina Begum (Warwick)

Almost 100 attendees participated in the in-person event, contributing to the group sessions:-How to maximise the impact of research and the commercialisation of acoustics?/How can academic research in acoustics address unmet industry needs better? and Future of UKAN
Speaker 9 - Alistair Somerville (IoA)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/ukan-annual-conference-2023-maximising-the-funding-of-acoustics/
 
Description UKAN+ Call 1 PI: Yueting Sun Talk on HYMA 2022 (Genova, Italy) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Talk on HYMA 2022 (Genova, Italy) that built new collaborations with a number of chemists and material scientists offering new porous materials.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description UKAN+ Call 1 PI: Yueting Sun Talk on Internoise2022 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Talk on Internoise2022 (Glasgow) to disseminate the work to the acoustic community, including UKAN members and potential industrial partners.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description UKAN+ Call 1 PI:Dr Lin Wang & CI Dr Axel Rossberg, QMUL sustainability week, 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Undergraduate students
Results and Impact Public engagement activity: The PI and CI participated
in the QMUL sustainability week, and introduced to
public the use of auditory drones for bird call
monitoring in the biodiversity walk event, on 17 and
19 October 2022.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.qmul.ac.uk/about/sustainability/sustai%20nability-week/
 
Description UKAN+ Connecting SIGs Events 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact UKAN+ is organised a series of Connecting SIGs events, the aim of which was to enable members across all special interest groups (SIGs) to learn more about the research conducted in other SIGs.

Connecting SIGs: AI - 3rd December 2021
Connecting SIGs: Wellbeing - 24th February 2022
Connecting SIGs: Sustainability - 4th March 2022
Connecting SIGs: Manufacturing and Transport - May 2022

This should especially benefit early career members, who might have not had a chance to find out more about research that other UKAN+ members are carrying out due to pandemic-induced restrictions. Four events were held, each highlighting the activities relating to four of the UKAN+ SIGs.

The events covered three parts:
• an overview of research conducted in each of the four SIGs (4 speakers)
• a series of short 3-minute presentations (12 speakers from the four SIGs)
• a panel discussion with senior academics from the four SIGS (Prof Euan Spence, Prof Nick Ovenden, Prof Rob Dwyer-Joyce, Prof Stephen Dance)

Events offered fantastic networking opportunities and potential future collaborations, as well as offering researchers exposure to a broad interdisciplinary audience across both academia and industry.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021,2022
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/connecting-sigs-2021/
 
Description UKAN+ How to Review 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Constructive, Honest, and Kind: How to Review helps participants learn how to write reviews that are helpful to the PI, the panel, and the funder, with a specific focus on the forthcoming UKAN+ funding call.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description UKAN+ Impactful Public Development Programme 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact The programme
A dynamic six-month professional development opportunity will bring up to 40 members of UKAN together to develop their public engagement work. The programme is designed and facilitated by the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) and involves a range of contributors from inside and outside of higher education.

Key components of the programme are:

Three online events: These engaging, and specifically tailored events will provide the chance to:
Explore the core components of impactful engagement and put them into practice in your own context
Consider the role of partners in developing your approach
Develop skills in evaluation, to improve your work, and to evidence its impact
Hear from others about their engagement and impact work
Participate in interactive group discussions to improve your work and share your feedback with others
Dedicate time to developing your research and engagement projects, including evaluation plans
There will be two day-long events (10am - 3pm) and one 90-minute event

Networking: Opportunities to build connections, learn from one another, and develop your peer support network.
Learning groups: Peer learning will be supported through learning groups of up to 6 participants. Groups will also have access to mentors with expertise in public engagement.
Self-directed learning: Delegates will be provided with resources to support further learning, including a template to support development of their public engagement approach.
There is no fee to take part, and the programme will take place online. We are considering whether some elements of the programme can be delivered face-to-face, though this will depend on the current situation when the programme launches, and safety and accessibility remains our highest priority.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/ukan-impactful-public-development-programme/
 
Description UKAN+ Mathematical Acoustics Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The UKAN+ Mathematical Acoustics Workshop held from 18th to 19th September 2023 at University College London, will bring together the broad UK community of researchers applying mathematical techniques (including asymptotic analysis, applied analysis, numerical analysis and mathematical modelling) in the context of acoustics. As well as a number of talks from invited speakers, the event will also promote the work of Early Career researchers in the field, with presentations from the candidates shortlisted for the UKAN+ Mathematical Acoustics Paper Prize. The workshop is organised by the UKAN+ Mathematical Analysis in Acoustics SIG.

Plenary speaker
William Parnell (University of Manchester)
Invited speakers
Ivan Graham (University of Bath)
Sheehan Olver (Imperial College London)
Valerie Pinfield (Loughborough University)
Ory Schnitzer (Imperial College London)
Valery Smyshlyaev (University College London)
Euan Spence (University of Bath)
UKAN+ Mathematical Acoustics Paper Prize finalists
Martin Averseng (University of Bath)
Andrew Gibbs (University College London)
Valentin Kunz (University of Manchester)
Elena Medvedeva (University of Manchester)
Marie Touboul (Imperial College London)
UKAN+ Mathematical Acoustics Paper Prize judges
Dave Abrahams (University of Cambridge)
Richard Craster (Imperial College London)
Ivan Graham (University of Bath)
Jane Lawrie (Brunel University)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/ukan-mathematical-acoustics-workshop/
 
Description UKAN+ Monitoring Biodiversity Symposium 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Oliver Metcalf was awarded a UKAN+ Knowledge Transfer Partnership grant to work with Carlos Abrahams of Baker Consulting to develop a set of best practice guidelines for acoustic monitoring of biodiversity in the UK.

On the 15th-16th June, a symposium at Manchester Metropolitan University was held, with 70 in-person attendees and a further ~90 online registrants (from as far afield as Australia, France, Italy, and Germany). An audience from a diverse range of user-groups, including academia, Natural England, the British Trust for Ornithology, the RSPB, The Bat Conservation Trust, the Natural History Museum, rewilding organisations, and a range of ecological consultancies and tech companies attended. We were also pleased to see that over one third of attendees identified themselves as early-career.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL http://acoustics.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Blogpost-on-the-development-of-best-practice-guide...
 
Description UKAN+ Town Hall 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Following discussions with EPSRC regarding the future of The UK Acoustics Network, they advised wider consultation with UKAN members, to garner thoughts and views, of how to continue the legacy and impact. The Director and Deputy Director ran two online Townhall events providing the opportunity to express views within an informal discussion to help set the agenda item at the next UKAN+ event in September.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/ukan-town-hall/
 
Description UKAN+ Webinars 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact UKAN+ webinars
The network runs a series of webinars. Inviting both new members to share their research and existing members either as an invited speaker through the UKAN+ series or to contribute via the community of SIGs.

Events, including UKAN+ webinars are advertised on the UKAN+ website, in the monthly newsletter and members can be alerted to webinars of specific interest via their Mailpoet subscription. All webinars can be found on the UKAN+ website https://acoustics.ac.uk/past-events/.

The network has a zoom webinar account which UKAN+ and one SIG, Underwater use. Stats from these two webinars are available.
Month 21/22/23 Registered Attendees
May 158 58
June 131 80
July 345 115
August 0 0
September 156 33
October 190 108
November 224 34
December 39 30
January 167
February 167
March 294 47
April 282 47
May 326 35
June 353 69
September 64 35
October 92 53
December 202 107
February 55 52
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021,2022,2023
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/past-events/
 
Description UKAN+ Website 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact The UKAN website was designed and has been the reference point since UKAN commenced in 2017, serving the community well, but as we transitioned to UKAN+ a full refresh was undertaken.

Following consultation with the network and the Academic Management Team the refreshed site launched early September. A clearer landing page was designed and written including providing details of the Academic Management Team and Advisory Board members. The sites new features included amendments to the online directory page. The directory serves as a hub helping build connections between our community. Members were invited to update profiles. including a photo and ORCid details.

The resources page was amended to allow for searches on the site as well as categories created for easier referencing.

Mailpoet plug in was added to support newsletter engagement with the established community and to also support the development of the community to be active members. We restructured profiles so newsletter subscriptions and SIG data is now separate.

A new page was generated for the UKAN+ funding call. Providing full information including eligibility requirements. A further page provided the simple 3 part application form allowing for blind assessment and a voluntary ED&I form.

129 events since 01.04.23 15.02.23- inc webinars/workshops/sponsored events/funding call network projects
Google stats - Year 02.22-02.23 there has been 23K users with 35K sessions
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021,2022,2023
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/
 
Description UKAN+ Workshop on Soundscapes 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact On the 5th of April, the UK Acoustics Network held its first Workshop on soundscapes with the purpose of exploring UK research, encouraging knowledge exchange and discussing future directions.

A recording of the event can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecNYqDRoAi0
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecNYqDRoAi0
 
Description UKAN+ Youtube channel 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact The UK Acoustics Network Youtube channel is a resource for past online and in person events. In March 2023 the site had 77 videos, and 276 subscribers. Videos regularly receive views in the range of 60-130.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021,2022,2023
URL https://www.youtube.com/@theukacousticsnetwork880/videos
 
Description UKAN+ and Pipebots stand at New Scientist Live 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact New for New Scientist Live Manchester 2022
New Scientist Live is a mind-blowing festival of ideas and discoveries for everyone curious about science and why it matters. Following its multi-award-winning shows in London, on 12-14 March 2022 for the first time it is moving to Manchester, transforming the Manchester Central venue into the most exciting place in the universe for three days.

More than 40 speakers and 30+ exhibitors will come together in Manchester Central to create an unrivalled atmosphere and energy, packed with thought-provoking talks, ground-breaking discoveries, interactive experiences and hands-on activities, workshops and performances. Fun, entertaining, informative and inspirational, New Scientist Live stimulates the mind and senses like no other event.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://live.newscientist.com/new-for-2022
 
Description UKAN+ funding call collaborative workshops 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Collaborative workshop: 4th or 5th November 10:00-13:00

Prior to UKAN+ launching its first funding call, with the help of expert facilitators, UKAN+ hosted collaborative workshops.

These informal events were designed to build research communities to develop new, innovative ideas for proposals and opportunities to deliver a step change in world-class research. They aided proposals to align with the agreed acoustic priorities and project proposal assessment criteria. The workshop calls were limited in number to enable collaborative working. To facilitate participation, the same event was run twice.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description UKAN+ monthly newsletter 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact The UKAN+ newsletter is a cost effective tool used to share relevant and valuable information to our network. Following a refresh of the WordPress website, Mailpoet plugin was added to allow emails to be sent to our subscribers. Subscribers are added to one or more lists to allow SIG coordinators to directly connect with members with specific interest areas of acoustics. Email data will provide audience insights.

The newsletter is customised for stronger engagement allowing the UKAN+ team to connect with our community. Details of UKAN+ activity are shared, announcements of the UKAN+ calls and news from across the acoustic industry is promoted.

The newsletter is issued each month.

The Mailpoet subscription for March 2023 edition was 1228. 53.1% opened with 3.% clicking links.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021,2022,2023
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/resources/?_types=newsletters
 
Description UKAN+ webinars 2024 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Webinar 2024
UKAN+ hosts regular webinars. UKAN+ SIGs and the core team all host online, monthly webinars. Webinars are advertised on the UKAN+ website, newsletter and direct emails to interested parties. The webinars are generally recorded and added to the UKAN+ YouTube channel.

Webinar date and registration numbers
Jan 31, 2024 Aeroacoustics Webinar 77
Jan 17, 2024 1Speech communication, intelligibility and systems measurement in the Covid era - face masks are only the tip of the iceberg 48
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/past-events/
 
Description UKMM UKAN+ Acoustic Metamaterials Showcase Event 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Joint showcase between UK Acoustics Network and UK Metamaterials Network to showcase research in acoustic metamaterials in the UK. This is an opportunity to see a broad range of the current research taking place in UK universities and industry. Researchers from across the country will give short talks on their area of expertise.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/ukmm-ukan-acoustic-metamaterials-showcase-event/
 
Description UKMM UKAN+ Acoustic Metamaterials Showcase Event 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Joint showcase between UK Acoustics Network and UK Metamaterials Network to showcase research in acoustic metamaterials in the UK. An opportunity to see a broad range of the current research taking place in UK universities and industry. Researchers from across the country gave short talks on their area of expertise.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description UKMMN Summer School 2023: Acoustic and Mechanical Metamaterials 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact The one-week summer school, aimed at PhD students, Postdocs & Early Career Academics, was hosted between the Henry Royce Institute and Manchester Metropolitan University. There were five focussed days: i) Numerical Modelling (e.g., finite element), ii) Analytical Modelling, iii) Manufacturing, iv) Experimental Methods, and v) Career Progression/Funding. These included invited summary lectures and specific state of the art talks from internationally recognised academic and industry experts.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://metamaterials.network/ukmmn-summer-school-2023-acoustic-mechanical-metamaterials-summer-2023...
 
Description Underwater Acoustics Data Challenge Workshop 2023 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The Special Interest Group for Underwater Acoustics (SIGUA) held a 2-day residential event to explore solutions to research challenges set by industry. This will be the second Data Challenges Workshop for Underwater Acoustics following a successful workshop in Sheffield in 2022.

An opportunity to be exposed to some of the current and future challenges in underwater acoustics and to work together with other researchers, to explore and develop new/innovative solutions. This will be a hackathon style event, with small teams working on one of the challenges together for most of the two days, while representatives from industry move between the groups to provide application context and to answer questions.


Challenge #1 - Thales: Marine acoustic sensing using repurposed fibreoptic cables
Distributed fibre-optic sensing technology uses off-the-shelf fibreoptic cables, like the ones we use for our internet and telecoms, and repurposes them to be vast arrays of hydrophones (underwater microphones) measuring vibrations every couple of meters over 10s of kilometres. We have access to the Ocean Observatories Initiative RAPID dataset where two seafloor cables located offshore Oregon recorded data over a 4-day period in 2021. Over that time period we can observe wave and tidal effects, marine mammals (blue & fin whales), and shipping traffic. You will be provided with access to these seafloor cable data and challenged to develop algorithms that can extract information about these observed phenomena.

Challenge #2 -Ultra: Passive acoustic underwater detection and tracking
Human sonar operators typically outperform traditional passive contact follower algorithms when analysing broadband waterfall displays. One reason for this is that the current approaches, which incorporate Kalman and Alpha-Beta filters, are susceptible to the noise that is in abundance in underwater environments. Furthermore, they struggle to accurately track crossing contacts and detect quiet contacts in the presence of much louder ones. Since the quieter contacts are of most interest, this is a crucial capability of a tracking system. To reduce the cognitive burden on the operators, Ultra would like you to develop a detection and tracking algorithm that is more accurate and robust than the traditional methods, whilst not increasing the false alarm rate.

Challenge #3 - ORE Catapult: Sonobuoy network for marine mammal tracking
Marine mammal tracking reports for offshore energy project consenting have been of increased interest by local governments. These could become key for reducing site consenting times for the development of offshore wind, tidal and wave technologies. The ORE Catapult is interested in exploring the use of underwater acoustic sensing networks for marine mammal tracking using a dataset recorded over two days on a network of 32 buoys off the East coast of Canada. This area is a known habitat for North Atlantic Right Whales. The main goals of this challenge consist of developing methods for detecting, characterising, localising, and tracking the marine mammal calls.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://acoustics.ac.uk/?mailpoet_router&endpoint=view_in_browser&action=view&data=WzQwOSwiZDQ0YjE0N...
 
Description Underwater Acoustics PhD Symposium Day 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact The aim of the day was to allow PhD students to present details about their research to like-minded colleagues and promote feedback and discussion. Short lightning-style talks, which are suitable for new PhD students, plus longer talks to describe their research. The day included a series of invited talks from senior researchers and we showcased the entries to the Research Soundings Early Career Competition.
The event was free to attend and of interest to all researchers, practitioners and users of underwater acoustics in government, industry, and academia. SIGUA members are encouraged to attend to support the PhD students presenting their research. The event has run three times, the first being organised in 2019 when UKAN was operational, then two further times as UKAN+.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021,2023
 
Description Waves in Time-Varying Media Workshop Series 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Waves in Time - Varying Media's organising team's ran online workshop series dedicated to wave propagation in time-varying media.

In order to fit schedules more easily, and minimise "Zoom fatigue", the workshop was split into 4 sessions, each 3-hours long, respectively dedicated to:
• Theory and Fundamental Aspects of Time-Varying Media:
? Plenaries: Andrea Alu', Shanhui Fan
? Date: Wednesday 31st March 2021, 9-12am EST on Zoom
• Engineering Aspects and Sonic Implementations of Time-Modulation:
? Plenaries: Nader Engheta, Mathias Fink
? Date: Wednesday 28th April 2021, 9-12am EST on Zoom
• Nanophotonic and Nonlinear-Optical Platforms for Time-Modulation:
? Plenaries: (tba), Robert Boyd
? Date: Wednesday 26th May 2021, 9-12am EST on Zoom
• Interactive Poster Session and Final Roundtable:
? Plenary: Mordechai Segev
? Date: Wednesday 30th June 2021, 9-12am EST on gather.town
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.icworkshop2021.org/
 
Description Women in Acoustics (WiA) special podcast series 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Women in Acoustics (WiA) special podcast series hosted by Hasina Begun. Hasina collaborated with The Rest is just Noise team, a podcast which UKAN+ also supports. Hasina has been in contact with some remarkable women in acoustics who are breaking barriers, glass ceilings in fact with the incredible acoustics work that they are doing. The first guest was Prof. Eleanor Stride - Professor at the University of Oxford, specialising in Biomaterials and the fabrication of nano and microscale devices for drug delivery. One of which is using bubbles and ultrasonics! It was interesting to see how she propelled in her career and understand if there were any challenges she faced, being a woman in acoustics. The first episode was recorded, edited and released on Friday 23rd June 2023 to celebrate International Women in Engineering day (https://www.justnoisepod.com/1438372/13064708-wia-special-series-bubbles-everywhere-witheleanor-stride).

Future episodes released throughout 2023 and 2024.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023,2024
URL https://www.justnoisepod.com/
 
Description Workshop on Soundscapes 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The purpose of this workshop is to explore UK research in soundscapes, encourage knowledge exchange and discuss future directions, and provide an opportunity to form
teams and consortia for future research collaborations and funding proposals. To ease the discussions, the workshop will take place in person (assuming COVID regulations will
allow it). The presentations might be recorded and streamed.

The workshop focus will be on both outdoor and indoor soundscapes, and will move beyond the more traditional research on the subject, looking at different aspects such as
sensing, AI, policy, etc. Thereby, participants will have the opportunity to explore research from different areas and topics, and meet others who might not normally attend the same conference venues.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Young Muslim Leadership Programme 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact In cooperation with the Prince's Charities, and with the support of the Amanah Foundation and ISESCO, the Centre organises the Young Muslim Leadership Programme to encourage greater participation by Muslims in public life. This nine-day residential summer school is held at Oxford each year and is attended by young British Muslims, men and women between the ages of 21 and 30, who have demonstrated leadership potential in their chosen career-paths. They are drawn from a variety of backgrounds and interests, including national and local government, academia, the legal profession, media, and the voluntary sector.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.oxcis.ac.uk/young-muslim-leadership-programme