2010 Grant Balance - University College London

UCL has decided to use this year's Grant Balance award in conjunction with the Shaping Capability: Bridging the Gaps element of the 2010 EPSRC Additional Sponsorship award. We have a particular strategic emphasis on cross-disciplinary research at the moment, seeking to realise the benefits of UCL's broad spectrum of research excellence. The interface between EPSRC's remit and medical research is already large, fairly effectively networked, and well-supported, hence we have chosen to focus this funding on other interfaces that we feel are more in need of this kind of "start up" funding.

The areas selected for this year's Bridging the Gaps activities are: Digital Humanities, Algae Biotechnology, Sustainable Cities, and Venture Physical Sciences.

Within Digital Humanities, we will be building on the collaborations formed through our newly established Centre for Digital Humanities and supporting collaborative activities on: The Future of Reading; Text-Mining and Visualisation; and Archaeology, Museums and Imaging.

Within Algae Biotechnology, we will build upon the activities of an existing cross-disciplinary collaboration Algae@UCL, and in particular looking to link some of the emerging algae-based approaches to biotechnology to issues and relationships identified through the IMRC in Bioprocessing, evolving that research programme in wholly new directions.

Within Sustainable Cities, we will be supporting a range of small cross-disciplinary projects identified through our annual call for UCL Grand Challenges small grants, and a two-day sandpit (and resulting projects) on "Big Data in the City" as a collaboration between the Sustainable Cities UCL Grand Challenge and the FuturICT FET Flagship activity. A research associate will be supported working to support community building, in particular around sustainable mobility, sustainable resources and architecture and retrofitting.

Within Venture Physical Sciences, we will be supporting 3-4 highly adventurous Physical Sciences projects, looking to explore new avenues that cross existing divisions within Physical Sciences.

Given the wide range of cross-disciplinary research to be supported through this activity, the potential beneficiaries are extremely broad. Naturally the potential impact that such relatively small pilot studies might make individually is likely to be relatively limited and generic at this stage, but where substantial programmes result, these may be more profound.

For Digital Humanities, each of the activities will be collaborative with appropriate users, including electronic publishers, libraries, museums and field archaeologists. Hence, the research may lead to better adoption of digital technologies within each of those domains, providing benefits to those that use their services, especially in terms of accessibility and cost-effectiveness of digital resources.

For Algal Biotechnology, there are potential impacts in terms of both improved manufacture of certain pharmaceuticals, with obvious potential health and economic benefits, and better handling of environmental waste, with clear quality of life and sustainability advances.

For Sustainable Cities, there are a very wide range of potential impacts for those who live in cities, and the organisations that manage the urban environments. Obvious examples include the ways in which improved access to data might improve the ability of travellers to plan and adjust their journeys, and better access to local government information might empower citizens and social enterprise.

In each of these three cases, a likely route for follow-on collaborative projects would be through EngD studentships through the corresponding EPSRC EngD centre: Virtual Environments, Imaging and Visualisation; Bioprocess Leadership; and Urban Sustainability and Resilience.

In addition, our Sustainable Cities activity has strong links with (and will be supporting the establishment of) the new UCL Institute of Sustainable Resources, established with a large donation from mining company BHP Billiton. The on-going partnership with BHP Billiton will provide a major route for impact into the global resources sector.

For Venture Physical Sciences, the most likely short and medium-term impacts will be through media activities (e.g. BBC website, science documentaries) to those members of the public with a particular interest in the frontiers of knowledge.