TARGeTED: Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance through Goal-orientated Thinking in the EPS Disciplines

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a serious threat to human and animal health. The problem is multifactorial, spans across many disciplines and involves stakeholders from right across society's spectrum. Our belief is that by engaging researchers from different disciplines, we can ask new questions and develop new solutions to the AMR challenge. Scientists engaged in EPS can bring novel insights and innovative technologies to many aspects of the AMR challenge but there are barriers to their engagement with goal-orientated, inter-disciplinary research. We have identified the conditions that lead to successful inter-disciplinary research outcomes; receptiveness, understanding, communication, resources and networks. We have put together a programme of activities that will create the time and space for researchers from EPS to engage in thinking about the AMR challenge in such a way that they will be able to identify tractable problems that they can solve. To start with we will focus on areas of research excellence currently being conducted at the University of York that have not to date been applied to AMR research, but promise to provide new insights and innovative solutions. These areas are 'Novel tools for understanding and controlling bacterial behaviour' and 'Novel biosensors and diagnostics'. We recognize that a successful 'Bridging the Gap' programme will bring together collaborations between researchers not yet engaged with the AMR agenda and we have incorporated into our activities strategies to reach these people. The outcome will be an exciting community of inter-disciplinary researchers working on the challenges of AMR that are communicating, sparking ideas, writing papers and applying for further funding.

Three broad categories of beneficiary have been identified on three different timescales: Immediate, Intermediate and Long-term.

Immediate beneficiaries (within 1-2 years) will be academics, and the research and support staff at UoY. The programme of activities we aim to support will help develop a culture of interdisciplinary 'goal-orientated' research, and lower barriers to collaboration.
- Academics will benefit from new opportunities to win external funding, gain new collaborators, enjoy new research challenges and gain new skills.
- Researchers engaging in pump priming projects will gain experience of working on tractable problems and will benefit from multiple interactions within an interdisciplinary environment.
- Support staff will be trained in facilitation and programme delivery to enable them to support programme objectives more effectively.

Intermediate beneficiaries (between 1 and 5 years) will be stakeholders such as industry, external academics, NHS collaborators and the general public.
- Industry, academic and NHS partners will gain from new methods, ideas and opportunities for developing and refining approaches to their AMR-centred research with UoY staff.
- The general public will benefit from an improved understanding of AMR, the challenges it imposes on individuals and society, and the complex and interdisciplinary nature of the solutions.

Long-term beneficiaries (from 3-15 years onwards) are ultimately those suffering from the effects of AMR, but benefitting from improved treatments, faster diagnostic methods and decision-making tools, thus enhancing their quality of life.
- Industry will gain economic benefit from application of new research and technologies into their products.
- Professionals in the healthcare services will benefit from new practices, procedures and/or tools.
- Policy makers, informed by the outcomes of the research, will review the impact of novel tools, knowledge and processes on health and welfare issues spanning health, economics, and societal agendas.