University of Glasgow

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-09

This fellowship builds upon my award-winning doctoral research, which focused on understanding the unique challenges and opportunities faced by disabled girls and young women. Through presentations, training, knowledge exchange, and publications, this fellowship deepens, co-designs, and shares knowledge about the educational experiences and inequalities faced by disabled girls and young women in local (Scotland) and international settings, and exchanges this learning with a wide range of audiences, including academics, practitioners, policy makers, participants, and the public. In doing so, this fellowship contributes to policy change, empowering marginalised communities, and advancing inclusive and creative research practices, focussing on the lives of disabled girls and young women. Supported by my research and activism in disability and community development, the fellowship will support me to develop the educational dimensions of the work, furthering my commitment to addressing social problems and solutions from different perspectives. This will be supported through collaboration with my mentor, Professor Barbara Read, and through my appointment within the School of Education at the University of Glasgow. Prof. Read is a world-leading scholar in the field of gender and education, whose leadership of the ESRC funded international project Gendered Journeys and Editorship of the British Educational Research Journal has led to significant impacts in understanding and addressing educational inequalities. 'Tackling Educational Inequalities' is a key research priority within the School of Education. With educational exclusion emerging as a priority area for change in my doctoral research, this arrangement presents the ideal environment to support the development of my research. My thesis demonstrated that the barriers disabled girls and young women encountered in formal education often resulted in their 'slow exclusion', a term I forwarded to conceptualise the accumulation of barriers over time, resulting not only in their exclusion from formal education, but their willingness to engage in informal and future learning environments. My doctoral research indicated the importance of early intervention, prior to post-secondary school transitions, to provide disabled girls and young women with the support they need earlier in their educational journeys. This will be a core focus of the fellowship, specifically through co-design activities with policy makers, practitioners, and activists. Publications, presentations, and the development of training materials will further catalyse this reach of this learning, as well as connecting the work with other scholars working at the intersections of disability, gender, and education. In addition, the further development of these findings and methods are timely given the ongoing development of policy and legislation relating to disability, youth, and gender in Scotland, and plans to incorporate UN Conventions into domestic law including the Convention on of the Rights of the Child, which has provisions for disabled children and young people (Article 23); the Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons, with provisions for disabled children (Article 7); and a new Learning Disabilities, Autism, and Neurodivergence (LDAN) Bill. These developments are taking place against a backdrop of stigma and social injustice for disabled and neurodivergent girls including the perspective that ADHD and autism diagnoses are 'trends'. This fellowship will provide vital examples of robust research and best practice for disabled girls' inclusion and participation in educational spaces, critical to influencing and informing policy building in this space. In doing so it will also contribute to international efforts to achieve gender equality and empower women (Sustainable Development Goal 5).

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-09

Metastasis, the spread of cancer cells to other parts of the body, is the main reason for cancer-related deaths. I have recently made the remarkable discovery that metastasis is regulated by the circadian rhythm, an internal clock that our body has developed to synchronise and adjust its functions to the daily changes of the environment. I found that the number of Circulating Tumour Cells (CTCs) - cancer cells that escape from the tumour, enter the blood circulation, travel through the body and form new tumours in different organs - fluctuates throughout the day with increased numbers detected at night. I also discovered that CTCs form metastases predominantly during sleep. Together, these findings suggest that the circadian rhythm plays a critical role in cancer spread and could affect the results of the liquid biopsy, a new test that analyses the peripheral blood of a person to check for cancer progression and relapse. Therefore, the goal of this research proposal is to investigate how time controls metastasis and use this knowledge to develop improved approaches to predict metastasis and treat cancer. Specifically, the questions that I will ask are the following: 1) is the time when CTCs escape from the tumour similar for all cancer types? 2) why metastasis is formed at a specific time of the day and how can we block it? 3) will therapies be more effective if we administer them at specific times of the day? By using this new, time-defined approach to study metastasis, I am confident that this research proposal is highly likely to make significant contributions to find novel ways to treat cancer and help more cancer patients survive.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-09

Malaria remains a significant threat to global health. Malaria cases and deaths have continued to rise in recent years despite concerted efforts to curb the disease, and the situation is exacerbated by emerging resistance to the most potent class of antimalarial drugs. During the critical blood stage infection, each malaria parasite multiplies extensively within host red blood cells to produce up to 24 daughter parasites. The parasite achieves this remarkable feat through an unusual form of cell division called schizogony in which it first multiplies its nucleus several times before finally dividing its cell. Several aspects of this fascinating process remain enigmatic, including how the parasite enters into and controls the timing of this proliferative phase. Such key decisions during the parasite lifecycle are usually taken by at least two classes of DNA binding proteins (DBPs), viz. transcription factors and reader proteins, many of them likely essential for the parasite but with unknown functions. Here, I will disrupt the function of several candidate DBPs to identify those important in schizogony and I will work out their mechanism of action. For this, I will employ an exciting new technology that I have recently developed which enables the study of several knockout mutant parasites at the same time, an endeavour previously notoriously difficult in the malaria parasite. I will then capture the effect each gene disruption has on the global gene expression in the parasite using single-cell RNA sequencing, again targeting several mutants at once. This, combined with further in-depth characterisation of schizogony-regulating DBPs, will generate important new fundamental knowledge about how cell division in this early-diverging parasitic eukaryote is regulated, and hopefully aid the development of new intervention strategies against this devastating disease.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-08

Rabies kills tens of thousands of people every year despite effective vaccines that prevent human infection and interrupt transmission in animals having existed for over a century. Although vaccine-preventable, rabies has been neglected in low-and-middle-income countries. To change this, WHO and partners launched a global strategic plan to end human deaths from dog-mediated rabies by 2030 ('Zero by 30'). To achieve this goal access to life-saving post-exposure vaccines must be improved to ensure people bitten by rabid animals do not develop this fatal disease. However human vaccines alone will not impact rabies spread in domestic dog populations responsible for maintaining circulation. Dog vaccination must be scaled up and sustained to interrupt transmission. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is poised to invest in post-exposure vaccines, with rollout in the first low-income countries from mid-2025. Gavi's investment is expected to catalyse action on dog vaccination, leveraging momentum so countries scale up strategies for rabies elimination. Tanzania has the potential to be an early-adopter country of Gavi-vaccine investment There is an urgent need for research to inform rabies vaccines rollout, both post-exposure prophylaxis and dog vaccination, to maximise their reach and impact. At this pivotal time, SOS-rabies will undertake high-impact implementation research in Tanzania aiming to reduce the rabies burden and strengthen One Health systems and capacity. Our objectives are to: Design tools to guide short and long-term planning for interventions to eliminate rabies; Develop training materials and guidance to support their scaling up; Evaluate the impact of these interventions as they are rolled out. The team will capitalise on Integrated Bite Case Management (IBCM), a One Health approach to rabies surveillance recommended by WHO. IBCM is currently being implemented as a research platform across five regions of Tanzania where rabies is endemic. Using IBCM, we will examine demand for post-exposure vaccines and synthesise learnings about current bite patient management practices, surveillance and reporting and how they can be improved. From modelling these data we will optimise supply chain design for decentralising access to post-exposure vaccines, while ensuring resilience to stockouts and feasibility of health system integration. We will develop and test tools, training and guidance to support intervention rollout, including the development of a modelling framework to forecast impacts and the use of dashboards to track impacts, including deaths, exposures and vaccine demand. Rollout policy and operational uncertainty however means that health system adaptation will be key. Employing the SOS-rabies toolbox, we will use Developmental Evaluation to support health system learning and evaluate the impacts of interventions to improve access to post-exposure vaccines and scale up mass dog vaccination. Taking a participatory and systems-based approach will facilitate learning and adaptation as this complex set of interventions is delivered across settings. Through continued engagement with stakeholders like community beneficiaries, frontline health and veterinary workers, health systems managers, national decision-makers and international policymakers, we will review data, co-design solutions to address challenges, and generate continual learning of what works. In Tanzania, we will strengthen scientific capacity and health systems; support adaptation and optimization of One Health interventions, and build political, programmatic and public support and ownership to achieve and sustain rabies freedom. Overall, our embedded collaborative research will generate transferable lessons and best practices for scaling up rabies prevention, control and surveillance, feeding into Gavi's investment on rabies, and redressing long-standing vaccine inequities.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-08

Project title: Biofouling prediction as a tool for spatial planning and yield optimisation in seaweed aquaculture Seaweed production is an environmentally sustainable, zero-input industry that provides jobs and services arising from derived human food, agri-feed, fertilisers, biostimulants, products for cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. Seaweed farming in Europe has significant potential for growth but is still in its early stages compared to Asian countries where the industry is mature and highly profitable. In the nutrient-rich waters of the North Atlantic, biofouling in early (seed ropes) and late (harvest) seaweed growth can have unpredictable and devastating impacts on product yield and quality. Seaweed biofouling occurs when larval planktonic organisms settle on fronds and grow into adult forms (e.g., bryozoans, hydrozoans, tunicates). In the summer months, when seaweed are growing rapidly, biofouling can expand and completely cover seaweed within a period of 10 days, leaving a very narrow window for farmers to identify the problem and act. In addition, although biofouling affects all seaweed farms across the North Atlantic coast, there is significant variation of the biofouling species and severity from site to site as well as from year to year. It is important to thus capture this variability using a network of sites spread across a wide geographical area that encompasses diverse environmental conditions. This knowledge is crucial for understanding how the marine environment drives biofouling and for producing actionable, user-friendly tools for predicting biofouling species in space and time. This project unites a large consortium of seaweed producers, from the south of the UK to the Swedish and Norwegian coasts, technology providers and leading academic institutions to provide new planning tools and guidelines to the seaweed aquaculture industry. Our partner network will monitor environmental conditions, plankton dynamics and emerging seaweed biofouling across a full seaweed production cycle on their farms. We will deploy extensive microscopic, molecular (eDNA), sensor-based (temperature, salinity, light) and analytical (nutrients, chlorophyll-a) techniques combined with novel experimental interventions on coastal aquaria to unravel the role of physical and chemical environment, plankton diversity and blade biofilm on biofouling formation. Crucially, this information will be used to train state-of-the-art machine learning models that can help farmers predict the risk of biofouling species and timing on existing and planned farm locations. This knowledge can help farmers accurately plan their harvest time for maximising growth and implement targeted anti-fouling strategies depending on the predicted fouling species. By providing this user-friendly predictive tool our project aims to help farms eliminate the excessive costs entailed in post-hoc processing of seaweed and farm monitoring (e.g., gas, boat time, staff time) and instead rely on accurate early warning using low-cost data feeds from existing in-situ automatised sensors. Our project also aims to help technology providers of seaweed farms understand which physical and chemical variables are most critical for biofouling prediction to help design marine sensors and software that are fit-for-purpose. By fostering a North Atlantic network of farmers, solution providers and food safety experts, we aim to maximise benefits to the industry via knowledge exchange, technology transfer and policy development.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-08

Emerging viruses pose an ever-present and increasing threat to societies globally. Highly connected international transport networks, population growth and movement, coupled with climate and land use change, mean that viruses can spread more rapidly and widely than ever before, reaching new geographical areas and hosts. This is not only a concern for humans and animal health but also for agriculture, as plants are also critical to ecosystems and food security. New interlinked infrastructures and technologies are needed to address these escalating risks. We propose to establish an interdisciplinary "One Health Computational Network (OHCN)" to develop new computational and data-driven approaches to better predict, detect, understand and prevent emerging viral diseases of humans, animals and plants. Advances in computational methods, in particular artificial intelligence (AI), are providing significant opportunities to enhance our view of the emerging infectious diseases that pose a significant threat to the health and wellbeing of the UK population. The aim of the OHCN network will be to capitalise on these opportunities by building linked cross-sectoral datasets and developing and applying new computational approaches to tackle a range of viral threats to animal, human and plant health. We will establish an interdisciplinary research network to: Identify datasets and opportunities to link these across sectors and identify gaps where such data do not currently exist. Develop computational approaches that can be used to address questions across three central research themes. Theme 1: The prediction of risk and spread of (re)emerging viruses within susceptible human, animal and plant populations, incorporating the impact of ecosystem and social change. Theme 2: The assessment of risk and early detection of emerging viruses at the human-animal interface using enhanced surveillance methods. Theme 3: The prediction of evolutionary change that would impact the phenotype and virulence of (re)emerging viruses. Computational and data-driven approaches have the potential to predict and inform interventions to prevent the emergence of viral disease by identification of host, vector and environmental contexts that promote cross-species transmission. Computational tools developed by the applicants and other partners include variant nomenclature, dashboards for the identification of key mutations and variant growth rates, and the CLIMB environment for data sharing and analysis. One of the most important lessons from the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was the need for rapid response driven by science-informed decision making. Mathematical models were key to predicting the spread and consequences of the virus, and genome sequencing coupled with bioinformatics to the understanding of new variants. A paradigm shift in AI, specifically, large language models, has the potential to rapidly summarise extensive bodies of existing knowledge and inference of phenotypic properties from sequence data alone, providing new perspectives on viral biology and pandemic risk. While similar computational approaches are applicable in animal, human and plant viral diseases, these research communities rarely work together, based on funding requirements. Bringing researchers together working on pathogens in different domains and working at different scales (including molecular, population, species, ecological) will create new opportunities for interdisciplinary working. To catalyze our activities, we will hold two virtual stakeholder workshops and an in-person symposium to identify opportunities to develop innovative approaches for enhanced monitoring of virus threats, to human, animal and plant populations. We will hold monthly meetings, covering each of the key themes and develop an application for phase II of the interdisciplinary epidemic preparedness call.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-08

Transforming early childhood health and wellbeing is essential to the UK’s future prosperity (1). However, current indicators highlight the need for new interventions to support these ambitions. For example, 20% of young children fall short of cognitive and emotional development goals (1). Meanwhile, obesity rates are rising; in 2021, 29.5% and 27.7% of 5 year olds were at risk of overweight and obesity, respectively (2, 3). Socio-economic disadvantage during early childhood also increases the risk of obesity, and this health gap widens with age (4). Given that most children aged 3-5 years attend formal childcare, regardless of socio-economic position, preventative interventions in early childhood education (ECE) settings has the potential to enhance population health and wellbeing and disrupt mechanisms of inequality. However, benefits depend on numerous interdependent factors (e.g. type and quality of provision, parental engagement, and children’s relationships) (5). Past research suggested that while ECE provision varies, nature-based ECE may hold particular promise in promoting children’s development, health and wellbeing through physical activity (PA) and play (6, 7). The positive impacts of exposure to nature in ECE settings can be long-lasting and comparable effects from such exposures, including narrowing socio-economic inequalities in health, are seen in settings across the life-course (8). Despite a recent and rapid global increase in nature-based ECE interventions, those developed to-date may be sub-optimal (9, 10), at least in part due to the lack of consideration of complex co-occurring issues. Enhancing ECE is strongly contingent on the mental health and wellbeing of educators (11), who face growing challenges and burn-out, leading to staff shortages affecting children’s experiences in ECE settings (12). Given that exposure to natural environments also promotes physical and mental wellbeing in adults (13, 14), we argue that optimally developed nature-based ECE interventions have the potential to affect outcomes across different stakeholder groups in ways that are synergistic, allowing both children and educators to flourish especially in ECEs with limited outdoor play provision and no naturalised outdoor space in areas of deprivation. We propose an innovative systems-based approach to the complex challenge of promoting health and wellbeing in early years settings, which will recognise and target the potential reinforcing feedback loop created by the symbiotic benefits of nature-based ECE interventions for both the children and their educators, and account for the array of interacting factors that influence their implementation. This will build on our existing research that demonstrated the equitable potential of nature-based ECE in promoting healthy weight, and cognitive/emotional development, through outdoor PA and play (9, 10). Our research will be underpinned by tested methodological frameworks (e.g. 6 Steps of Quality Intervention Development (15, 16)) and contribute much-needed insight in the UK context by co-developing interventions, alongside key stakeholders, that: Have the potential to leverage co-benefits for different groups of actors (e.g. how engaging children in nature-based ECE affect educator outcomes and vice versa). Account for systemic and contextual factors that influence their effective delivery. Can be implemented feasibly, acceptably, affordably, and sustainably.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-08

Blackleg disease and soft rots caused by Pectobacterium atrosepticum (Pba) and related species are responsible for annual losses of >£50 million in the UK alone. Control strategies are limited, and traditional approaches (breeding resistance, chemical treatments) unsuccessful. The main route for infection is from infected seed potatoes; therefore, the use of certified (Pba-free) seed potatoes has been the primary control measure. This is costly and regardless, infections remain a serious problem. There is an overwhelming need for novel antibacterial agents. An effective post-harvest treatment would substantially eliminate the main route for introduction into the ware crop. This represents a novel, effective and financially attractive solution. Bacteriocins are narrow spectrum protein antibiotics active against bacteria closely related to the producing strain. We have previously identified, synthesized, and tested bacteriocins targeted against four different genera of plant pathogens and have found candidates that are highly active against important pathogens of diverse crops. These also show no killing activity against other bacterial species within the environment making them ideal candidates for an environmentally benign treatment for bacterial plant diseases. Using BBSRC funding, we have identified (to date) two bacteriocins with excellent killing activity against UK isolates of Pba. Excitingly, they efficiently suppress Pba infection in potato tissue. They are stable and can be expressed at high levels in E. coli, making excellent candidates for prophylactic treatment of seed potatoes. We propose to take this work forward towards commercialization. Identification/design and testing of novel candidate bacteriocins: To avoid resistance evolving, we envisage using bacteriocin mixtures. We will extend our genome-mining approach, designing chimeric bacteriocins, facilitated by the accurate in silico structural prediction using AlphaFold. DW has successfully broadened the activity of bacteriocins targeting aeruginosa, eliminating immunity within the target pathogen population - we will adapt this strategy for targeting blackleg. Novel bacteriocins will be tested for ability to suppress infection in potato tissue Testing treatments in potatoes and assessing their efficacy: We will assess the efficacy of treatments in reducing bacterial titres and infections in whole potatoes. We will test the effect of bacteriocin treatment on Pba titres on the surface/skin of infected potatoes. Infected potatoes will be introduced to batches of Pba-free tubers and we will assess the effect of bacteriocin treatment on levels of Pba in run off. Treated and untreated seed potato batches will be planted in glasshouses and emerging plants compared for rates of symptoms/infection. The aim will be to refine the treatment to maximize reductions in numbers of blackleg infected emerging plants Transient in planta expression of bacteriocins: For commercialization, production of recombinant proteins by transient expression in plants represents a more cost effective approach than production in coli. We have already successfully expressed selected bacteriocins transiently in N. benthamiana. We will test and optimize expression of bacteriocins targeted against Pba (1. above). We have already patented resistance to P. syringae in two species by expressing a bacteriocin. We will transiently express bacteriocins in potatoes and determine whether this confers resistance to Pba. This project fits extremely well within the scope of the BBSRC and remits of the Follow-On-Fund, providing a potentially sustainable ecologically friendly solution to a major agricultural disease problem. We commissioned a commercial scoping exercise and business plan for a potential spin-off company that demonstrated the economic promise and soundness of the proposed solution.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-07

Humans exhibit and communicate with a wide range of affective and cognitive states. Mind reading allows humans to predict, model, and interpret each other's behaviour beyond the capabilities of other animals, a claim that arguably can be made despite recent research suggesting apes being successful with false-belief tasks. Therefore, mind reading is fundamental to human social interaction and communication. In mind reading, one of the most important signs is facial expression, as it conveys critical information that reflects mental states and relates to 55% of information when people perceive others' feelings and attitudes. Since Duchenne5 studied the electro-stimulation of individual facial muscles in 1862 and ten years later, Darwin published "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals", making a case for shared ancestry of facial expressions. Research on facial expressions has attracted a lot of attention from different disciplines such as psychology, neuroscience and computer science. In recent years, the development of computing technologies and massive online facial images/videos enabled the boosting of deep learning-based facial expression recognition (FER). To date, automatic FER has achieved excellent progress, from static image to dynamic video analysis, from acted/posed to spontaneous expressions, from macro-expressions to micro-expressions. In summary, the rising challenges include, 1) Substantial psychological works support the use of appraisal theories of emotion for internal emotion detection through facial behaviours. At the same time, research in computer science mainly focuses on appearance or geometric facial modelling but ignores the underlying biologically-driven mechanism; 2) There is limited available data from different cultures, hindering the research on machine learning method development; 3) Micro-expressions, rapid (1/25 to 1/3 second), subtle, and involuntary facial expressions that are difficult to control through one's willpower, is not studied for culture inconsistency;

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-07

In the UK and globally, we are beset by two long-term pandemics: ageing, and metabolic disease. Both are astronomically harmful and costly. As average ages increase, disease prevalence rises, with projected healthcare costs in $trillions. At the same time, one in three adults are now overweight or obese, and recent headlines have highlighted studies predicting 1.3bn diabetic adults by 2050. The devastating health impacts and staggering financial costs provide a very strong motivation to understand the causes of metabolic disease, and how we can promote healthy ageing. Gut microbiota are linked to both metabolic disease and ageing. We see the same effects of microbiota across animals, suggesting causes in fundamental biology. Thus, understanding the biology of host-microbiota interactions in animal models may help us to both fight metabolic disease and promote healthy ageing in humans. Ageing and metabolism are whole-organism processes. The fact that microbiota alter these processes, despite being physically confined to the gut lumen, suggests that microbes exert "remote control" - altering systemic function through long-distance molecular cross-talk. The molecules in play are likely to be hormones and metabolites released from the gut into circulation. We are studying these molecules in fruitflies, which share many aspects of biology with other animals, including humans. Advantages of working in flies are that we have extraordinary control of the microbiota, diet, and the fly's function, allowing us to study mechanisms that occur across animals precisely and rapidly; generating predictions that we expect to generalise across species. We have made two breakthroughs in the first phase of this project. First, we have generated an atlas of metabolic changes that specific microbiota induce in specific tissues, which has indicated regulation of compounds that play fundamental roles throughout animals. Second, we have identified a specific hormone - tachykinin - modulated by specific bacteria, specifically in the gut, which we think signals to a specific receptor in the fly brain. Knocking down this circuit makes flies constitutively long-lived and even dramatically reverses the impact of microbiota on fat storage, indicating a central role as a mediator of microbial effects on ageing and metabolism. This hormone is conserved in humans, and drugs targeting its receptor are already licenced, suggesting we may be able to translate our findings. In the renewal of this project, I will combine both established and new methods to test conclusively whether a tachykinin relay from gut to brain mediates impacts of microbiota on ageing and metabolism. I will use cutting edge technologies to identify specific populations of cells in the fly brain where the tachykinin receptor responds to presence of gut bacteria, depending on gut expression of tachykinin hormone. Finally I will build on my experience of studying ageing and metabolism to investigate how microbiota alters mortality through tachykinin, and how tachykinin appears to induce a metabolic switch in how fat metabolism responds to gut bacteria. This information will lay the foundation for a long-term, large-scale, multi-model research program, characterising biology so fundamental that we anticipate we can target it to promote human health.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-07

Cells have specialised machinery - called ribosomes - for making proteins. When cells are dividing, they put a lot of resources into manufacturing proteins to make more cells. Much research has focussed on how ribosomes make cellular proteins to support cell division to make new cells, and this has been important to understand diseases in which cell division is uncontrolled - such as cancer. However, cells don't divide much in healthy adults, so protein production tends to be devoted to tissue maintenance - in which old cells are replaced with new ones - and wound healing/tissue repair processes. Indeed, during wound healing cells start to make lots more proteins; not for cell growth but for secretion from the cells. Many of these secreted proteins make up the connective tissue, or extracellular matrix, that repair wounds, and we term this connective tissue - the 'extracellular matrix'. Moreover, extracellular matrix proteins need to be transported through a series of compartments in the cell to be secreted in the appropriate manner, and this complex transport process is termed intracellular protein 'trafficking'. In healthy individuals, extracellular matrix production is controlled and timed appropriately, so that it can be turned-off when the wound is repaired and/or an old cell is replaced with a new one. However, following certain toxic insults - such as paracetamol poisoning - cells in the liver become damaged in such a way as to make them 'senescent' - a damaged state which is akin to premature ageing. Damaged 'senescent' cells then start to make lots of extracellular matrix proteins which they release in an excessive and uncontrolled way leading to scar formation and, ultimately to liver fibrosis and cirrhosis. This is a key concern, because this cirrhotic scar tissue forms a breeding ground for other diseases, such as liver cancer. We propose that damaged/senescent liver cells must re-structure their ribosomes and their intracellular protein trafficking machinery to enable the production and release of all these extracellular matrix proteins. This research programme will combine state-of-the-art methodologies, such as advanced 3-dimensional microscopy, to investigate the mechanisms linking increased ribosome function with alterations to protein trafficking machinery as liver cells become senescent. Specifically, we will elucidate the cellular mechanisms that link the production of the various extracellular matrix proteins by ribosomes with the trafficking machinery that takes them to the cell surface. Then we will investigate how these processes may be coordinated as cells attempt to maintain homeostasis in the face of increased demand to secrete proteins in senescent cells. Integral to this research programme will be the use of laboratory mouse models in which senescence has been induced in the liver, by dietary, toxic and targeted changes to the DNA. We will then pursue these studies to find out how these alterations to the protein synthesis and secretory machinery that occur during liver senescence contribute to the initiation of liver cancer. The combination of these approaches will enable us to assemble a detailed understanding of the relationship between secretory protein production, protein trafficking and build-up of extracellular matrix proteins outside cells during liver fibrosis/scarring and the initiation of liver cancer. We anticipate that this detailed mechanistic understanding will facilitate identification of individuals particularly at risk of fibrotic liver disease and cancer and assist with preventative interventions.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-07

This fellowship aims to develop a social robot as an agent for persuasive technologies that can autonomously interact with people and effect positive change on their behaviour. Currently, social robotics research predominantly takes place in the developed world. Also, real world deployment of social robots is rare, with more than 75% of research done in a lab without considering real world impact. Conversely, rural populations in developing nations constitute nearly half of the global population, yet investigations into the influence and perception of social robots within these communities have been significantly lacking, which leaves a big scientific gap in the field of social robotics. To bridge this gap, my focus is on hand hygiene as an initial context where social robots hold the potential for profound impact in both developed and developing countries. Globally nearly half a million children die every year due to diarrhoea and respiratory diseases, handwashing with soap can save 50% of these deaths. In recent times, the importance of handwashing has been further underscored by the advent of COVID-19, where effective hand hygiene emerged as a pivotal public health intervention in curtailing virus transmission. In this fellowship I propose a novel method of hand hygiene intervention by developing a social robot to monitor and encourage hand washing behaviour for children in schools. The research development methodology will involve: (i) an interdisciplinary approach combining behavioural science and strategies for human factors engineering to develop the behaviour of the social robot; (ii) a user-centered and co-design approach within the target population and stakeholders; and (iii) empirical studies to investigate the impact of a social robot on handwashing behaviour and sustainability. The outcomes of this research will contribute towards informing the design of future social robots, especially in support of large scale health care interventions.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-07

Context: Peatlands are one of the world's most important habitats and the largest terrestrial carbon store. However, 80% of UK peatlands are damaged and deteriorating, meaning they are often a carbon source rather than sink. This trend is alarming in the context of the climate emergency. Restoring peatland is therefore an urgent UK action, necessary to meet the net zero commitment. The UK Committee on Climate Change has recommended restoration of at least 50% of upland peat and 25% of lowland peat by 2050 to contribute to the net zero target. Changing agricultural use of peatland is likely to lead to the highest per hectare emissions savings implementable in the UK. However, the number of peatland hectares restored remains low despite support mechanisms in Scotland and England. How to achieve large-scale peatland restoration is under-researched, and agricultural environments and communities are facing intersecting stresses which inhibit the necessary transformative practices. Challenge: RESPECT takes a holistic approach to this real-world challenge through interdisciplinary research which supports landholders to undertake peatland restoration and reduce carbon emissions through land use change. Two case study regions - the Forth and Humber Catchments in Scotland and England - will be investigated in-depth, where tensions exist between food production, historic environment preservation, carbon sequestration and ecological restoration. Questions: RESPECT investigates a number of questions in this context. Where should peatland restoration take place based on the current and future physical capacities of agricultural land in the case study regions? How should peatland restoration be implemented based on the social capacities of key land stakeholders in the case study regions? How can landholders seeking to restore peatland be best supported in their decision-making to reduce emissions, as well as deliver other social and environmental benefits? What governance reforms are required to facilitate peatland restoration on agricultural land? Finally, how can the data, methods and tools established in the case study regions be scaled up to the national level? Overview: RESPECT will produce data, methods, landholder tools and proposals for governance reforms to change agricultural practices on peatland and contribute to the UK's net zero target. RESPECT will achieve this by collating data through novel interdisciplinary collection, modelling and engagement methods. These data will establish the capacity of land and land users to contribute to the net zero target as well as generate other social and environmental co-benefits, balanced against conflicting land use demands, within the context of climate change. Informed by this baseline data, RESPECT will produce the Peatland Triage Tool (PTT), providing decision-support for landowners, land managers, farmers and crofters (collectively 'landholders') seeking to undertake peatland restoration. Governance reforms will be proposed to scaffold the social innovations necessary for transformative change. Outputs will be scalable and replicable with national significance. Application and Benefits: RESPECT will produce new thinking and transdisciplinary research outputs about facilitating landholders to deliver land use change for net zero and manage conflicting land use demands. RESPECT uses an innovative combination of both data and methodologies to address land use change, and carefully considers the social and physical capacities of the land and land users to effect change. The PTT will provide decision-support in a useful and accessible way. Combined with the expertise in policy implementation and support from project partners, RESPECT will develop a game-changing approach to reducing emissions from land use.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-07

Everyday Augmented Reality (AR) headsets, with wearable, fashionable, all-day form factors, will supplant our reliance on physical displays, heralding new capabilities in augmented intelligence and perception, communication, productivity and more. They will become as fundamental to our daily lives as smartphones are today, empowering users, communities, business, governments and others to alter, augment, diminish or otherwise mediate our perception of reality. I argue that in driving the Augmented Society, everyday AR has the potential to become the most powerful agent for societal change we have experienced. For social good, this technology will enable us to "build a better reality", augmenting expression of social identity to better represent our 'authentic' self, and virtually enhancing real-world social spaces to encourage greater community ownership and social cohesion. For social harm however, everyday AR could infringe upon user and bystander privacy, and facilitate and amplify information disorder (e.g. dis-information), censorship and coercion in our day-today experience of reality. Consequently, it is crucial that research seeks to anticipate societal challenges and steer the development of, and legislation around, everyday AR - minimising harm and maximising the potential for social good before mass adoption of AR headsets in particular occurs. Using Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) methodology, AUGSOC will explore how we can safely leverage AR to reshape how we perceive society, and develop resilience to individual and institutional misuse and abuse. We will holistically consider our findings to propose new digital human rights and protections, in particular balancing the tension between AR user perceptual agency (i.e. that users solely control what they perceive) against the desire of others (individuals, communities, institutions) to influence what they perceive - fundamental, timely research in support of the EC's vision of a digital society.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-07

Summary The failure of animal models to predict therapeutic responses in humans is a major problem. However, non-animal technologies (NATs) are emerging as a viable solution. The current lack of human-relevant preclinical models leads to costly development of drugs destined to fail and fewer drugs reaching patients1. Infectious diseases have one of the highest attrition rates, vaccine candidates have an average market entry probability of 6%2, and development from the pre-clinical stage costs an estimated £374M-£1.5BN3. Animal models are used to test and study adaptive immune responses, yet they lack essential features of human immunity. What's more, we know from the COVID19 pandemic, that using vaccines to protect over 65s is less effective than in younger age groups4. Indeed, immune function declines with age, leading to increased susceptibility to infection and failure to generate long-lasting immunity after vaccination. For seasonal influenza, one of the best studied pathogens, vaccine efficacy in the elderly ranges from 0-50%5, resulting in £100Mpa in secondary healthcare costs to the NHS6, and 90% of mortalities result from infection in over 65s7. Yet animal models cannot account for age-associated immune variation8. Resulting in few vaccines aimed specifically at this high-risk age group. The development of NATs has the potential to drive human-relevant vaccine development, increasing the chance of developing vaccines efficacious in the elderly population. This would, in-turn, relieve financial burden and capacity pressures on the NHS. Secondary lymphoid organs (SLOs), lymph nodes and tonsils, are the sites where immune responses are mounted and where immune memory is stored. Making them the ideal organ to model vaccine responses. Recently, it was shown that poor response to vaccination in the elderly is dictated not by the age of circulating immune cells, but by the aged SLO microenvironment - i.e. stromal support cells and extracellular matrix (ECM)9. Current approaches to model SLOs rely on the ability of immune cells to self-aggregate in liquid culture and lack incorporation of these critical microenvironment components10. Hydrogels provide an ideal solution, they can incorporate ECM components and recapitulate 3D stroma. Yet there are limitations to using hydrogels to bioengineer relevant NATs. While synthetic hydrogels (e.g. poly (ethylene glycol); PEG) are highly reproducible and biomechanical properties, such as stiffness and viscosity, can be precisely controlled, they lack biological activity. Also, while natural materials (e.g. collagen) have excellent bioactivity, they lack the necessary reproducibility and tuning of biomechanics11. Synthetic-biological hybrid hydrogels (e.g. PEG-collagen) are emerging - these are reproducible materials, with high bioactivity and tuneability12,13. Hence, they provide a solution for NAT development. In this proposal, I will develop NAT models of SLOs using human cells and synthetic-biological hydrogels. I aim to: 1) Develop SLO organoids that mimic healthy and aged microenvironments; 2) Understand how biomechanical changes in the SLO microenvironment affect immune function, and 3) Investigate if mechano-immunological mechanisms can be targeted in aged SLOs to enhance immune responses in the elderly. Throughout this proposal I will use organoids and synthetic-biological hybrid hydrogels, with an extensive range of systems, such as live cell imaging and single cell nanoindentation. As well as new approaches, such as Brillouin microscopy, voted one of the top 10 game-changing technologies of 2022 due to its ability to non-invasively measure the biomechanics of 3D tissues14. With these, I will model SLOs and monitor ageing and vaccine-related mechano-immunological changes in SLO microenvironments.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-06

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-06

Through our parent-practitioner-community (PPC) partnership, consisting of parents with children involved with social work, infant mental health practitioners, researchers, and community stakeholders, we have coproduced Infant Parent Support teams (IPS), in Glasgow and London. IPS are mental health teams offering high quality therapeutic interventions to struggling families. IPS teams aim to reduce the risk of child maltreatment (CM) and improve parent and child mental health. In this study, we propose to further develop the place-based features of IPS teams and test the clinical and cost-effectiveness of IPS in a definitive randomised controlled trial (RCT). Place-based inequalities in health begin early in childhood: young children experiencing poverty and/or racism are more likely to develop health problems earlier in the lifespan than their peers. Children in the most deprived 10% of small UK neighbourhoods are over 10 times more likely to be in care or on protection plans than children in the least deprived 10%. Social determinants of health and child welfare are "systemic, population-based, cyclical and intergenerational" resulting in certain geographical areas being plagued by overlapping physical and mental health problems and addictions. Infants and preschool children rely on parents and practitioners access services - a process vulnerable to structural inequalities. Our novel aim is to redress this. Our coproduction has led to enhancements of IPS, including neurodevelopmental awareness, poverty awareness, and the employment of parents as practitioners and managers in IPS, and we have mapped the local contexts in which the IPS teams are embedded. We are currently conducting a feasibility randomised controlled trial (f-RCT) investigating how best to involve the families who can benefit most from IPS. In this new study, consisting of four work packages (WPs), we aim to reduce place-based inequalities through: WP1, co-creating a new theory of change for IPS that takes the local context in which IPS teams are embedded into account; WP2, implementing findings from our f-RCT and WP1 to make IPS teams fully place-based, i.e., further embedding IPS teams within their local communities and enhancing each local community's ability to make best use of IPS; WP3 (contiguous with WPs 1, 2 and 4), conducting a definitive RCT to examine the clinical and cost-effectiveness of IPS in reducing the risk of child maltreatment and improving mental health; and WP4, conducting a realist process evaluation examining what works best, for whom and in what context. RCT outcomes will also include measures of community connectedness and IPS costs, consequences and cost-effectiveness. At two adaptation points during the RCT, all four WPs will work with an expert scientific advisory group and the PPC-partnership to examine whether we are reaching our desired target population (including marginalised families) and, if not, to enhance our recruitment strategy to achieve equality of access to the study by employing recruiters who come from or have links with under-served populations, and/or targeting specific geographical areas through our extensive networks across Greater Glasgow and in ten diverse London Boroughs. Our success in reducing place-based inequalities will be measured by whether our RCT has recruited a trial population that demographically mirrors our target population. The techniques most successful in achieving this will inform recommendations for post-trial implementation of IPS to ensure that future IPS teams can reduce place-based inequalities by embedding optimally within their local community/service context, and targeting the families likely to most benefit.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-06

The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in "Diversity-led, mission-driven research" proposes a radical inverted model for CDT delivery. By inverted model, we mean that, rather than coalescing around a scientific topic, we will create an inclusive, supportive and inspiring environment to foster diverse teams (postgraduate researchers, supervisors, management teams, external partners) that together lead innovative and interdisciplinary projects. In doing so we foster truly disruptive and excellent research. The prevalence of genuinely disruptive, novel scientific research is dropping as fields become condensed and researchers are siloed. There is a large body of evidence that describes the significant impact of diversity on innovation. Researchers from marginalised and minority backgrounds, however, face significant hurdles throughout their careers, notably at the transition points before and after postgraduate research. There is therefore a compelling scientific and economic case that focussing on diversity will lead to more significant impact in research and contribute to address the shortfall in skilled STEM workers. The resources, peer-learning, training, mentoring, championship and support provided by the cohort-model and the CDT framework will allow to demonstrate that when the appropriate environments are in place, diversity and excellence will flourish. The University of Glasgow is ideally placed to support and host this CDT; its world-leading academic expertise and infrastructures and internationally leading track record in positive research culture offer unique opportunities for collaborative research. It also has accumulated significant experience in inclusive research through various initiatives to support underrepresented communities, including our highly successful James McCune Smith PhD Scholarships for Black British students. Our CDT will build upon these to offer radical new pathways for the training of scientists and the generation of innovative interdisciplinary science around key institutional thematic areas. We will apply evidence-led best practice alongside our longstanding institutional experience to ensure diversity permeates across our recruitment, project selection, training, supervision, mentoring, retention, governance and self-reflection processes. Through tailored, structured support of our researchers and academics, both individually and collectively as annual cohorts, we will foster an inclusive community where our members will be united by a sense of common purpose to effectively tackle mission-driven challenges. Three pillars underpin CDT delivery: CONNECT, community engagement and long-term pipeline building activities attract those who have been discouraged from PhDs or faced insurmountable structural barriers to entry; BELONG, intensive training activities and PhD-spanning cohort building activities, ensure all students are fully prepared for PhD study and integrated into the CDT; and THRIVE, comprehensive training, mentoring, networking and external engagement complements interdisciplinary research activities to foster a pipeline of diverse, talented graduates, with enhanced career prospects across a range of sectors. Through innovative CDT management: our online Catalogue of Possibilities to capture the imagination of applicants; the use of sandpits to generate discipline-crossing projects; enhanced bespoke mentoring from industry and academia; and an inverted crucible exercise to allow students to select projects and supervisors, we will demonstrate the clear pathway from diversity to excellence. We will offer opportunities for diverse talent to thrive, and in doing so generate genuine scientific excellence while building a critical mass of role models and research leaders, as well as novel initiatives in fostering inclusive research culture. The CDT will therefore be a catalyst for genuine, positive change, and act as a beacon for UK Higher Education.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-06

We know that social contacts make a big difference to our lives. Whom we interact with and relate to influences behaviours, happiness, economic participation and life expectancy, as well as structuring family dynamics, community cohesion and the wider society. But social science has little representative data about who interacts with whom in the UK or the implications of those interactions.? This was particularly highlighted during the recent Covid-19 pandemic in which co-location contact data was essential to estimate epidemic spread, leading to the launch of a contact survey (CoMIX). The pandemic has also brought the biggest disruption to social contacts and interactions and the long-term consequences of this disruption are hard to envisage or estimate. In the aftermath of the pandemic, social interactions have undergone longer term change (e.g., increased home working and online interactions) and it is unclear what the implications are for individuals, communities, and society.?  To better understand the social fabric woven from contacts, interactions and relationships, what is needed is representative data across the UK population to understand who connects to whom and the roles social interactions play for people. Such data is important to understand big, ongoing, societal challenges such as the wellbeing agenda, sustainable consumption, entrenched health and social inequalities and migration and a very wide range of application areas and across policy and intervention fields.? Social connection, interaction and network data are, however, challenging to collect. People might be reluctant to share contact information, leading to social desirability and non-response bias, and the cognitive burden of recording all social interactions might lead to participant boredom or withdrawal. Recent technologies, like apps and sensors when used to collect social interaction data, can be seen as intrusive and overbearing.  STRIKE will identify and scope the data infrastructure needed to build a national picture of social interactions in the UK, building on recent developments in the online collection of time-use data, applying methodological innovation to collect information on online and face-to-face social contacts and the places and events where interactions occur.?  High quality representative data on social interactions will help us understand social connections and connectivity across a range of socio-economic factors, how people understand and experience social connections and what purpose, value or meaning they attach to social interactions of many different kinds (e.g. online vs face-to-face). This understanding will help with answering questions about wellbeing and loneliness, social capital and social exclusion, and changes to patterns of social connectivity and isolation.  The resulting data will ensure policy interventions are designed to leverage our new understanding of social connections to improve life for individuals, communities and society as a whole. For example, in the next epidemic, to include appropriate strategies to mitigate not just virus spread but also mental health and social harms.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-06

New instabilities have been discovered every few decades or centuries in the history of mathematics, and science more generally, opening completely new areas of research followed by a wealth of new scientific and industrial applications for years to come. This proposal aims to establish a new line of fundamental research on one of these new instabilities, discovered in surprising recent experiments. In developing the first mathematical framework for understanding its origins, we named the new instability the non-porous viscous fingering instability (NPVFI). The new instability is related to, yet distinct from, what is known as a Saffman-Taylor fingering instability, also referred to as a viscous fingering instability (VFI), discovered in the 1950s. Such instabilities involve the formation of complex, often fractal-like, patterns, or fingers, which form spontaneously when a less viscous fluid intrudes into a more viscous fluid in a porous medium. An abundance of scientific and technological applications followed this discovery, ranging from enhanced oil recovery to microfluidics, all benefitting from the observation that such fingering can be manipulated as desired. For decades, such fingering instabilities have been thought to occur in porous media only. What was unknown up until recently is that the fundamental mechanism of such instabilities in fact occurs much more widely, beyond porous media, in the form of NPVFI. Specifically, NPVFI involves the formation of complex fingering patterns in the free-surface flow, or thin-film flow, of fluids of unequal viscosity. Our preliminary theoretical work revealed whole families of free-surface flows susceptible to NPVFI, and I hypothesise that further classes of flow are susceptible to NPVFI as well, all beyond porous media and beyond the original experiments revealing NPVFI. As with the pioneering of VFI in the 1950s, the theoretical exploration of NPVFI marks an opportunity to open an exciting new area of research in applied mathematics and continuum mechanics, and to benefit a wealth of previously unexplained industrial and environmental applications, ranging in diversity from the nasal delivery of drugs and vaccines to the patterning of soft substrates. To make use of this timely opportunity, it is necessary to overcome a fundamental challenge in the mathematical modelling and analysis of NPVFI, which is currently hindering further theoretical developments. This challenge involves developing an appropriate mathematical model of the intrusion front (the nose of the intruding fluid, where the instability originates). Because of this challenge, there is currently no mathematical framework to explain the number of fingers seen in experiments and their growth, and no framework to control - suppress or enhance - the instability. The proposed research will shed light on these open questions and establish this new area of fundamental discovery research from the foundation by developing a new mathematical framework for modelling the front and validating it experimentally for a suite of families of free-surface flows. We will also investigate how to manipulate these instabilities as desired for practical applications.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-06

Surra is a disease of multiple different mammals, including key livestock animals such as horses, pigs, sheep, goats, buffalo and cattle. It is caused by parasitic trypanosomes of the Trypanosoma evansi species, that should be, according to some specialists, classified as a sub-species of Trypanosoma brucei given its evolutionary derivation from this latter parasite. T. evansi has undergone key physiological alterations when compared to T. brucei brucei, including loss of maxi-circle DNA, corresponding to the key coding capability of the parasites' kinetoplast (mitochondrial) DNA. Since the mitochondrion's role is largely suppressed in parasites that dwell in the mammalian bloodstream, but critical for viability in the tsetse fly that is responsible for cyclical transmission of T. brucei brucei, T. evansi has lost this cyclical transmission. This loss appears to have been accompanied by ill-defined gain of ability to infect a wide range of mammalian species and also to be mechanically transmitted through other biting arthropods. This has enabled T. evansi, and the disease it causes, to spread globally, being endemic across much of north Africa, Asia, and Latin America, with sporadic cases also occurring in parts of Europe. The full economic consequences of surra are not well understood either. Estimates of approaching $700m U.S in lost animal production in India are probably an under-estimate because, in many instances, infections are mild, particularly in cattle and, as such, may go undetected, and yet have significant effects on growth and fecundity of affected animals. Given the prevalence of the parasites across much of Asia and Latin America the global economic losses likely run into several billions of dollars each year. The drugs used against surra (including diminazene aceturate, isometamidium and quinapyramine) have been available for many years. They are all trypanocides that have been used against other veterinary trypanosomiases including the animal African trypanosomiases caused by Trypanosoma brucei, T. congolense and T. vivax. Systematic analysis of their suitability in surra has never been conducted and, indeed, given the role of the mitochondrion and kinetoplast DNA in the activity of all of these drugs, questions about their suitability have been raised. The length of time in use and poorly regulated regimens have, inevitably, raised antimicrobial resistance to these trypanocidal drugs. Again, however, a dearth of studies makes it difficult to offer clear evidence on the incidence and distribution of T. evansi resistance to these drugs. Here we propose to systematically determine the molecular mechanisms of resistance to these trypanocidal drugs and identify genetic changes associated with resistance. We will also determine whether a new class of trypanocidal compounds, the valinate amide benzoxaboroles, that have potent efficacy against trypanosomes (including T. brucei, T. congolense and T. vivax) are also efficacious against T. evansi. Moreover, we will ascertain whether the mode of action (inhibition of the RNA processing enzyme CPSF3, is conserved in T. evanis, and also whether resistance comes about the same way is it does in other trypanosomes (through loss of an enzyme that processes the parent compound within the cell. If this mechanism exists we propose to develop molecular probes that can detect the activity of the processing enzyme and thus determine resistance to these compounds. Moreover, for diminazene aceturate, we also believe that existing fluorescent tests can report on resistance too. For the other drugs we hope to develop tests when we have determined resistance mechanisms. Our work will also extend to conduct a survey of the epidemiological incidence of surra in livestock in selected parts of India and also, with genetic and fluorescent tests to ascertain the presence and distribution of resistance to existing drugs.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-06

The shift towards digital channels for financial transactions due to the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in fraudulent financial transactions in low-middle-income countries like Pakistan due to weak remote identity proofing (RIDP) processes. The existing methods of verifying a person's identity through electronic means, such as facial recognition, can be easily deceived by advancements in artificial intelligence, such as deep fakes. These deep fakes are much more successful in bypassing the verification process than traditional methods. As a result, there is a lack of trust among users, particularly in countries like Pakistan, where cash is still widely used, in adopting mobile technologies for accessing banking services. This hinders the government's efforts to increase financial and digital inclusion for millions of underbanked individuals. The goal of the MIMER project is to develop a robust authentication method that can protect remote identity verification systems from emerging identity spoofing attacks. The objective is to create a mechanism that is specifically tailored to the conditions in Pakistan by creating detection models that are adapted to local language and other specific characteristics. The project will also focus on developing a framework for detecting audio and visual forgeries, making it resistant to anti-forensics and multi-spoofing attacks, and well-suited for real-world scenarios. The project is aligned with various sustainable development goals and addresses the needs of the partner country, particularly by developing a secure and reliable remote identity verification system. This will lead to the creation of robust digital and financial services and decrease the risk of identity theft crimes. The research will be carried out through a seamless collaboration between The University of Glasgow, the University of Engineering and Technology Taxila, Pakistan, and an industrial partner, stech.ai. The focus of the project is to establish sustainable partnerships, network with policymakers within the UK and Pakistan, and co-create knowledge to address the challenges related to developing a secure and reliable remote identity verification system while working towards a common strategic theme of "building a secure and resilient world."

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-06

This project examines how nuclear arms control and disarmament efforts can be developed to reduce and avert the risk of nuclear conflict. According to the Secretary General of the United Nations, the world has entered 'a time of nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War'. This dangerous 'new nuclear age' is the result of arms control treaties collapsing, rising tensions between nuclear weapon states, and threats to use nuclear weapons such as those made by Vladimir Putin, who has warned of 'ominous consequences' against anyone who opposes his invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, all of the nuclear weapon states are modernising or increasing their nuclear arsenals. In this context of heightened atomic anxiety, this project investigates how the legitimacy of nuclear weapons is communicated, constructed, and contested, and then examines how nuclear arms control and disarmament efforts can be improved based on these insights. Despite the catastrophic potential of even a small nuclear conflict, states continue to maintain, modernise, and increase their nuclear weapons arsenals. Why? This project addresses this puzzle and has two central aims. First, it seeks to understand how and why states claim legitimacy for their nuclear weapons in this 'new nuclear age', as well as understanding how other political actors and members of the public consent to, acquiesce or challenge these claims. Second, the project critically assesses how the risk of nuclear war can be mitigated through improving nuclear arms control and disarmament advocacy and mechanisms so that they gain more international support. The project delivers these aims through innovative, mixed methods research of multiple data sources. These methods include: 1) documentary analysis of policy documents, military doctrine, and diplomatic statements, 2) discourse analysis of news media and social media content on the topic of nuclear weapons, 3) interviews and focus groups with policymakers, nuclear arms control and disarmament advocates, and members of the public. The project will support two post-doctoral positions and a PhD studentship (funded by the University of Glasgow), thereby building capacity for a world-leading team on nuclear arms control and disarmament. Through this research, the project will provide: a) a global mapping of all UN member state policies and their framing of nuclear weapons in the 'new nuclear age', b) an understanding of global opinion about nuclear weapons, arms control, and disarmament, that will inform c) a theory of change for how arms control and disarmament efforts can be developed and improved, so as to further reduce the risk of nuclear conflict, by for example, building support for arms control and disarmament with international policymakers and the public. In doing so, the project contributes to academic literatures on international security, nuclear disarmament, and social movements. Significantly, the project also has high impact utility for policymakers and advocacy organisations who have agreed to be project partners - such as the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (winners of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize), the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, the British American Security Information Council, and Reaching Critical Will - who work to reduce the risk of nuclear war.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-06

The objectives of this research are to 1) map connections between climate change adaptation (CCA), dispossession and displacement and 2) identify pathways to more inclusive CCA. CCA reforestation programs to conserve biodiversity and protect vulnerable communities from extreme weather are implemented in coastal parts of Bangladesh, the Philippines and Ghana that are exposed to climate risks. However, coastal fisher communities depend on access to waters and adjacent land. Affected groups' access to adjacent land conflicts with CCA reforestation programs, potentially dispossessing the most vulnerable of their livelihoods, putting them at greater risks of displacement and reinforcing their vulnerabilities to climate impacts. One especially vulnerable group is landless women (Levien 2017). Yet, linkages between climate change adaptation, dispossession, displacement and its gendered dimensions are under-researched. Hence, we ask: How do CCA programs contribute to gendered processes of dispossession? The challenges posed by CCA programs show how climate and societal change occur simultaneously and must be tackled together. Drawing on theories on dispossession, displacement and climate change adaptation, we will bring out novel connections between these different fields. Because tensions between biodiversity and access to land and waters for vulnerable communities contribute to dispossession, we will use a nature-based solutions framework that "works with and enhances nature to address societal challenges" (Seddon et al 2019) as a lens to look for synergies. To analyse the gendered dimensions of dispossession and highlight contextual and social vulnerabilities, we use an intersectional approach, highlighting the co-constitution of inequalities (Lykke 2006). We will conduct a mapping exercise of existing CCA initiatives. A meta-analysis of these sites will identify patterns, allow comparisons, and identify high-risk sites for ethnographic fieldwork. We will use participatory methods to co-construct inclusive solutions with vulnerable groups. Our approaches develop three solution pathways: 1) Novel interdisciplinary theories of CCA. 2) A mapping of CCA programs to identify risks of dispossession and guidelines for best practices. 3) Creation of a South-South coastal community network, using a low-tech platform, to share knowledge and create a coastal toolkit. The research will be delivered in a multi-sited and comparative research project. We will study CCA, dispossession and displacement in three countries (the responsible institutions in brackets): Philippines (University of Glasgow/York University/Stockholm Environment Institute), Ghana (University of Waterloo/York University/Africa Centre of Excellence in Coastal Resilience) and Bangladesh (Institute for Social Research, Equality, inclusion and migration, Norway/University of Dhaka/BRAC University). Data collection, analysis and dissemination will be synthesised across the three sites and draw on the expertise of the UK team (PI Robinson, Co-Investigator Davies, RA1) and the international team (PI Hynie, PI Damsa, PI Eversten, PI Hossain, PI Haque, PI Nayak, and Co-Applicants Mukta, Salamanca, Echavez, Aheto, Su).

Other NSERC · FY 2024

Biostatistics, Causal inference, Interference, Spillover effect, Peer influence, Social networks, Homophily, Dependent data, Latent space models, Stochastic actor-oriented models