SWANSEA UNIVERSITY

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2026 · 2026-09

Lles is a consortium of all Wales’ universities, working in partnership with Welsh public and third-sector bodies. It will fund and train PhD students to investigate issues relating to wellbeing through the arts and humanities. Lles is a Welsh word that means ‘benefit’ or ‘wellbeing’. Its use here captures both how this cohort of students will benefit from training and career development and how their research on wellbeing will be for the benefit of wider society in Wales and beyond. Lles and its studentships will be guided by the ambition, principles and requirements of the Well-Being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 (henceforth FGA). This legislation is globally unique in requiring all new legislation proposed by the Welsh Government to consider its impact on future generations. It obligates Welsh public bodies to set objectives and take steps to improve the economic, social, environmental, and cultural wellbeing of Wales against 7 wellbeing goals: prosperity, resilience, equality, health, cohesive communities, vibrant culture and Welsh language, global responsibility. Through the Act, Wales is the first nation to embed the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals in domestic legislation. Lles’s doctoral students will undertake research projects that explore what and how arts and humanities subjects contribute to the understanding and realisation of wellbeing. Their PhD research will explore the artistic, cultural, and social dimensions of wellbeing in a variety of Welsh and international settings, past and present. In addition, through placements with public and third-sector bodies, students will undertake investigations and discussions of wellbeing that are evidence based, using their expertise to help bodies meet their FGA obligations and explore the applicability of arts and humanities findings in other contexts. In doing so, Lles graduates will create a step change in realising the aims of the FGA. They will contribute to the development and understanding of healthy people and places in Wales and beyond. To enable this, a bespoke, tailored and collaborative training programme will be created in partnership with the Office of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales. It will pool expertise and resources across Welsh HEIs thus building supervision and training capacity in Welsh HE, fostering a sense of community and co-learning amongst students, and producing graduates able to contribute to their disciplines, civil society, the economy, and institutions, both in Wales and internationally. Lles thus has five objectives: Train a generation of 40 researchers able to forge careers and make a difference across the public and private spheres in Wales and internationally.    Produce high-quality postgraduate arts and humanities research and practice that addresses the cultural, physical and social wellbeing of people, planet, and place in Wales and beyond.  Engage critically and constructively with the ambition, principles, and legal requirements of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.   Act as a convening hub for Wales’ arts and humanities postgraduate community to access training and staff resources beyond their own institution.  Share and build capacity and expertise across the range of Welsh universities, with diverse missions and specialisms, thus strengthening arts and humanities provision and resilience in Wales.  Through these objectives, Lles seeks to deliver a place-based response to the AHRC’s call that addresses the needs of Welsh legislation, HE, students and wider society, enhancing the wellbeing, health, and sustainability of all.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2026 · 2026-03

CONNECT-AF Stroke: Federated analysis of cardiovascular outcomes on AF patients across Wales and England Stroke, systemic embolism and transient ischaemic attack remain among the most serious and life-changing complications of atrial fibrillation (AF), a common heart rhythm disorder affecting over 1.5 million people in the UK. Despite advances in prevention and treatment, these events continue to cause significant illness, disability and pressure on the health service. Their impact is uneven: hospitalisation rates and treatment uptake vary across the UK, reflecting differences in anticoagulation use, clinical pathways, deprivation and service organisation. CONNECT-AF Stroke has been established to quantify and understand these regional differences, providing an evidence base for fairer and more effective cardiovascular care. The project brings together three leading Trusted Research Environments (TREs): the primary TREs: SAIL Databank in Wales and the East of England(EoE) Secure Data Environment (SDE) and secondary TRE: Dementias Platform UK, to test a federated approach to studying AF outcomes without moving any sensitive data. By analysing comparable datasets within primary TREs and combining findings with DPUK data securely, CONNECT-AF will demonstrate a feasible and scalable model. This work is directly enabled by two prior strands of preparatory activity. First, we have built foundational technical and analytic assets most notably the AF-Wale population and harmonisation algorithms and Second, we have benchmarked UK TREs and developed a tiered governance approach for federation clarifying the minimum common governance and disclosure control requirements. Together, these foundations make CONNECT-AF to reach an operational federated level within 12 months. CONNECT-AF aligns with DARE UK and benefits from an interdisciplinary team, national partnerships, and dedicated PPIE. The project is informed by governance and technical frameworks from SAFER and VISTA, and leverages federated standards and tooling established through TRE-FX and TELEPORT, which together enhance the readiness of UK TREs for secure collaboration. CONNECT-AF adopts tools for extending the existing analytics to a federated model across both TREs as an agile, real-world exemplar. Through this, we will show how harmonised governance, aligned technical systems, and transparent engagement enable safe, reproducible, and scalable cross-TRE analyses, generating evidence to support equitable, data-driven improvements in patient care and service delivery for AF patients. CONNECT-AF analyses the system's effectiveness in a cross-TRE research network. The project has four core aims to: Aim 1 - Scientific: Quantify and compare hospitalisation rates for stroke, SE, and TIA among AF patients across Wales and the East of England. Aim 2 - Technical: Assess and analyse the systems effectiveness on each TRE node for adoption of DARE UK's federated analysis capabilities. Aim 3 - Data Integration: Harmonise core AF cohort structures across both TRE nodes and develop containerised analytical pipelines that enable consistent, portable, and secure federated analyses across environments. Aim 4 - Engagement: Embed meaningful public and patient involvement and engagement (PPIE) throughout the project to ensure transparency, accountability, and public trust. The aims of CONNECT-AF Stroke will be achieved through four closely linked workstreams that will operate in parallel, forming a coherent pathway from platform readiness to comparative analysis. Together, each work stream focuses on analysing readiness of TRE nodes and variations where federated solutions are adopted, this will be assessed in the context of other developments across parallel workstreams such as data preparation, analysis, synthetic data and public engagement, culminating in an implementation guide, evaluation metrics, and scale-up recommendations.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2026 · 2026-03

Affordable, reliable clean energy is essential for development, yet many in Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania still face limited or costly electricity. Solar can help, but next generation devices must be efficient, low cost, stable in hot, humid climates and, ideally, locally manufacturable so more of the value chain remains in Africa. SOLACE is a UK–Africa partnership to develop low cost, high efficiency all perovskite tandem solar cells and build the skills to use them. Perovskites can be made from inks at low temperature, cutting manufacturing cost. Stacking two PSCs into a single tandem device can capture more energy than a single cell. SOLACE brings together laboratories in the UK and Africa to co-develop these tandems while building a local ecosystem and talent pipeline of skilled practitioners to develop them.   All-perovskite tandems are feasible, but performance and durability are still limited by interface losses, defects and contact layers, and by the challenge of coating both sub-cells sequentially on one substrate without dissolving the layer underneath.  Advancing fundamental understanding of interface and defect losses will guide materials design and layer sequencing that improve durability under hot, humid conditions. We will achieve this through complimentary expertise combining modelling and advanced characterisation, running in a feedback loop with materials development to drive improvements.   SOLACE will deliver robust, fully solution processed tandems on a single substrate, establish clear design rules linking materials, interfaces and thickness to efficiency and stability, release open standard operating procedures, analysis tools and well documented datasets so others can reproduce the results, and build long term capability through training schools, a UNESCO Campus Africa bootcamp and reciprocal exchanges, with equitable authorship and clear gender targets.   Four linked work packages run in a feedback loop spanning materials and devices (WP1), modelling (WP2), advanced photophysics (WP3), and capacity and outreach (WP4). Through these work packages, we will deliver:   1.    Design rules with quantitative band alignment, interface recombination kinetics, mobility lifetime products and contact resistance, with model and experiment in agreement. 2.    Devices that are reproducible, fully solution processed single substrate tandems with >15% efficiency and verified stability under heat and humidity and optimised interlayers and defect control. 3.    Tools and data, including open SOPs, analysis notebooks and FAIR datasets to enable independent replication. 4.    Capacity and equity through exchanges and training with at least 40 percent women, documented skills transfer and equitable authorship and IP frameworks.   The benefits are practical and near term. Policymakers gain evidence-based guidance on solar options suited to equatorial climates, supporting affordable clean energy plans. Industry and utilities gain design rules and stability criteria that can improve performance and lifetime of next generation solar and inform procurement. The research community gains open tools and data that speed discovery and enable fair comparisons. Most importantly, partner countries gain durable capability in fabrication, modelling and diagnostics, reducing reliance on imported expertise, supporting future manufacturing readiness and helping to retain more of the value chain within Africa. In short, SOLACE couples cutting edge solar research with practical training and open infrastructure to deliver both the knowledge and the local capacity needed to advance affordable, high efficiency all perovskite tandem solar for Africa.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2026 · 2026-03

ADR Wales will continue to work as a single aligned team to deliver research programmes designed to support the priority areas identified by the Welsh Government with an additional component of seeking UK opportunities where challenges are shared in other administrations and conducting research that aligns with the UK Government 5 Missions. It will build on the achievements and successes achieved during the 2022-2026 grant phase and aims to have a much wider UK focus on activities as well as continuing to support key Welsh Government policy areas. The case for support from ADR Wales is built around the following ambitions: 1.       To deliver and enhanced flexible, responsive core programme of policy led impactful research, data acquisition, and infrastructure provision for Wales and partner with other administrations where shared research benefits exist to realise wider impactful outcomes from research. 2.       To focus on working at a UK level with partners to collectively achieve the FBC objectives 3.       To mobilise key strengths of SAIL/ADRW to drive forward the linked data agenda for the UK with new partnerships, technological development (AI, Federation), and knowledge exchange with partners. Since 2018 and the commencement of the initial ADRUK pilot project through to subsequent reinvestments ADR UK and ADR Wales have adopted learned lessons and remain flexible to both current and future needs. SAIL and ADR Wales have proven the case for the benefits of linked data research across policy areas, as well as mobilised the knowledge and power of linked data in emergency situations such as the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. This case for support carries forward in its request for a new period of funding core principles of accountability transparency, innovation, and collaborative working which underpin the successful operation of ADR Wales. ADR Wales has been demonstrably successful in both the Welsh and UK context, from innovations to data acquisition and many other activity subsets. The case for support is fully aligned to the ADRUK strategic objectives and strategic priorities, Welsh Government and UK Government priorities and is fundamentally outward looking, collegiate and collaborative in nature Beyond maintaining core TRE and research activities ‘for Wales’, a significant portion of the grant requested (beyond the initial funding envelope) is focused on realising transformational benefits for the UK and all ADR partners. These activities include driving forward and supporting federation development, artificial intelligence and its utilisation in linked data services and research, the mobilisation of geographic information systems and new methods of linkage to provide a step change in data research capabilities across the partnership. The case for support builds on lessons learned from the operation of ADR Wales, from best practice developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, knowledge derived through collaboration with partners and careful reflection on the recommendations of Deep dives and feedback from the evaluation. The refunding proposal finds ADRW in a positive state. In preparation for the 2026-2031 grant period, reviews, reflective analysis, deep dive recommendations and areas of improvement are being assessed.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2026 · 2026-03

Hypertension is becoming more common in pregnancy, currently affecting 10-15% of pregnancies today. Women with hypertension have an eight fold risk of pre-eclampsia and the infant is at higher risk of preterm birth, growth restriction and death. This means more and more women need to take medications during pregnancy to ensure safe delivery for both mother and baby. However, there is a lack of high-quality evidence on if the same antihypertensives should be recommended for all mothers or if this varies by ethnicity and what is the long-term impact of antihypertensives on infant development. Traditional randomised control trials (RCTs) can examine pregnancy outcomes such as hypertension, fetal death, birth weight, and admission to neonatal intensive care but they rarely have the scope or funding to evaluate long term child development. In addition, there is evidence that medication effect differs by ethnicity but it is rare for a traditional randomised controlled trials to have adequate sample size to be able to examine response differences by ethnicity. Existing data captures outcomes for women who have needed to take medicines in pregnancy and it is possible now to emulate randomised controlled trials with observational data. However, trial emulation  requires individual level federated analysis so that for example, an African woman in Wales taking one drug might be matched with an African woman in London taking an alternative drug. With individual level federated analysis it is possible to undertake trial emulation studies where all participants can be considered as part of the same ‘randomised’ trial and can be individually matched with a non-exposed comparison participant. This work aims to emulate the protocol of a yet to be published RCT of hypertension medications (the Giant PANDA trial) which compares labetalol (a beta blocker) with nifedipine (a calcium channel blocker).  Our FRAME study has three main objectives: (1) to test whether federated analysis for trial emulation produces comparable findings to that of a traditional RCT, (2) to extend the evidence base by examining long-term infant outcomes and (3) examine if the response to hypertensives in pregnancy differs by ethnicity. The findings from this trial can help inform if emulation trials with observational data do replicate the findings from traditional RCTs and can be used to examine other medications in pregnancy. This work will test new individual level federated analysis and will further develop the field of emulation trials using routine data. This work can help inform best practice and better patient and practitioner decision making in pregnancy. In addition, it will advance the research possible in this field while maintaining the security and confidentiality of sensitive data.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2026 · 2026-03

Robotic swimmers offer innovative solutions for a range of problems in Science and Engineering. Soft robotic micro-swimmers can be actuated by external magnetic or acoustic fields and are investigated for targeted drug delivery. Robotic fish has applications in marine conservation where it can be used to study animal behaviour and aid the exploration of areas that are difficult to access. Autonomous underwater robotic swimmers can undertake surveillance tasks and support the maintenance of marine engineering structures ranging from military applications to renewable energy. Devices should be energy efficient and highly manoeuvrable. This poses an optimisation problem for the shape and control of the robotic swimmer. It is the objective of this project to develop, implement and test suitable computational strategies for this optimisation problem.      The propulsion of robotic swimmers is based on its interaction with the surrounding fluid and generally involves periodic motion. While analytical models are available for some micro-swimmers in the viscous limit, simulating swimming at moderate or large Reynolds numbers must be based on numerical methods and on a strategy to resolve the coupling between the fluid and solid sub-solvers. Optimisation requires that this fluid-structure interaction (FSI) solver is executed many times and for a range of geometric configurations and control parameters. The viability of the optimisation procedure therefore depends on the accuracy, robustness and computational efficiency of the FSI solver at its heart. The investigator, Professor Dettmer, has extensive expertise in numerical FSI solution strategies and is well-placed to take his work to the next stage, namely its integration in shape and time-distributed control optimisation for dynamic FSI. This is an emerging field, and methodologies applicable to real-world problems are not available.      Two different approaches are considered:  The motion of the swimmer and the induced fluid flow are generally smooth. Therefore gradient-based methods are considered. Yet, a strategy based on exact sensitivities is likely to be prohibitively expensive for realistic three-dimensional models. It requires that several forward and backward passes in time are performed. The backward passes must be provided with the state of the system in every time step of the preceding forward pass. Hence, the fluid velocities and pressures in each time step must be stored, quickly resulting in excessive memory requirements. Therefore, strategies for obtaining approximate sensitivities will be developed, tailored to specific FSI solvers. In particular, the optimally efficient, staggered solution techniques, proposed by Professor Dettmer, tested and proven in academic and industrial contexts, will be exploited. A hybrid approach based on direct and adjoint sensitivities will be investigated, seeking to avoid the need for excessive data storage.       In the second approach, black box optimisation procedures will be applied, interacting with the FSI solver only in terms of input (shape and control parameters) and output (swimming speed and energy). The parameterisation of the shape and control must be undertaken carefully such that the number of optimisation variables remains moderate. The focus will be on Bayesian optimisation strategies and on approximate gradient descent. Bayesian optimisation is restricted to a relatively small number of free parameters and has been applied successfully in robotics. Approximate gradient descent strategies based on gradient recovery from small point clouds have proven promising in recent research of the investigator on problems with larger sets of design variables and will be further developed in this project.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2026 · 2026-01

The UK possesses a wealth of health and administrative data, made available for research through multiple data providers and infrastructures, spanning the NHS, academia, government agencies, and commercial platform providers. These infrastructures currently operate in silos which have been created by the different levels of development of the systems linked to national and regional data providers, as well as the natural devolution of health administration across each of the constituent countries of the UK, which has led to whole-UK studies being difficult to run from a technical, data access, and data standardisation perspective. Federated Data Science (FEDS) UK is a consortium of leaders in the field of emerging federated analytics solutions which aspire to change the siloed landscape of UK data access and analyses, building on initial investments and ongoing efforts from the Data and Analytics Research Environments (DARE) UK initiative in 2023, and embedding a network of use cases and scientific leaders in this space via Health Data Research (HDR) UK and data partners who have provided letters of support to signal their intent to liaise with FEDS UK to deploy and connect to the proposed unified technology stack, which is an enhancement of technologies piloted in 2023 by combining them and introducing a federated architecture for analytical delivery with options included for end users. This federated approach to data science and analytical delivery is not currently available in the UK. FEDS UK will, therefore, provide efficiencies in the deployment of analytics across an array of networked health data infrastructure and enhance findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable data services as an output of the instantiation of federation across UK health data providers. The program will work openly with as many existing communities or projects/programmes as possible to ensure it stays strategically aligned with national and international initiatives.  Examples of such are:- GA4GH - to drive the adoption of existing international standards and tools to bring interoperability between UK TREs and SDEs. ELIXIR - to ensure we are in step with European initiatives, such as the European Open Science Cloud, so that we can plug into a more comprehensive European infrastructure. HDR UK - leveraging the emerging federated analytics programme and the existing driver programmes into the national health research agenda and data usage register and connecting this to our TRE network that spans beyond HDR UK centres.  ADR Wales - to ensure our approach works across and between current domain silos to facilitate research that common traditional and nontraditional health data. ADDI - to connect our newly enhanced UK network to existing international programmes and a ready use-case in dementia-related research. BioFAIR - an emerging FAIR programme across biological data assets, bringing best practices and infrastructure for life science researchers. NHS SDE Programme  From initial solutions which have been created by Swansea University (Teleport), University of Nottingham and The University of Manchester (TRE-FX) and the general concept of federated research object deployment (University of Manchester/ELIXIR), FEDS UK will create an open-source collection of software that will deliver a federated UK network of connected TRE/SDEs.  All existing software stacks will be combined into a single platform, which will then be further enhanced to meet our partners' emerging needs and governance model requirements and enable expanded use cases such as federated learning.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-12

Gambling advertising is everywhere, from football shirts to social media feeds, and while regulations exist to protect the public from harm, gambling companies have become skilled at finding ways around them. This research project will examine gambling marketing restrictions from around the world to understand which ones actually work and which ones simply push harmful advertising into new spaces. The challenge facing regulators is that the gambling industry adapts faster than restrictions can be updated. When one harmful marketing practice is banned, operators quickly exploit regulatory loopholes elsewhere. These adaptations expose a fundamental weakness in current approaches: regulations are often reactive rather than forward-thinking, narrowly focused rather than comprehensive, and riddled with gaps that the industry is quick to exploit. This creates a significant problem for policymakers. Many countries have introduced different types of restrictions over recent years, including the Netherlands banning marketing to under-24s and Australia prohibiting certain betting bonuses, yet there has been no systematic evaluation of which approaches genuinely reduce harm versus those that merely redirect advertising efforts. Without this evidence, ineffective policies persist while potentially better alternatives remain untested. This six-month research project will address this gap by conducting a rapid scoping review of gambling marketing restrictions implemented globally over the past fifteen years. The research team, based across Swansea University, University of Bristol, Central Queensland University, and City University of Hong Kong, will systematically search academic databases and analyse both published research and the actual policy documents that underpin gambling marketing restrictions. The review will identify which types of regulations, such as timing restrictions during sports broadcasts, bans on certain advertising channels, or rules about targeting vulnerable groups, have been most effective at reducing exposure to gambling marketing and associated harms. The findings will have direct practical applications. For UK policymakers specifically, the review will offer critical lessons from countries that have implemented more comprehensive restrictions, helping Britain avoid repeating failed strategies while adapting successful approaches to the British context. The research will produce a detailed technical report for government departments and regulatory bodies, alongside publication in an academic journal to ensure the findings reach the wider research community. To make the evidence accessible to everyone, the team will also create an interactive online tool allowing users to explore gambling marketing restrictions worldwide through a global map and timeline, showing how different policies have evolved and what outcomes they have achieved. This resource will help the public, advocacy groups, and international policymakers understand the evidence base and support more informed decision-making about how best to protect communities from gambling marketing harms.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-10

IGNITE is a multi-university/industry partnership that will kick start a green steel revolution supporting a just transition to net zero economic growth. Over the decades UK industrial communities have been disproportionately affected by decline. For example, even before the recent fuel price increases up to half of Neath Port Talbot residents were in fuel poverty. The current potential for the transition of UK steelworks to net zero operation holds initial challenges but longer-term opportunity. In the decades to come indigenous steel production can drive a green industrial revolution. The Swansea University led innovation ecosystem of UK Universities have supported SUSTAIN to contribute to ca £2.5bn investment in a decarbonisation pathway. This new UKRI application to create the IGNITE Sustainable Manufacturing Hub aims to trailblaze the emerging opportunities for UK wide produced green steel to underpin our just transition to net zero. IGNITE has three core pillars (Grand Challenges) namely development of novel green-steel products for future manufacturing (GC1 Sustainable Demand), support the transition of the industry to a fully circular model (GC2 Resilient Supply) and explore the opportunity to provide steel into the market with a service offering (GC3 Steel as a Service) extending lifetime and performance and controlling the long-term recycling supply chain. These align to key ambitions: GC1 - Profitable supply chains for sustainable products by 2035 GC2 - Re-shore 5 million tonnes of supply by 2040 GC3 - Commercialisation of steel as a service by 2035   To solve the grand challenges and deliver on the ambitions IGNITE will address four cross-cutting interdisciplinary scientific research challenges namely: Sustainable metallurgical design (RC1): providing the tools to design the metals of tomorrow Durability and performance monitoring (RC2); creating the techniques to evaluate and extend lifetime Enablers of servitization (RC3); understanding the barriers and opportunities of steel as a service Optimising steel use and re-use (RC4): re-imagining the design process to maximise steel deployment and the ease of reuse and recycling.   Ultimately IGNITE should power-up delivery of novel products into three key market facing Demand led supply chains namely: D1 Energy: steel supports the manufacturing and deployment of renewable energy solutions from SMRs to floating offshore wind and new forms of energy generation storage and release for photovoltaics, hydrogen electrolysers and storage solutions. D2 Transport: green steel will underpin marine, land and air transport for the future and critically enable new industries ranging from the hydrogen transport economy to new and lower cost materials for energy storage (thermal, electrical and calorific). D3 Infrastructure: green steel has the potential to become the material of choice for better buildings, public and private sector civil engineering modernisation and in defence applications. The IGNITE Manufacturing Hub will also be a central pathway to establishing a National Manufacturing Institute for Wales building on the successful models developed by AMRC, WMG and NMIS creating an allied but distinctive operation that supporting both regional economic development and wider UK and international impact. Building on our heritage of support and innovation in metals the NMIW will support the colocation and growth of synergistic manufacturing opportunities on glass and plastic materials supporting a UK and worldwide transition to functional materials for the net zero economy.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-10

International Ocean Drilling Programme (IODP3) Expedition 502, scheduled for October – November 2025, will drill the Japan Trench subduction zone in the NW Pacific, in the region of largest slip associated with the 2011 tsunami-generating magnitude 9.0 Tohoku Earthquake. In this region, previous seismic surveys have identified anomalously thin seafloor sediments, hypothesised to be due to disturbance by lava flows, or magmatic intrusions, related to a recently discovered type of volcanism, called petit-spot volcanism. Petit-spot volcanism occurs at subduction zones, where fractures form due to the bending of the down going plate. It is expected that petit-spot activity disrupted and potentially thermally metamorphosed the sediments, thereby changing the nature and topography of the subducting plate, which are factors known to affect earthquake dynamics. First discovered in the Japan Trench and subsequently found in the Java and Mariana Trenches, petit-spot volcanism could be widespread in oceanic trenches worldwide, but is challenging to detect given their deep-marine location e.g. the drilling site for Expedition 502 is in a region with a water depth of nearly 5.5 km. To date, globally, petit-spot rocks have only been sampled via dredging and submersible dives, which can only provide incomplete snapshots of these volcanic systems and their influence on the surrounding sediment. The challenging nature of observing and sampling these systems means that many aspects of this type of volcanism remain poorly understood, including, its global distribution, eruption and intrusion dynamics, and its influence on seafloor sediment properties. IODP3 Expedition 502 will drill and retrieve a 225 m core, providing the first, unprecedented, opportunity to examine an entire stratigraphic sequence of petit-spot rocks, and their in-situ relationship and interactions with the surrounding seafloor sediments. The aim of this post-expedition research is to characterise the thus-far understudied petit-spot volcanism and magmatism, and its interaction with seafloor sediments, thereby advancing our understanding of submarine volcanic processes, petit-spot magmatism, and the physical and chemical properties of the subducting slab. The research objectives are to: 1) resolve the structural architecture of petit-spot basalt and intercalated sediments within the drill core; 2) characterise the interactions between hot basalt magma/lava and water-logged sediments and the effect on the mineralogical and textural properties of the sediments; and 3) reconstruct the eruptive and intrusive processes and dynamics of submarine petit-spot igneous activity, in order to contribute to broader models of deep-sea volcanism and the lithological and geochemical complexities of the subducting plate. The project aim and objectives will be achieved via the first ever macroscopic and microscopic core descriptions, and textural, geochemical and petrological analysis of the igneous rocks and their associated sediments. This post-expedition research aligns with all three scientific objectives for IODP3 Expedition 502, including understanding the nature and composition of the seafloor sediment, assessing the impact of petit-spot activity on the composition of this sediment, as well as improving estimation of geochemical cycles at subduction zones, crucial for understanding Earth processes. The outcomes of this proposed post-expedition research will significantly enhance our understanding of submarine volcanism, particularly the role of petit-spot activity and its impact on Earth systems, through characterising the lithological and geochemical characteristics of the down-going plate at subduction zones. This includes the influence of petit-spot volcanism on subduction processes and earthquake dynamics, with direct implications for understanding hazards and risk connected to volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

Context: The REMODEL project seeks to revolutionise high-performance computing (HPC) applications for engineering modelling and simulation by advancing parallel mesh generation and geometry representation. As HPC continues to evolve, particularly with the advent of Exascale supercomputers, the need for precise and efficient simulations of complex engineering systems, such as jet engines and fusion reactors, has never been greater. Despite significant advances in simulating physical phenomena, current methods for handling geometries and generating high-quality meshes in parallel have not kept pace, posing a major barrier to the full utilisation of these powerful computational resources. Challenge: The project addresses the critical challenges impeding the adoption of high-fidelity modelling in industrial applications. These challenges include the difficulty of creating accurate geometric representations that can be efficiently processed in parallel, the lack of standardised parallel CAD formats, and the need for intelligent meshing tools that can predict optimal meshes for new geometries and conditions. Existing methods are often slow, require significant user intervention, and struggle with the dynamic and multi-scale nature of real-world problems. Aims and Objectives: REMODEL aims to develop cutting-edge algorithms and tools, new knowledge, enhancing the accuracy and efficiency of simulations, to drive the next generation of HPC systems. Key objectives include: Parallel Geometry Handling: Developing innovative methods for managing complex geometric and topological structures in parallel, ensuring accurate feature recognition and preservation. Hybrid and Adaptive Meshing: Creating adaptive meshing strategies that can handle evolving geometries and enable continuous adaptation for time-dependent simulations. Machine Learning Integration: Utilizing AI to enhance mesh generation and adaptation, reducing the need for iterative processes and ensuring optimal mesh resolution from the start. Multi-Physics Integration: Facilitating seamless, high-fidelity simulations that can capture the complexities of multi-physics problems on parallel platforms. Applications and Impact: The REMODEL project will have far-reaching implications for various industries, including aerospace, automotive, energy, and space exploration. By advancing the state of parallel mesh generation, the project will enable: Enhanced Simulation Accuracy: More precise modelling of complex systems, leading to better product designs and improved performance. Reduced Computational Overhead: Efficient use of HPC resources, minimising energy consumption and computational costs. Broader Industrial Adoption: The development of standardised tools and techniques that can be easily integrated into existing workflows, making high-fidelity simulations more accessible to a wider range of industries. This will stimulate the development of new products and services that contribute to national economic growth and sustainability goals. UK Innovation Leadership: By aligning with the UK's commitment to investing in Exascale computing, REMODEL will strengthen the nation's position at the forefront of scientific and technological innovation. Furthermore, the project will orchestrate meaningful collaboration and knowledge transfer between academia and industry.  The consortia amalgamates internationally leading scholars, establishing a robust partnership that will serve as a platform for knowledge exchange, socio-economic impact, and the co-creation of future strategic projects. As part of dedicated engagement and outreach commitments, REMODEL’s outputs will be available as open-source libraries to support global reach, the team will actively promote visibility of the findings, engaging with stakeholders and launching a series of workshops, conferences, and a dedicated project website

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

As we enter a new era of government, childcare is again in the spotlight. It is timely to examine the thinking around childcare from the start of Blair’s leadership of the Labour Party in 1994 to the 2003 publication of Every Child Matters. Using material from TNA alongside oral histories, this project interrogates three questions: what role did the politics of childcare have in the New Labour project? How did debates about work, feminism, gender, health, place, and poverty shape early years provision? How does centring the care of young children enhance our understanding of this period of English history?

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

Building on decades of world-leading work to facilitate the scrutiny of antihydrogen, the bound state of an antiproton and a positron, we intend to perform precise measurements of the properties of the anti-atom and develop techniques towards comparisons with hydrogen. Investigations of hydrogen, the most abundant atom in the universe, have been instrumental in the development of modern physics. However, its antimatter counterpart, antihydrogen, must be made in the laboratory to be studied as it does not occur naturally. Antihydrogen is purported to be the mirror-image of hydrogen in the sense that, since only the sign of the charge of the constituents is reversed, it should obey the same laws of physics and hence be identical in every way: e.g., the atomic spectral lines should be the same. Additionally, Einstein’s Equivalence Principle states that it should obey the laws of gravity in the same way as any other massive object (e.g., hydrogen). The supposed similarity of matter and antimatter leaves the virtual absence of antimatter in the Universe a conundrum that physics has yet to explain. To hopefully address this problem, as well as elucidate the fundamental symmetry assumptions at its core, we will use the most advanced techniques available, many of which we have developed, to study antihydrogen. We will perform the most precise measurements to date of several lines of its atomic spectrum. The 1S-2S ground to first excited state line features strongly as the best measured line in hydrogen, thus allowing for the most precise comparison. Combining this transition with the measurement of others will allow us to extract some fundamental constants in antihydrogen. These spectroscopic measurements will build on our recent first measurement of the 1S-2S transition in antihydrogen. In a separate endeavour, we will build on our pioneering observation of the effect of gravity on antihydrogen, to do more precise measurements of the gravitational acceleration experienced by antihydrogen. For all this work we will use our unique capacity to synthesise, trap and accumulate thousands of antihydrogen atoms in our magnetic traps. The ultimate goal is the direct comparison with hydrogen using the same experimental techniques in the same place at nearly the same time. Starting from our unique antihydrogen set-up, we will explore methods to make the antihydrogen experiments applicable to hydrogen and develop techniques to magnetically trap hydrogen in our antihydrogen apparatus. Methodologies applicable only to antihydrogen, such as exploiting antihydrogen annihilation on contact with matter, will have to be replaced by techniques applicable also to matter atoms in a matter dominated world. While we are confident that we will succeed in improving measurements on antihydrogen, and eventually compare those with equally precise measurements on hydrogen, we cannot predict if these measurements will show a difference between matter and antimatter. However, if they do, some of the most fundamental tenets of modern physics will have to be revisited, with a profound impact on fundamental science.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

This project enables an interdisciplinary team (Academia, Trade association and Industry) from the UK (Swansea University, TechWorks) and the US (SEMI) to define and develop the security assurance framework to maintain confidence in cyber security throughout the semiconductor manufacturing processes. Semiconductors power essential systems like Critical National Infrastructure (CNI), Connected Vehicles, and national defence. As these systems grow more complex, any disruption can have major economic and social impacts. Threats such as tampering, theft, or hidden malicious components in the supply chain put our everyday technologies at risk. Ensuring their security requires assurance methods that are often manual and time-consuming. This makes the process costly, error-prone, and slow to respond to threats. Our work focuses on improving and automating these assurance processes to better protect the technologies we rely on. To improve the security of semiconductor manufacturing, this project develops a practical assurance framework to help equipment suppliers manage supply chain risks. Based on the widely used NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) 2.0, the framework offers different levels of assurance—from self-assessment to independent audits—covering key areas like governance, protection, detection, and response. To ensure real-world relevance, the framework is reviewed by global semiconductor industry leaders, with support from SEMI (the global industry association) and Techworks. We run a series of workshops in the UK with electronics manufacturers and service providers. These sessions help us gather feedback, test the framework’s practicality, and share current tools and best practices in supply chain security. The workshops produce a “security landscape” study, providing insights into the current strengths and gaps in the UK’s semiconductor supply chain security. SASM unites UK and US researchers to enhance security across the semiconductor manufacturing supply chain. It supports standardization in cyber security of semiconductor manufacturing, and enables global collaboration, strengthening national security, and innovation.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

Doctoral Training Partnerships: a range of postgraduate training is funded by the Research Councils. For information on current funding routes, see the common terminology at https://www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/how-we-fund-studentships/. Training grants may be to one organisation or to a consortia of research organisations. This portal will show the lead organisation only.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

The world is experiencing a meta-crisis of rising mental illness, social fragmentation, technological risks, and ecological collapse. To create a healthier, more connected, and sustainable future, bold thinking is needed to place wellbeing at the heart of society. This fellowship will provide resources, training, and collaborations to equip me in becoming a leader in driving systemic change through wellbeing science. My research focuses on improving wellbeing at individual, community, and planetary levels, with the ultimate goal of influencing large-scale strategies that reduce inequalities and support societal transformation. During this fellowship, I will consolidate findings from my PhD, which evaluated the effectiveness of a wide range of wellbeing interventions and explored how wellbeing can be embedded into healthcare and community settings. Publishing these results in high-impact journals will be a central priority, demonstrating my capability to contribute to cutting-edge wellbeing research. A major aim of the fellowship is to develop a policy brief translating my findings into actionable recommendations, working closely with regional partners in Wales. By leading meetings, engaging with stakeholders, and co-developing recommendations, I will gain a deeper understanding of the practical barriers and opportunities involved in translating research into healthcare policy and service design. I will also undertake advanced training in economics for public policy through the London School of Economics. I will spend time expanding my knowledge on economic modelling and cost-effectiveness analysis, as I understand the need for both evidence of impact and financial viability when justifying investment in wellbeing-based policies. A central component of this fellowship is a one-month international research visit to The University of Melbourne, a world-leading centre for wellbeing science, with internationally recognised expertise spanning positive psychology, wellbeing science, and contemplative science. During this visit, I will be based at the Contemplative Sciences Centre and will engage in research seminars, present my work and connect with academics across relevant schools within University. Through discussions, and seminars with leading wellbeing researchers, I will identify gaps, and explore opportunities for collaborative projects. Finally, to ensure my research reaches beyond academia, I plan to write articles for platforms such as The Conversation. Public engagement will help shape how wellbeing science is understood and applied by practitioners, policymakers, and the wider public. This fellowship will provide the time, resources, and strategic opportunities needed to move from focused research to a comprehensive understanding of how to create large-scale, systemic change. By publishing high-impact work, engaging directly with healthcare policy, and expanding my network, I will build the expertise needed to lead efforts to prioritise wellbeing in policy and governance, helping shape a healthier and more sustainable future for society.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-08

The expansion of human activities across the world results in increased human-wildlife interactions. In particular, wildlife living within or close to human-modified landscapes are presented novel foraging opportunities. South Africa, as the most industrialised biodiversity hot-spot in Africa, is at the forefront of human-wildlife conflict. The chacma baboon, a primate generalist, forages on crops in agricultural fields, bark strips trees in pine plantations, and damages properties in urban areas, throughout South Africa. These baboon behaviours result in negative human-baboon interactions. The ADAPT project aims to test a novel theoretical framework based on baboons' protective phenotypes to mitigate negative human baboon interactions. Assuming disease and predation drive baboons' fine scale space- and time-use, ADAPT will use this "landscape of risk" framework to design evolutionary relevant mitigation strategies.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-08

The 2026 Senedd (Welsh Parliament) election will see the introduction of significant reforms to the size of the Parliament and the way in which Senedd members are elected. These reforms aim to strengthen Welsh democracy at a time when voters are increasingly distrustful of politicians and disengaged from politics. The challenge is to understand what drives this disillusionment with democracy in Wales, how perceptions of economic well-being, social cohesion and identity underpin voters’ attitudes and behaviours in different parts of Wales, and the implications of Senedd reforms for these sentiments. The Wales Election Study 2026: Place, Power and Political Engagement (WES 2026) will undertake a survey of political attitudes and behaviours at the 2026 Senedd election to increase understanding of long-term trends in Welsh voting behaviour and support research data-driven insight into shifting voter preferences in the UK and globally. It has the following objectives: To design a survey that balances continuity with previous Welsh election studies with new questions that explore the role of ‘place’, perceptions of power and dynamics of political engagement in Wales; To implement a high-quality and innovative data collection strategy to capture voters’ attitudes and behaviours pre-election, during the campaign, and after the Senedd election in May 2026, resulting in a cutting-edge public opinion data resource;  To work with the Welsh research and policy communities across the project lifecycle to drive engagement with the WES 2026 project and thus maximise the usefulness and uptake of the project data across these communities; To raise awareness of the WES 2026 survey and its key findings amongst the general public and  through a multi-media dissemination strategy and political forecasting tournament; To support a range of users accessing and exploiting WES 2026 survey data via an open online data dashboard. To achieve its objectives, WES 2026 will undertake a programme of work structured around survey design, data collection, and public and stakeholder engagement and dissemination. The project brings together a bilingual academic team from Swansea and Aberystwyth Universities with a strong understanding of the Welsh political context, significant experience in survey design and implementation, and relevant expertise in engaging the public and policymakers. WES 2026 will be delivered in partnership with Ipsos, a leading provider of political survey research in the UK. Collaboration with the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data (WISERD) research institute will support the development of the WES 2026 data dashboard and support the project’s impact through a range of engagement and dissemination activities with the research and policymaking communities within Wales. WES 2026 will provide researchers working on public opinion with new data for understanding voter attitudes and behaviours in Wales. The data will be aligned with previous electoral surveys in Wales and other parts of the UK; it will adhere to international quality standards to allow for comparisons over time and with other contexts. The project will also enable policymakers in Wales to deepen their understanding of citizens’ perspectives on Welsh politics to inform decision-making at local and national scales. Young people will benefit from opportunities to engage directly with the WES 2026 data through bespoke resources and workshops. This will support the delivery of the new Curriculum for Wales’s commitment to ‘active citizenship’ representing a source of research-led political education for 16- and 17-year-olds eligible to vote in Wales.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-05

This proposal offers a new low-cost technology for powering communications and energy applications in space namely, cadmium telluride-based photovoltaic (PV) on ultra-thin glass. Space PV is expected to experience a rapid increase in demand, the European Space Agency has forecast a PV production requirement of at least 10 GWp/year by 2035. Currently, global space PV is produced at only ~1 MW/year. An example of the rapid growth in demand is seen with constellations such as SpaceX’s Starlink, providing global communications coverage and consisting of many thousands of individual satellites each of which are powered by PV. The project will target a step-change in cadmium telluride-based PV AM0 cell efficiency with unparalleled radiation stability. This will deliver a cost-effective and supremely lightweight technology capable of meeting the scale-up challenges for powering communications and energy applications in space. The project will address fundamental challenges aimed at advancing the technology towards validation in the laboratory environment. Targeting high specific power, crucial to reduce launch cost and number of launches for emerging space applications, by increasing AM0 efficiency and reducing the cell mass. Use proton and electron irradiation studies to prove that cadmium telluride-based PV’s will lead to much longer operational lifetimes compared with existing space PV technologies. Develop passive optical coatings for anti-reflection and simultaneously control emissivity and PV temperature. Develop a comprehensive techno-economic manufacturing cost analysis, testing the prediction of a two-order of magnitude reduction in £/Wp compared to current space PV products. Identify routes to manufacturing the cadmium telluride-based PV and determine its volume/time potential to meet the demands of the growing space PV market. The outcomes of this research will feed into the vibrant renewable energy sector and are an excellent fit with the EPSRC research theme, Energy and Decarbonisation. Within this theme, there is a clear focus on thin films, flexible PV, and the utilisation of new materials. The timeliness and need of this proposal are supported by a recent multi-million-pound investment made by the UK Government to jump start its ambition to use solar energy generated in space, part of the flagship £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-04

The growing frequency of extreme weather events, leading to floods, storms, heat stress, and drought, is making people increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Our cities and citizens must adapt to the escalating challenges posed by climate change and nature loss. Nature-based or ‘biophilic’ design offers a powerful solution, improving lives while enhancing biodiversity and restoring connections with nature. Biophilic design helps mitigate environmental stressors and increases climate resilience. Despite proven technologies, barriers to scaling biophilic design persist, including perceptions of value relative to cost, lack of industry awareness, skill gaps, policy obstacles, and cultural attitudes towards aesthetics. Overcoming these barriers is crucial for unlocking the potential of nature-based solutions for urban adaptation. Our project will accelerate nature recovery and climate adaptation by delivering evidence-based, replicable pathways to biophilic urban adaptation. We will explore the BIOSWA project: a 13-storey biophilic retrofit in Swansea, incorporating social housing, office, retail, and community facilities. We cannot simply build our way out of the climate and nature crises—retrofitting is essential. This project will examine how biophilic retrofitting addresses climate adaptation and its potential cultural, social, health, ecological, and economic benefits. It will also identify the human-centred challenges that hinder its widespread adoption. At the core of this transdisciplinary investigation are the arts, humanities, and co-creation. Experts in creative writing, design, architecture, history, law, anthropology, psychology, and ecology are collaborating with societal partners in social housing, construction, urban-nature restoration, and green infrastructure to co-define our research agenda. Our local and international partners in health, arts, government, economic development, and the biophilic global movement will help shape, disseminate, and implement our findings. Our team convening approach supports the transdisciplinary aims of our research through collaborative leadership, reflexive learning, and inclusive governance. Our research will place the BIOSWA building in its local and national contexts, exploring the journey from a former Woolworths store to thriving social housing and community hub opening in 2025. This project aligns with Wales’s Well-being of Future Generations Act, and pinpoints wider regulatory and policy issues that challenged delivery. Using mixed, iterative, collaborative methods, we will map and evaluate the experiences of people living and working in the building, and the ripple effects of BIOSWA in the city and region. The building's performance will be monitored by technicians and citizen scientists, with public responses to this data explored. Artists, creatives, diverse communities, schools, policymakers, and other interest groups associated with the building will share their experiences and visions for future urban environments, generating new insights and research challenges, which will be integrated into the project’s exploration of biophilic living. The project’s outputs will include tools and frameworks to address barriers and provide pathways to biophilic living. These will encompass policy briefs, biophilic scorecards, design frameworks, skills maps, curriculum materials, creative works, interactive exhibitions, international symposia, biophilic practitioner and arts networks, and transdisciplinary publications. This unique, timely, in-depth study aims to drive cross-sector culture change and accelerate the global movement toward socially inclusive biophilic living, contributing to human and planetary well-being.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-04

Context Epilepsy affects at least 600,000 people in the UK and over 50 million worldwide. People living with epilepsy face many problems including seizures, increased risk of other health conditions and greater risk of death. Despite recent treatment advances, the condition is drug-resistant (‘refractory’) in 30% of patients, with seizures continuing despite treatment with at least two anti-seizure medications. We do not know why people develop refractory epilepsy, cannot accurately predict who will develop it, and cannot treat it effectively. Understanding the causes of and improving treatments for refractory epilepsy is a top-ten priority recently identified by a national Epilepsy Priority-Setting Partnership. Health-data research involves analysing and linking existing information about people and their health to improve healthcare. The wealth of data available in electronic health records can be ‘mined’ to improve our understanding of diseases — what causes them, who is most at risk and how to identify and treat them. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning provide very powerful technologies for handling such large volumes of data. We want to realise the great potential of data in electronic health records for epilepsy research. However, most of the detailed, disease-specific information is unstructured ‘free text’, which limits its usefulness. Specifically, the challenge is that large routinely-collected health datasets lack structured detailed epilepsy information such as epilepsy type, cause and—importantly—seizure frequency. Natural language processing (NLP), a form of AI, can automatically read and process unstructured text in medical notes and letters and could help us unlock this huge and detailed clinical-information resource to address important knowledge gaps in refractory epilepsy. We will securely apply state-of-the-art NLP to population-scale data from three large diverse specialist epilepsy centres in England and Wales. In doing so, we will create one of the largest ever detailed epilepsy-research cohorts (datasets representing a group of people over time). Our NLP tools will extract and structure anonymised, detailed epilepsy information, including seizure frequency, from thousands of free-text clinic letters. By taking a data-science and AI approach we will address a further top-ten UK Epilepsy Research Priority while aligning with the Medical Research Council’s data-science vision. Aim: To improve prediction of refractory epilepsy and categorise patients according to the type and characteristics of their condition, enabling more personalised treatment. Objectives: Optimise NLP approaches for securely extracting detailed epilepsy information, at a population level, from epilepsy-clinic letters. Use this information, with other population-level data, to gain a better understanding of refractory epilepsy and its characteristics. Develop a model to predict individual risk of developing refractory epilepsy, enabling targeted treatment options at different disease stages. Develop a clinical-user interface for our model to provide health professionals with patient-specific information in clinic; and assess patients’ and clinicians’ opinions about its use. Potential applications and benefits The ability to identify people at higher risk of refractory epilepsy—at initial epilepsy diagnosis and throughout the disease course—and to categorise refractory-epilepsy patients according to the specific characteristics of their condition will enable better-targeted treatments to be administered earlier. This will benefit the 180,000 people living with refractory epilepsy in the UK. Better targeting resources will also benefit the healthcare system, saving costs and improving care. Moreover, the new tools, methods and dataset produced will benefit researchers in epilepsy and other conditions.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-04

Engineering and operating safe and secure systems, such as connected transport, manufacturing, and energy systems, is increasingly proving to be a substantial challenge. Traditionally, several factors play a role here including complexity, hyper-connectivity, regulatory compliance and supply chain economics. A step change in this challenge is posed by the introduction of AI, which means systems are continually evolving and operating an increasingly unpredictable environment. This proposal unites two organisations - Thales and Swansea University - in their vision to make the world a more resilient place, laying down the scientific foundations of cyber resilient systems engineering and operation, and ultimately paving the way for a deeper strategic and prosperity partnership between the two.  The UK’s National Cyber Strategy (2022), currently in place, has explicitly set out the challenge to “identify novel and emerging technology applications that have the potential to create cyber security risks, and ensure the UK is at the forefront of the safe and secure development of these technologies”, and has indeed explicitly identified ‘connected and automated vehicle deployments’ as part of this challenge. More widely, the recent EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), which will come into force over a phased transition period starting in late 2025, insists on cybersecurity requirements governing the planning, design, development and maintenance with obligations to be met at every stage of the value chain. As such, it places on system manufacturers and operators an obligation to provide duty of care for the entire lifecycle of systems such as automotive. Globally, for the automotive industry, the UNECE Regulation 155, which comes into force in July 2024, already mandates a cyber security management system, covering risk assessment and mitigation through the life of automotive platforms. This proposal sets out to overcome this very challenge by addressing the following research objectives: Establishing a deeper understanding of the problem of cyber resilience in the real world, and characterising intricate behaviours that systems exhibit leading to failure; Reviewing the state-of-the-art of engineering safety and security in complex systems, through a systematic examination of methodologies and tools; Developing a through-life model of resilience incorporating safety, security and liveness, with a particular focus on the operational phase; Developing and implementing a systems and property specification language supporting cyber resilience design and analysis; and Identifying and applying AI-driven tools towards analysis and verification of cyber resilience in model architectures. This project for "Engineering for Cyber Resilience: Through-Life Modelling and Analysis (ENCYRCLE)" will be delivered by a leading team of industrial and academic researchers with access to world-class research facilities. By enhancing cyber resilience of connected transport (and other associated infrastructure), this project will improve public safety and trust in these technologies, ensuring the continued operation of essential services even under adversarial conditions, highlighting its societal impact. Increased system resilience will reduce economic losses caused by system downtimes and cyber attacks, supporting the automotive and other high-stakes industries by minimising vulnerabilities and safeguarding their operational integrity and market confidence, emphasising economic impact. Furthermore, secure and resilient systems will enhance the efficiency and sustainability of industrial operations, potentially leading to reduced environmental footprints through optimised and uninterrupted performance, underscoring the environmental impact. A proposed joint lab, equipped with the bespoke tool chain developed in the project, would serve as enduring impact as capacity for modelling and analysis of cyber resilience.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-04

Malnutrition and obesity are a dual challenge for the older adult population, especially those from lower socio-economic status communities. Age UK estimates that over one million older people in the UK are malnourished or at risk of malnourishment. The Health Survey for England 2022 showed that prevalence of obesity was highest among older adults with 36% of adults aged 55 to 64 and 35% of adults aged 64 -74 living with obesity. There is a significant opportunity to support development of healthy and sustainable foods for all, yet specific challenges and gaps in knowledge exist that have created barriers to delivering successful new products. Nielsen statistics show that 85% of new products fail and Foster & Brown Research states that this failure is due to a lack, and inherent failure, of consumer testing. Kaleidoscope is a service that allows manufacturers (especially small and medium enterprises, SMEs) producing sustainable and healthy foods, to access six consumer insight modules (Consumer attention, focus groups, consumer preferences, consumer attributes, nutrition and claims, and visual communication) to optimise their product for the older adult community (without having to invest long-term in costly expertise and equipment themselves). The healthy ageing accelerator will allow us to realise our commercial ambition and trajectory, developing Kaleidoscope from a collaborative endeavour operating within the University ecosystem to a commercial endeavour via a licensing structure with Twisted Orange Ltd. Kaleidoscope benefits from the rigour of scientific/academic research coupled with extensive food industry experience. Here, we propose three work packages that underpin customer discovery, a pathway to securing our first commercial customer within our primary market and to understand potential adjacent markets. With a goal of informing the development of 1 to 2 key products in the food manufacturing space, supported commercially within 6-12 months of the accelerator. Our activity is underpinned by a Dragon's Den style pitch activity with SME sign ups that are from our target segment around older adult nutrition as well as SME sign ups from adjacent target segments around nutrition across the lifespan. Winners will receive Kaleidoscope packages supporting use cases and market development. The Healthy Ageing Accelerator gives us an opportunity to forward our mission to support a healthy and sustainable food environment for older adults, but also across the life-span, with an ultimate goal of impacting population health and well-being via adequate nutrition.  

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-03

Thrombosis (i.e blood clotting) is a leading cause of mortality globally and includes diseases such as stroke, heart attack and deep vein thrombosis. Stroke is the third leading cause of death and a major cause of adult disability in the UK. Current therapies ("clot busting" drugs) for blood clots in stroke can lead to bleeding complications and are often ineffective; in up to 25 % of patients the treatment is unable to break down the clot. Due to the lack of effective biomarkers of clotting and clot breakdown that accurately reflect clinical outcome, clinical practice is that interventional decisions are made on patients admitted to hospital with stroke with no knowledge of their clotting status. There is an urgent need for new and improved biomarkers. Such biomarkers will underpin the development of more effective therapeutic strategies and accelerate their clinical translation. The proposed work aims to develop new functional biomarkers of clot breakdown by exploiting recent advances in rheometry (superposition rheometry and Gaborheometry). We propose to develop a technique which provides clot formation and breakdown parameters, in the same test, on the same sample. In a pre-clinical study, we aim to establish that our rheological biomarkers reflect whole blood responses to both prophylactic and thrombolytic therapies utilising blood from (i) healthy volunteers and (ii) stroke patients, the latter under our collaboration with the NHS based Welsh Centre for Emergency Medicine Research. An advanced technological platform, which provides biomarkers reflecting clot functionality will greatly benefit the pharmaceutical industry, who will have access to improved and more accurate testing for the development of novel therapies. In turn, clinicians charged with patient care will enjoy more reliable, more efficient therapies thus improving clinical outcome. This will reduce the burden on healthcare (the NHS in the UK), as patients are likely to spend less time in hospitals. As future therapies emerge, timely and personalised treatment becomes more realistic, but these require accurate diagnostic tests.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-03

DRAGON (Developing Resistance Against Grooming ONline) is a digital innovation programme committed to enhancing professional practices that protect children from online sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA), with a particular focus on online grooming (OG). This is urgently needed. The current child protection ecosystem simply cannot cope with an ongoing OCSEA/OG epidemic: one new case of OCSEA is reported every second and there has been an 82% increase in online grooming in the UK in the past five years. DRAGON offers two, interrelated solutions to this epidemic: DRAGON-Spotter: an AI-linguistics classifier that detects OG chat content; and DRAGON-Shield: a training platform that provides knowledge about how OG works from an offender/child perspective. Supported by the ARC Accelerate scheme, DRAGON will develop a robust sustainability plan for DRAGON-Spotter. DRAGON-Spotter is a triaging and prioritization tool for law enforcement. Integrating cutting-edge AI and sophisticated language analysis, the solution detects OG conversations within devices (laptops, mobile phones, etc.) that have been seized by law enforcement. It also pinpoints the communicative tactics used by groomers within the detected conversations. DRAGON benefits from continuous research to keep abreast of offenders’ own innovation. New data (OG chatlogs) processed by DRAGON-Spotter both enhances its performance (as per machine learning principles) and serves to update DRAGON-Shield content e.g., about emerging OG tactics. DRAGON-Spotter users can undertake the DRAGON-Shield training as part of their DRAGON-Spotter onboarding, thus benefiting from this solution synergy. DRAGON-Spotter informs – rather than replaces – decision-making by its users: digital forensics and OCSEA investigation teams. It increases their ability to deliver improved outcomes for children and protects team wellbeing by reducing exposure to the distressing content held on seized devices that needs to be reviewed. Crucially, DRAGON-Spotter benefits from extensive co-development and piloting with law enforcement, as well as an independent evaluation. Collectively, their input validates our solution, highlighting its uniqueness, added value and timeliness. Thanks to the ARC Accelerate scheme, our DRAGON-Spotter team, boasting expertise from the computer and social sciences as well as from technology transfer, will conduct and successfully complete activity aligned to three, interrelated areas [work packages - WP]: WP1 - Business development: we will create a robust sustainability plan for DRAGON that prioritises DRAGON-Spotter in 2025-2026. WP2 - Product life cycle development: based on insights emerging from our 2023-2024 piloting of DRAGON-Spotter with law enforcement in the UK, we will complete essential interface development for the sustainability of our solution. WP3 - Commercial development: we will prioritise securing buy-in from users to deploy the DRAGON-Spotter solution in a safe manner. We will identify c. 50% of forces in England and Wales for DRAGON-Spotter deployment based on digital forensics capability and interest. We will also produce a full workplan for DRAGON-Spotter setup in a Trusted Research Environment (TRE). Our activity in these areas/ WPs will benefit from extensive engagement with key stakeholders, including West Mercia Police as our key law enforcement partner.