University of Birmingham

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-11

Copper, an enduring symbol of innovation and progress, has played a pivotal role in shaping the Anthropocene for over 6000 years. As the global shift towards green energy intensifies in response to climate change, the demand for copper, a crucial component in renewable energy technologies, is expected to soar significantly. This transition has prompted increased copper production in Arctic countries such as Norway, Canada, and Russia, leading to concerns and protests from Indigenous communities affected by industrial extractive practices. The COPPER project aims to investigate the socio-environmental and cultural impacts of green copper mining on Indigenous communities in the US, Canada, Russia, and Norway. Through a comparative study, the project further explores the complex histories and biographies of human-copper relations within Arctic Indigenous societies, where native copper has historically been intertwined with trade networks, leadership structures, health practices, and spirituality. By documenting and exploring the cultural significance of copper networking in five Indigenous societies, including the Sámi, Haida, Copper Inuit, Tutchone and Ahtna, the project sheds light on the multidimensional relationship between humans and minerals in the Arctic from Indigenous perspectives. The project employs a community-based longitudinal approach to monitor socio-environmental changes in copper mining regions across the Arctic. By utilising a specialised app developed by the Indigenous Sentinels Network (ISN) and managed by the Tribal Government of St. Paul Island, Alaska, it evaluates the impact of contemporary green copper industrial production on Indigenous communities and environments. This approach integrates both Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Western scientific methods. Long-term monitoring will provide evidence-based data on the effects of the green energy transition on Indigenous livelihoods and their mineral values, empowering communities to engage in policy discussions and environmental stewardship based on concrete research results. Expected outcomes of the research include a GIS-based digital platform that presents copper as a multidimensional metal in human history and illustrates the current impact of the green copper transition on Arctic Indigenous populations. Based on comparative socio-environmental monitoring results, the research team will develop protocols, policy briefs, and practical guidelines for ethical collaboration with Indigenous participants in Earth sciences and responsible mining. These documents will address the need for developing Indigenous-oriented research methodologies and promote inclusive, culturally sensitive research practices. The project further aims to integrate Indigenous values into mineral analyses, which is currently dominated by economic and environmental assessments, and promote the idea of geodiversity. While the problems of biodiversity loss are well addressed, there is less understanding and appreciation of geological diversity in wider society. By highlighting Indigenous mineral values, this research endeavours to change the way we think about minerals.  

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-11

In this era of climate emergency, two pressing challenges are monitoring our environment and health. Accurate sensing of small molecules, such as atmospheric methane or neurotransmitters in the brain, is essential to address these issues. Developing advanced detectors across the electromagnetic spectrum is a crucial step forward. Despite significant advancements in microwave and visible frequencies, the 1-30 THz range remains underdeveloped. This ‘THz gap’ persists due to a lack of suitable materials for efficient detection. THz light can penetrate most non-conducting materials and contains critical fingerprints of material vibrations and cosmic background. This project aims to bridge the THz gap by developing nano-scale, efficient, and low-noise detectors, by demonstrating a radically novel concept of converting low-energy THz light to high-energy visible light using quantum materials such as 2D excitonic systems, quantum dots, molecular emitters, and rare-earth ions. Achieving efficient upconversion requires tackling a multi-scale problem of integrating three widely different length scales—visible wavelengths, quantum vibrations, and THz wavelengths—into a single platform and combining them effectively. Three major advances make it feasible now: (i) my recent demonstration of proof-of-concept upconversion in the mid-infrared regime,(ii) my pioneering construction of robust optical nanocavities, and (iii) advancements in excitonic materials holding strong THz vibrational modes. This proposal radically departs from existing techniques, which are often slow and require cooling to very low temperatures. By integrating quantum materials with both THz and optical responses in meticulously designed nanocavities, we can trap and confine light, enabling strong coupling of THz fields to vibrations in quantum materials—even at room temperature. The resulting coupled states facilitate upconversion with single-photon efficiencies, paving the way for efficient THz detection with strong light-matter coupling. A crucial aspect here is the combined bottom-up assembly of novel materials and nano-constructs with advanced functionality and high manufacturability at low cost, aiding future industries and energising the UK’s multidisciplinary science base and strategic advantage. Thus, immediate action is needed for the UK to seize this unique manufacturing opportunity and dominate the potential market. This is vital as we seek functional systems constructed within a sustainable material- and quantum-enabled economy. These detectors will leverage scientific breakthroughs and technological advancements in sensing, with applications ranging from monitoring toxic gases to measuring lipids for healthcare and enabling wireless quantum communication. Thus, this project effectively bridges the gap between fundamental research and practical applications, catalysing technological advancements with societal and economic benefits. To ensure successful delivery, it brings together leading international scientists with expertise in quantum materials, THz technologies, and advanced theory, facilitating extensive knowledge dissemination and fostering impactful collaborations. Strategic partnerships with biologists and industry leaders will expedite technology transfer. Aligned with UKRI Innovate UK’s emerging technologies and EPSRC’s vision for discovery-led research and mission-driven priorities, this project is positioned to make significant contributions. The FLF scheme provides the necessary flexibility for achieving critical objectives: scientific (bridging the THz gap), professional (enhancing the development of the applicant and team, establishing international leadership), and translational (generating intellectual property, fostering cross-disciplinary collaborations). As an early-career researcher with a proven track record of high-impact work and IP development, the PI stands at a pivotal stage where support and resources are crucial to drive this vision forward.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-11

The commodity formulated products sector profoundly impacts daily life, contributing £129 billion Gross Added Value to the UK economy through a wide range of products, from personal care items to agricultural enhancers. However, nearly all these products are currently derived from oil-based resources and a majority end their life as waste, lost directly to the environment. Despite ongoing efforts to utilise sustainable and renewable feedstocks, many of these formulated products cannot be recovered and circularised, hence the formulation industry is committed to ensuring products are ‘benign by design,’ meaning they have no negative environmental impact post-use. Liquid formulated products are intricate mixtures of small molecules and polymers. While the biodegradation of small molecules is well understood and readily characterised, the behaviour of polymers in these formulations remains less clear. EU Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulations will soon mandate that polymers in liquid formulations (PLFs) must not persist long-term in the environment. Compliance typically involves costly and lengthy OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) biodegradation tests, which present challenges for PLFs due to their single component testing nature, failing to replicate real environmental conditions, potentially yielding unreliable and non-representative results for PLF biodegradation in the environment. This prosperity partnership unites nine partners in a pre-competitive initiative to address these challenges. The aim is to develop predictive models based on accelerated tests to establish design principles for polymer biodegradation, such that new polymers for formulated product innovations can be designed with biodegradability in mind at the start of the process. Additionally, the project seeks to enhance OECD biodegradation tests to better predict environmental outcomes for both individual polymers and those that are delivered within formulations. This programme will forecast the end-of-life environmental fate of PLFs, ensuring truly sustainable solutions and reducing environmental impact. By advancing biodegradable PLF discovery and creating interpretable models for chemical biodegradation behaviour, it will enable systematic development of polymers with targeted degradation properties. This initiative places end-of-life fate as a critical design parameter, ensuring future PLFs are genuinely ‘benign by design’ and supporting net-zero environmental sustainability goals.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-11

Up to 90% of the energy used over the lifetime of a ceramic component is consumed during manufacturing. The very high temperatures used are by far the biggest barrier to the wider use of ceramic materials, despite their suitability for use in a wide range of applications including solid-state batteries and other devices. In this project we will attempt to eliminate the need for heating to densify ceramic materials. We will start with pellets pressed from highly pure ceramic powders to which we will add very carefully controlled amounts of "phase-changing additive" substances which convert to metals at relatively low temperatures. This will provide us with a way to input energy by connecting the material to a power supply which will preferentially heat the surfaces of the particles where these substances are placed. We hypothesize that this will lead to intense heating in this region locally, enabling sintering to occur without needing to raise the temperature of the entire sample. This paradigm-shifting idea would radically reduce energy consumption in the ceramics industry and enable co-processing of ceramics with other materials which would usually degrade at the high temperatures of conventional ceramic processing methods. This work, if successful, will enable better manufacturing routes for important technological applications including solid-state batteries and ceramic-based metalized metamaterials for use in imaging and communication. In this project we propose several methods to investigate whether our hypothesis is correct and whether the effects we propose can be sufficiently controlled to lead to extensive densification. We will also investigate how universal the effects are by substituting materials with different ionic, electrical, and thermal conductivities. The project will also involve extensive work to characterise the samples produced using a wide range of imaging, X-ray spectroscopy, and bulk property measurement methods.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-11

BreatHE IN will generate 1) a network to champion Healthier Environments and increase public awareness about the benefits of strengthening this research area; 2) a holistic, cross-disciplinary framework to transfer knowledge across academia, industry and the public sector; 3) a hub to fund and promote innovative ideas in this new area of research. More than 1.5 M new homes are to be built in the next five years in the UK, where 80% of the UK housing stock is more than 40 years old. The COVID-19 pandemic brought awareness on the presence of airborne pollutants and pathogens - particularly in indoor environments. The popularisation of sensors and filters highlighted the importance of air quality within built environments and the need for appropriate ventilation. However, four years later, and despite relevant technological advances, there is still a need for comprehensive methodologies and tools to implement the lessons learned in construction practice. It is crucial to incorporate health considerations in the new wave of building and retrofitting. BI will promote high-risk/high-reward interdisciplinary research. The network will develop roundtables and sandpits and offer participants the possibility to apply for pump-priming funding to develop pilot or proof of concept studies. The Network will make particular emphasis in building a legacy. We will set up a mentorship scheme and allocate funds for bursaries for early career researchers and those in underrepresented groups to train the new generation of researchers in the field. We will facilitate and foster the co-creation of long-term collaborations and research proposals. BI’s approach puts the building environment in the centre to cut through disciplinary barriers. We will promote and fund research directed to further our understanding and improve the air quality and thermal comfort of indoor environments and to reduce or suppress the spread of pollutants and airborne pathogens. BI is also interested in strategies to co-deliver high air quality standards and energy efficiency. Finally, we also want to understand how these aspects can affect (and improve) the life and mental health of the building’s occupants and users.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-10

Paediatric cancers are rare diseases, and trials in this field have the major problem that sample sizes are limited, often severely. It is as important in rare diseases as in common ones that treatments are based on high quality evidence from randomised controlled trials, so there is a challenge for trial design. Several innovations have been introduced to improve the efficiency of paediatric cancer trials, but one area that has not been addressed is the outcomes and statistical analyses used. Trials invariably use outcomes that are similar to adult cancer trials: tumour responses, usually analysed as a binary outcome (response/non-response), and time to event outcomes, usually overall survival time and various forms of event-free survival time. However, when the sample size is restricted, it is crucial for the analysis to be as efficient and informative as possible. The problem is that the conventional methods do not use information efficiently, and this directly impedes our ability to identify the best treatments. Improving the efficiency of outcome measurement and analysis would improve the quality of evidence provided by trials in paediatric cancer, enabling better evaluation of treatments and improving health. In this project we will investigate whether a novel approach to outcome measurement and analysis, the use of ordinal longitudinal outcomes, would be advantageous for paediatric cancer trials. This approach records patients’ outcomes on an ordinal scale that includes all relevant events, and is recorded repeatedly throughout follow-up, giving a trajectory through time of the patient’s clinical course. This type of outcome includes much more information than conventional methods, and thus should enable more efficient discrimination between therapies. Analytical methods, developments of ordinal logistic regression, allow multiple clinically useful summaries, facilitating greater learning from trials. This project will consist of five phases: Systematic review of outcomes and statistical methods used in paediatric cancer trials; Selection of four case studies based on trial data sets held by Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit, and development of an ordinal longitudinal outcome for each of these; Reanalysis of each trial using ordinal longitudinal models, and comparison of the results of the reanalysis with the original trial’s outputs, asking the questions: would the conclusions of the trial have been different? could the trial have reached its conclusions more quickly?; is the quality of the information better (e.g. less uncertainty) or are additional insights available from the ordinal longitudinal analysis?; Consideration of issues in trial planning, and reporting and communication of results from ordinal longitudinal models; Dissemination of the results widely among the scientific community, and other stakeholders including regulators and policy makers. The results of this project will be directly relevant to trial design and analysis in other areas of cancer, and in rare diseases generally, and will help to establish the methods as an alternative way to conduct cancer trials.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-10

Of all the lifestyles organisms follow, parasitism is one of the most complex and impactful on the global biota, directly on their infected hosts and with chain reactions in ecosystems and economies worldwide. In contrast to the tremendous investments in preventing and mitigating their impacts, we still lack fundamental understanding of their evolutionary mechanisms – the repeated origin and patchy persistence of parasitism across the tree of life are both mysterious. Such understanding can be instrumental not just to a deeper understanding of how biodiversity forms, but to more proactive approaches in disease management, wildlife conservation and public health, and is only possible to establish through a data-driven, comparative synthesis. Many organismal groups in nature contain both parasitic and free-living species, but rarely can we find a system with a balanced combination of research potential and feasibility. Here, we propose to investigate the ecology and evolution of parasitism in a group of marine invertebrates which presents exciting opportunities as a model system, the bivalve order Galeommatida. This group comprises a number of parasitic species, scattered among the free-living relatives on their phylogeny and living on or inside a variety of ecologically and economically significant taxa like crabs, shrimps, lobsters, sea urchins and sea cucumbers. There is rising interest in the dramatic diversity, global distribution, and fascinating morphological disparity in Galeommatida, leveraging the status of the larger Class Bivalvia as a classic model system across fields like ecology, biogeography and evolutionary biology. Multi-dimensional knowledge awaits to be synthesized. We have assembled a world-class team of taxonomists, systematists, malacologists, biogeographers and evolutionary biologists to mine an existing wealth of underutilised resources including the rich literature and bivalve collections at major natural history museums, supplemented with a targeted field survey by team members expert in targeted regions. Our short-term aim is to build an multidimensional database for galeommatid bivalves from the global marine biodiversity hotspot, the tropical western Pacific, and its adjacent temperate coastlines, and conduct the first large-scale comparative synthesis of the underlying eco-evolutionary mechanisms associated with parasitism. We propose two hypotheses to be tested, both potentially leading to higher extinction risk for parasitic species: 1) parasitism limits the ability of (and evolutionary investment in) long-distance dispersal and thus restricts the geographic range of species occurrences; 2) close interactions with hosts promote morphological innovation, leading to the proliferation of new species and further break-up of geographic ranges. Our novel, multidimensional investigation will build fundamental theories of why parasitism has evolved, and what costs have prevented parasitism from pervading whole clades. This project will build a powerful research basis for capturing larger grants. We have a clear, longer-term vision for extending this research to a full range of symbioses (i.e. from parasitic to mutually beneficial) and expanding the spatial coverage to the global scale to ask related, broader questions. The more ambitious goal, viable given our interdisciplinary expertise, is to strengthen the temporal perspective using fossil data – a direct window to the origin and evolution of parasitism. Many more extensions will be developed by this global partnership, which will inevitably grow through involving early-career researchers in our labs as well as inviting new partners through our existing research network, the proposed symposium in the Natural History Museum, London (in Year 2), and engagement with stakeholders backed by empirical evidence from this project.  

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-10

Manufacturing plays a key part for achieving and going beyond NetZero by 2050. Manufacturing accounts for 14% of the UK territorial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and will be vital for making and maintaining the emerging technologies underpinning the green transition. Labour productivity is crucial to achieve the ambitions 2050 targets while growing our living standard with an aging population and low birth rate. UK Growth has been sluggish falling behind many peer economies. Manufacturing’s drive for connectivity and data has laid the foundation for digital technologies. However, the full gains in productivity and efficiency, can be realised only by incorporating artificial intelligence (AI). Optimising, simultaneously: productivity, resilience, and sustainability exceeds human capacity. The advancement of AI offers unparalleled potential for manufacturing, by empowering people. Examples include adapting to radical demand & supply changes, managing complex sets of human and machine resources, or dexterously adapting to in-process variations. Humans and AI offer co-working, with automation could supercharge productivity by +36% while reducing emissions below 1990 levels. The vision: Position the UK as a world leader in research and commercialisation of AI-empowered autonomous machines and systems to transform manufacturing productivity and sustainability for a net positive future by empowering people. The aim: Deliver, collaboratively with manufacturing businesses, leading-edge technologies for robust, safe, trust-worthy, fault-tolerant, and co-operative autonomous AI systems for manufacturing and establish a platform for their design, development, testing, and validation. Key objectives: defined with our stakeholders (users, providers, governance) to achieve future sustainable manufacturing and surpass NetZero by 2050: Eliminate all waste and emissions in complex, interdependent manufacturing ecosystems (aiming for zero emissions and waste, zero downtime, double life expectancy). Enable safe and meaningful work with AI systems, empowering workers to contribute their skills regardless of their location – whether remotely or on-site - and physical ability. Supercharge productivity by increasing the autonomy of AI-powered machines (+40%). Enhance resilience and agility in decentralised, circular, interconnected production systems and networks (reduce time to recovery -50%, towards zero setup and changeover time, towards batch size 1). UK flagships to act as lighthouses (four+ sectors) to facilitate the exchange of expertise and knowledge between industrial experts, factory workers and academic researchers. To address these objectives, the hub will focus on three research themes focusing at three levels of manufacturing ecosystems: AI-powered machines for agile and effective task execution Self-optimising AI for agile production systems AI-enhanced logistics and Total Quality Control for distributed, circular production networks Five research priorities will investigate the underpinning AI challenges across the themes: Edge AI for real-time digitisation of manufacturing ecosystems Adaptive skill learning and Human-AI collaboration for advanced manufacturing ecosystems Hybrid collective AI for distributed design, planning, and control of manufacturing ecosystems Verification and validation for safe and reliable AI in manufacturing Environmental, social, and economic context of AI in manufacturing To unlock the transformative effect of AI and rapidly move manufacturing beyond NetZero, the hub will work with key industrial sectors including automotive, aerospace, clean energy, and food&drink to setup flagship test and demonstration ecosystems. These will act as light houses for the wider industry to showcase best in class applications of AI to eliminate waste and emissions, enable safe and flexible working, supercharge productivity, and enhance the resilience and agility of critical processes.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

Tech giants like Google and IBM, alongside startups like IonQ and Rigetti Computing are on the race to developing fault-tolerant quantum computers. While such computers are still expected to be years away, recent efforts focus on utilising the currently available Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum (NISQ) computers to demonstrate computational advantages in real-world use cases. Optimisation problems, including those in machine learning such as classification, have been identified as promising areas for demonstrating computational advantages with NISQ devices. Variational quantum classifiers have emerged as particularly promising algorithms, that leverage both quantum and classical computing paradigms. These classifiers have already found applications in safety-critical domains such as health diagnostics, autonomous vehicle navigation, and financial fraud detection. However, a critical aspect that has been overlooked until recently is the susceptibility of variational quantum classifiers to adversarial attacks. These attacks involve carefully perturbing or poisoning data examples to mislead the classifier into making incorrect predictions. Recent research indicates that variational quantum classifiers are highly prone to such attacks, threatening the potential quantum advantages they offer and their application in safety-critical domains.   This fellowship aims to establish solid theoretical and algorithmic foundations for developing adversarially robust variational quantum classifiers. The project will achieve this by: Designing resilient and scalable architectures for the variational quantum classifiers with guaranteed robustness, Developing theoretical understanding of the generalisation performance of existing defense strategies like quantum adversarial training, Mitigating the drawbacks of existing strategies which focus on ensuring robust accuracy on adversarially perturbed data, while compromising the standard accuracy on clean data, and Developing novel, theoretically-principled training criteria and optimisation schemes for the classifier that ensure high standard and high robust accuracies. By addressing these aspects, the project aims to pave the way for the development of theoretically-principled, adversarially robust variational quantum classifiers that can be safely deployed in critical domains.      

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

There is plenty of evidence for inequalities in physical and mental health. A recent Birmingham City Council (2025) report showed lower healthy life expectancy for women in Birmingham compared to the national average. In addition, the Birmingham Community Health Profile Report showed higher occurrence and severity of poor mental health in ethnic minority communities. To address these inequalities, it is important that behavioural programmes to improve health are tailored to meet the needs of communities who need these programmes the most. Physical activity is a commonly used behavioural intervention to support improvements in physical and mental health. Like poor health, levels of physical activity are not equally distributed in society: people from ethnic minorities, especially women, are less likely to be physically active enough to achieve health benefits. Further, women from ethnic minority communities were deemed to be less active than women of white or mixed ethnic groups (Race Disparity Unit, 2021). Therefore, there is an urgent need to enhance our knowledge on how to overcome the specific barriers preventing women from ethnic minorities from being more physically active. Additionally, to support continued engagement, we need to explore how individual factors influence the outcomes of these programmes. The Warwickshire Cricket Foundation (WCF – the community division of the Warwickshire County Cricket Club) is a dedicated charity that uses cricket to engage and inspire people in Warwickshire to have positive experiences. The foundation runs a range of cricket-based community programmes. Given the low levels of physical activity in women from ethnic communities in Birmingham, WCF has a specific focus on programmes for this population. WCF have recently received funding from the England Cricket Board for the ‘Cricket Cities’ programme to expand their programmes for girls and women from ethnic minorities. The Cricket Cities programme offers novel sessions and events providing a unique opportunity to evaluate a range of community-based cricket programmes for this population. Previously programmes have received positive feedback; however, WCF are aware many women invited do not take up, or complete, the programme. WCF is keen to get a better, evidence-based understanding of the reasons why women do or do not take part, i.e., their barriers and facilitators to participation, as well as identify ways to enhance the effectiveness of their programmes for overall health in this population. Theory (COM-B; Michie et al., 2011; 2014) will be used to guide the development of methods for coaches and WCF to better assist specific aspects of a behaviour to support the needs of women from ethnic minorities within the community. The aim of this fellowship is to develop a toolkit to enhance the uptake of and continued engagement of community-based physical activity programmes to improve health in women from ethnic minorities. This aim will be achieved by the following objectives: 1.     Explore reasons why women from ethnic minorities do, or do not, take part and engage with cricket programs; 2.     Evaluate the effectiveness of the cricket programmes to improve health, and explore individual characteristics that could influence the effectiveness of the cricket programmes; 3.     Co-develop with coaches and participants a toolkit to support women of ethnic minorities to take part and engage with cricket programmes; and 4.     Review and adapt a toolkit for coaches to support continued engagement with sports-based physical activity programmes for women from ethnic minorities.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

Sleep deprivation is a significant risk to health and safety. In the UK, 8.7 million shift workers are routinely exposed to sleep loss, while one in ten UK adults regularly sleep less than is healthy and safe. Exposure to sleep deprivation has a widespread impact on the brain, increasing the risk of potentially catastrophic errors. Several high-profile disasters have been partly caused by sleep deprivation including the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and Chernobyl nuclear meltdown. However, sleep deprivation leads to serious injury and fatality every day across the UK, causing an estimated 20% of all motor vehicle crashes and 13% of all workplace injuries. The cost to our economy is estimated at £39 billion, every year. As sleep deprivation remains common in a 24/7 society, our challenge is to develop strategies to keep people safe. The use of technology is a rapidly growing strategy and either (i) continuously monitors individuals to warn of fall asleep events or (ii) identifies those most at risk from the effects of sleep deprivation. In our recent review of technologies however, most were either not validated or were unable to predict vulnerable individuals prior to exposure. New approaches and markers predicting both state and trait vulnerability to sleep loss are therefore urgently needed, and our project will make exciting progress in this respect. Our project aims to develop easy-to-obtain markers that detect (i) when brain failure occurs during sleep deprivation (state vulnerability), and (ii) identify who is most at risk of this occurring prior to exposure (trait vulnerability). By assembling a multidisciplinary team of sleep scientists, applied mathematicians and cognitive neurophysiologists, we will apply advanced mathematical techniques to brain activity (EEG) and combine with gold standard performance outcomes from a one-of-a-kind sleep deprivation dataset. Objective 1 will examine whether novel EEG markers detect real-time performance impairment due to sleep deprivation. Functional brain networks will be derived from EEG across 24-hours of sustained wakefulness, and compared against instability in sustained attention, the gold standard measure of sleep-related performance impairment. Objective 2 will develop a novel EEG marker that accurately classifies individuals vulnerable to sleep loss, using machine learning techniques. Objective 3 will validate our biomarker as a fitness for duty test, that is, determine how well it predicts performance impairment during a simulated night shift. Objective 4 will validate our marker as a fitness to drive test, that is, determine how well it predicts individuals who experience a near-crash event while driving a real car following loss of sleep. Potential application of our project is strong with multiple beneficiaries. We will advance understanding of brain networks and behavioural resilience during sleep deprivation, while discovering a novel EEG biomarker that predicts state and trait vulnerability to sleep loss. EEG is easy-to-collect and cost-effective, making future scale-up realistic. Our project outcomes can be incorporated into future ‘fitness for duty/fitness to drive’ technologies, addressing a major gap in a rapidly growing, economically lucrative market.  We will work with technology innovators to seek commercialisation of outcomes. Any future device would benefit individuals and operators in safety critical sectors by identifying and supporting those most vulnerable to the effects of sleep deprivation. Longer-term, this has potential to benefit society-at-large, socially and economically, by saving lives in the workplace, on our roads, and beyond.

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

This proposal contains the funding request to support the activities of the LIGO Gravitational Wave (GW) group at the University of Birmingham. Over the years the group has made significant contributions to the LIGO programme and many of its successes through activities in all the main areas of GW research, spanning (i) detector construction for the STFC-funded Advanced LIGO and LIGO A+ project, (ii) detector commissioning and R&D for novel technological solutions for future upgrades of the detectors hosted in existing facilities, (iii) theoretical research aiming at the development of precise, accurate and computationally efficient gravitational waveforms from the full range of compact binaries - binary neutron stars, neutron star-black holes, and binary black holes - and (iv)  science analyses of detected compact binaries to characterise their properties and gain new insights in astrophysics and fundamental physics. The proposed programme is the natural evolution of the group's current activities and is driven by the roles and responsibilities that its members have within the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration (LVK). The programme focuses on some of the highest priority items identified in the LVK white papers for Operations, Observational and Instrument Science, and Communication and Education. This programme further ensures the continuation of leadership for UK frontier research as set out in STFC strategic delivery plan and the PAAP roadmap. The programme is articulated into five scientific themes: Theme 1: Inertial and position sensors for LIGO. Achieving the design sensitivity of the LIGO A# upgrades at 5-25 Hz requires improvements in vibrational isolation technologies. In this theme, we rely on our earlier developments of interferometric position sensors with sub-pm precision and optical seismometers to make the technologies compatible with the LIGO infrastructure, validate them at the MIT LIGO facility, and reach TRL 7. Theme 2: Direct coating thermal noise measurements. Coating thermal noise sets the  LIGO peak sensitivity at about 100 Hz. At our newly developed coating testing facility, we will fully characterise TiO2:GeO2/SiO2 coatings and crystalline GaAs/AlGaAs coatings that are prime candidates to meet the requirements of the post-O5 upgrades with the goal of achieving TRL 6. Theme 3: Untangling signatures of eccentricity and spins in binary black hole mergers. General-relativistic spin-induced precession and orbital eccentricity in binary black holes are key tracers for determining their astrophysical origin and indispensable ingredients of robust strong-gravity tests, as they leave unique, measurable imprints in the emitted GW signal. For the first time, we will model and extract their strong-field signatures using the hundreds of events detected by O5. Theme 4: Characterising the population of neutron star-black hole binaries. By the end of O4 the neutron star-black hole binary population will count approximately 10 systems, a number that will further grow during O5. Combining the development of new, highly accurate waveform models, which include spin-induced precession, tidal effects and higher order modes,  with classification agnostic population inference, we will infer the most accurate (to-date) merger rate and mass/spin distribution of these sources, and constrain the equation of state of supranuclear density matter. Theme 5: Support for Advanced LIGO operations. We will continue the support and commissioning of the Birmingham-provided hardware for the A+ O5 upgrade and the detectors' operation. The group’s research activities feed into a wide-ranging and vibrant programme of outreach and public engagement initiatives, which will continue during the grant period.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

This application comes from a consortium of three Universities – University of Leicester, Aston University and the University of Birmingham, to form the Policing Academic Centre of Excellence, Leicester, Aston, Birmingham, or P-ACE LAB. The P-ACE LAB will be focussed upon these areas of research interest, (ARIs): ARI 1 Building and Maintaining Public Trust ARI 2 Crime Prevention ARI 4 Mobility ARI 5 Identification and Tracing ARI 7 Analytics   The P-ACE LAB is an interdisciplinary consortium that will co-produce solutions, harnessing the latest advances in science and technology. The Institutions are leaders in policing research and P-ACE LAB will build upon this experience to incorporate the necessary diversity in people, resources, expertise, and partnerships, all underpinned by robust governance structures to ensure successful delivery. The P-ACE LAB will be: Problem-led rather than discipline-led Co-produced Transparent and ethical in its use of data analytics Future-facing and agile Sustainable   The P-ACE LAB team has extensive experience delivering complex, ethically-sensitive policing research, frequently working with sensitive and confidential data, building trust with policing stakeholders and engaging the public as co-producers of research (particularly excluded, vulnerable and marginalised communities that are most distrustful of the police). Staff members specialise in problem-based research addressing policing needs, and regularly provide expert advice to Government, police services, think tanks and international bodies. In fostering research and innovation, we embed science and evidence based practice, undertaking rigorous and ethical research that serves to build trust and confidence in policing. The three institutes have an extensive track record (20+ years) of producing high-quality policing research, delivering real policy impact, and tangible benefits to police productivity and practice, supporting a mature policing-academic ecosystem. Our proven expertise in managing large inter-disciplinary grants, in partnership with practitioners and commercial enterprise, and leading research Centres, has led to the career-development of researchers across the three institutions in addition to Doctoral Training Centres (DTCs), practice-based PhDs, CPD opportunities and knowledge exchange activities. Experts from each institution will come together to form a collaborative leadership team delivering the P-ACE.  This leadership team will be supported and held accountable by a Strategic Advisory Board and project partners. This robust governance and management framework will enhance current academic research capacity and capability, in-step with policing needs, creating efficient knowledge mobilisation pipelines to realise the benefits of science and technology effectively and safely, securing performance and productivity improvements while promoting public trust and confidence in policing. The P-ACE will operate a Flexible Fund Committee and an Early Career Researcher Network. There will also be cross-cutting governance/support including a P-ACE LAB funded Governance Support, a Comprehensive Quality Assurance Framework and a Capacity-Building Programme. We will create bespoke ethics/Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) training on conducting research in policing environments, while mentoring researchers unfamiliar with the policing domain. This will allow them to receive guidance from expert researchers within the P-ACE LAB, including signposting to emotional support resources where required. The P-ACE LAB will thus nurture and sustain the policing-academic research ecosystem necessary for future challenges.  

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

The ability of zeolites - microporous materials comprised primarily of silicon, aluminium and oxygen - to exchange the cations with the surrounding media underpins multiple technologies which impact modern life, for example, water purification, water softening (including in detergents) and remediation of nuclear waste. Mined natural zeolite deposits have cost and formulation advantages over synthetic zeolites and, in some cases, offer a ready supply of zeolite frameworks which are difficult to obtain synthetically with high purity. However, use of natural zeolites is limited because of the restricted number of frameworks found naturally, and source variability in chemical properties they display.  Developing methods to modify, control and tailor the chemistry of natural zeolites is an important scientific challenge. Research from the PI's group has recently demonstrated that partial interzeolite transformation (PIZT) – where a parent zeolite structural is partially converted to a new zeolite using low-temperature chemical transformations – can be performed on natural zeolite granules to form core-shell composites of two zeolite structures with complementary ion-exchange chemistry whilst retaining the granule morphology (hemical Science, (2024), 10.1039/D4SC02664K).  These have demonstrated exceptional promise as replacement strontium/caesium sorbents for remediation of aqueous waste in the nuclear industry - addressing an urgent industrial challenge. However, the mechanical properties of the granules are suboptimal for use in flow systems; this hampers translation to higher technology-readiness levels.  To overcome this, links must be forged between the PIZT conditions, microstructure and mechanical properties. The primary aim of the proposal is to develop the capability to simultaneously control the mechanical and chemical properties of granular composite zeolites (GCZs) formed by PIZT.  Assembling a new team of collaborators from academia, industry, research centres and central facilities, the proposed research will link synthesis conditions, material structure - ranging from the atomic- to macro-scale - with the full range of relevant physical properties. This will deliver the fundamental understanding required to engineer optimised  strontium/caesium sorbents for nuclear waste remediation. This primary aim will be accomplished through addressing the following specific objectives: O1 Elucidate how PIZT conditions determine the phase, morphology and ion-exchange properties of GCZ. O2. Determine the mechanical properties and failure mechanisms of GCZs through new collaborations with the Henry Royce Institute and the National X-ray Computed Tomography Centre. O3. Uncover the atomic- and micron-scale mechanisms of PIZT in forming GCZs. O4. Explore structure-led synthesis of GCZs to generate new ion-exchange materials with targeted properties. A further objective of the proposed programme, aligned with the funding call, is to transform the burgeoning nuclear research programme of the PI from being focused primarily on atomic-scale materials chemistry into a wider material engineering standpoint, taking into account microstructural and mechanical properties, ultimately accelerating these materials towards optimisation and deployment.  This will be achieved by establishing two new partnerships with UKRI-funded centres with complementary expertise - the Henry Royce Institute and the National X-ray Computed Tomography Centre - whilst deepening established connections with Diamond Light Source, Sellafield Ltd and National Nuclear Laboratory. In the short term, this project will provide a step-change in the number of natural zeolite sources available for development as ion-exchangers for the nuclear industry.  In the longer term, far-reaching impact for these materials is envisaged in a diverse range of applications where multiple complementary chemical properties are required from single materials sources – from catalysis to carbon dioxide capture.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

Every day we are exposed to conflicting situations where we must prioritise one goal over others. Choosing the most appropriate action is crucial for life and can be impaired in neurological disorders like depression and schizophrenia. The brain's process of weighing and selecting between alternative options, known as 'action-selection', is not well understood. Furthermore, evidence shows sex biases in decision-making and sex-specific susceptibility to neuropathologies. Hence, understanding how the brain makes decisions across contexts and genders holds important medical, economical, and societal benefits. Elucidating how different neurons contribute to optimal action-selection will help us advance our knowledge of how the brain works. Tackling this problem in mammals is challenging, due to the large number of neurons in the brain, but feasible in the fruit fly Drosophila. Flies have a brain of only 100,000 neurons, most of which have been mapped. Thanks to genetic tools, neurons can be observed and manipulated in flies with a level of temporal/spatial/genetic precision that is not possible in mammals. With these tools, we can study how the fly brain responds when there are conflicting options available, and how it chooses amongst them. For instance, how does a fly choose between feeding or escaping a predator? Where and how is this conflicting information evaluated in the brain to drive an appropriate action? Using our novel behavioural assay, we found that flies abort feeding when danger is detected but ignore visual threats when experiencing severe hunger. Therefore, the choice between feeding and fleeing is flexible and depends on the animal’s hunger state. Moreover, we discovered a sexual dimorphism in this behavioural choice, with females requiring longer periods of starvation to shift their behaviour from escape to feeding. Leveraging our pioneering behavioural assays, along with neurogenetic techniques and brain imaging, we aim to uncover the neural circuitry that dictates priority during this survival conflict. Moreover, having recently identified key neurons that mediate the choice between mating and fleeing or feeding, we are in a unique position to explore the universality of these mechanisms across various conflicts. Our work therefore provides an unprecedented opportunity to understand how flies integrate sensory cues to make these behavioural choices, and ask what it reveals about the way the brain functions across different contexts and sexes. The proposed research is grounded in three objectives: 1.Compare and contrast circuit nodes for conflicts between feeding, mating, and escape. 2.Establish how internal hunger state influences cellular networks, activity and behaviour. 3.Characterise the neural and physiological basis of sex-specific behavioural prioritisation. Outcome: This research will provide a mechanistic understanding of how the fly brain solves conflicts at a remarkable cellular and circuit-level resolution. Impact: Drosophila research has greatly contributed to the field of neuroscience, uncovering universal properties of brain function present across species, including humans. Our work is poised to reveal fundamental principles of decision-making that might be shared across species. This knowledge could inform the development of AI-systems capable of autonomous decision-making and enhance our understanding of neuropathologies where decision-making is compromised. Our findings are expected to extend beyond neuroscience, impacting fields like biomedicine, computational biology, and psychology. This research aligns with the BBSRC-Strategic Priorities: "understanding the rules of life", "bioscience for an integrated understanding of health" and “the replacement-refinement-reduction (3Rs) in research using animals”, by leveraging flies to address questions relevant to human-health and well-being.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

The Birmingham Particle Physics group has a well-established internationally-leading record in many aspects of energy frontier and flavour physics, fast-evolving areas that are fundamental to our field. Our tightly focussed effort on three complementary running CERN experiments, ATLAS, LHCb and NA62, as well as wide-ranging involvement in their corresponding upgrades, continues to yield outstanding science. With the LHC programme having reached maturity, we are following future opportunities with a strategy of emphasising detector R&D, particularly silicon tracking, with wide-ranging possible applications. We have fast-growing Dark Matter activities, in particular engaging strongly with current and future opportunities in the UK at the Boulby Underground Laboratory. Our reputation in the exploration of nucleon structure is also enabling us to build a strong activity in the US Electron-Ion Collider (EIC). The next grant period fully incorporates the expected extent of LS3, when our long-term programme of work on Phase 2 ATLAS upgrades will see the delivery of the trigger and inner tracking systems ready for the new HL-LHC era, and the planned new phase of kaon physics at CERN will require completion of Birmingham-led upgrades and new detectors. The group is well-placed to tackle these challenges, together with an increasingly vibrant Dark Matter programme and longer-term commitments that include instrumentation for the LHCb upgrade, EIC construction and work towards future colliders at the energy frontier.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

Batteries have changed the way in which we store and consume energy, and promise to be one of the most important technologies in the race to achieve net-zero carbon emissions. In recent years, the mass-adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) has led to unprecedented demand for batteries. However, accompanying this is increased concern about the cost, lifetime, and performance of these batteries, as well as the sustainability of the materials that go in to them, and their recyclability at end-of-life. It is therefore important to develop new, high-performance, long-lifetime, and sustainable battery materials, as well as new processing methods that are low-cost and environmentally-friendly. Producing battery materials by microfluidic synthesis is a promising but relatively unexplored area of research. Fluids flowing through microchannels behave very differently to bulk fluids, and these unique properties can be harnessed to synthesise nanoparticles in a low-cost, green and continuous process, with unrivalled control over particle morphology and structure. As a result, microfluidics is already used in the chemicals industry to produce functional nanoparticles, and in the pharmaceutical industry to produce drug particles with lipid- or polymer-coated surfaces. This project will use microfluidics to synthesise next-generation battery cathodes. The cathode is one of the most important materials within a battery, accounting for approximately half of the cost of each cell, and determining its energy density and cycling performance. An exciting, next-generation class of cathode materials, termed lithium-rich cathodes, promises to significantly increase the amount of energy that batteries can store. However, they also experience much more severe degradation than conventional lithium-ion cathodes, which limits battery lifetime and performance, and is a barrier to their commercialisation. The aim of this project is to use the unique advantages of microfluidic flow synthesis to produce lithium-rich cathode particles with tailored nanostructures. These nanostructures will make the cathode particles less susceptible to degradation, and so improve battery performance and lifetime. The objectives of the project are to produce three different kinds of nanostructured particles: 1) single crystal particles, 2) particles with a lithium-rich core and a conventional cathode shell, and 3) metal oxide-coated particles. In each case, optimisation of the microfluidic synthesis conditions will be informed by characterisation of the products through cutting-edge techniques including X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy, advanced imaging, and particle size analysis. Finally, the performance of nanostructured lithium-rich cathode materials will be assessed by testing in battery cells. This ambitious programme of research will be carried out in collaboration with the Faraday Institution’s next generation lithium-ion cathode materials project, CATMAT. CATMAT are the global leaders in understanding, synthesising, and scaling-up production of lithium-rich cathodes. This collaboration opportunity will place myself and the PDRA at the heart of the UK’s battery research community, providing the opportunity to access world-leading characterisation equipment and modelling support, and to collaborate to achieve a depth of understanding and quality of research output which would not otherwise be possible at this early stage in my academic career. We expect to find that tailored lithium rich-cathodes made using microfluidics will outperform those made by batch-processing methods. This finding has the potential to be highly impactful and drive adoption of microfluidic synthesis in industry, particularly as there are also strong economic and environmental incentives to use continuous flow techniques for cathode synthesis.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

The representation of Muslim women is a critical area of research that challenges traditional narratives in the academy and in wider UK society and emphasises intersectionality.  Black Muslim women's study provides a distinctive perspective on the interplay of gender, ethnicity, religion, and space. Additionally, the representation of Black Muslim women as researchers with a voice has the potential to challenge stereotypes. It can also promote a commitment to social equity and justice, and fairer behaviours inside the academy and beyond. This project seeks to enhance the visibility of Black Muslim women as researchers with the capacity to challenge prevailing stereotypes and also inform behavioural change as follows: 1.     Translation of behavioural research to knowledge exchange and impact. I will deliver a lecture to geography graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Birmingham on Muslim geographies. This lecture will introduce and analyse the content of my thesis, focussing on Islamic feminism. This aims to enhance their understanding regarding diversity in the discipline of geography. Subsequently, I will collaborate with the RGS and their networks to enhance diversity in geography by organising a CPD workshop for professional geographers to engage in discussions about Muslim women beyond prevailing stereotypes. This workshop will address my thesis and explore professional perspectives on Muslim women, particularly black Muslim women. Additionally, I will record a podcast using the RGS and their network to discuss Muslim women beyond negative stereotypes. I will present my research on the experiences of Muslim women, focussing on aspects that go beyond stereotypes. Finally, I will develop content for the RGS website which will concentrate on Muslim geographies, Islamic feminism, and the experiences of Muslim women beyond negative stereotypes. 2.     Development as behavioural researcher. Researchers need to know how social media works in order to look at the trends, behaviours, and feelings that affect how people behave online. Researchers can get useful information from huge amounts of data if they know how to use these platforms correctly and have had the right training. I will participate in training for social media research, since it is increasingly vital for behavioural research, equipping researchers with the skills required to effectively navigate the intricate and evolving online environment. As social media becomes integral in influencing behaviours and beliefs, comprehending these digital interactions is essential for behavioural scientists. Social media is crucial for behavioural science research as it frequently mirrors real-time societal transformations, rendering it a rich resource for researching emergent behaviours. Secondly I will attend 3 academic conferences for career advancement, knowledge exchange, professional relationship and networking opportunities. -          Royal Geographical Society conference (August 2026). -          International Conference on Equality diversity and inclusion studies (Dubai) (April 2026). -          The Northern Ireland, Equality Diversity and Inclusion in workplace conference (Belfast – November 2025). 3.     Further behavioural research Due to my limited opportunities for publications during my PhD, I intend to produce a minimum of two articles during the year. I will publish with Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers as well as Ethnic and Racial Studies. Outcomes Outreach will result in enhanced knowledge translation and exchange through the collaboration with the Royal Geographical Society, while training as a behavioural researcher will advance my expertise in behavioural research. Finally, publishing and presenting research papers provides the opportunity to disseminate knowledge within the academic and professional community.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

NASA and the UK Met Office project that 2024 will likely temporarily surpass the Paris Agreement target of +1.5°C warming from pre-industrial levels. To address this warming crisis, international governments are considering solar radiation management (SRM) as a temporary measure to cool the Earth by reflecting more sunlight back into space, thereby buying time for global decarbonization. The two leading SRM approaches are stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) which creates a " parasol-like" aerosol layer, and marine cloud brightening (MCB) which enhances cloud reflectivity and coverage over oceans. While modelling studies suggest that SAI and MCB could slow down warming by reflecting solar radiation, their effectiveness and potential side-effects remain uncertain. Potential detrimental side-effects include ozone layer depletion, altered precipitation patterns leading to flooding or drought, shifting of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and altered El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events that would have a global impact on extreme weather. Despite these uncertainties, the accelerating pace of global warming is prompting serious consideration of SRM. This is reflected in recent initiatives like the UK’s ARIA Active Cooling program 2024, US NOAA’s Earth’s Radiation Budget-SRM programme 2024, and Australia’s regional MCB efforts to protect the Great Barrier Reef since 2020. Current SRM models are limited in accurately predicting outcomes due to structural and parametric uncertainties, especially in representing key atmospheric processes like aerosol-cloud interactions, the core mechanism behind MCB. However, modern Earth observation networks, which monitor Earth systems holistically during natural events such as volcanic eruptions and wildfires, provide valuable analogues for studying SRM. Thus, it is crucial to "QUantify the Efficacy and risks of Solar radiaTION management using natural analogues" (QUESTION). QUESTION will address three key challenges in solar radiation management. Challenge-1 is ensuring that the scale of natural analogues is large enough (thousands of km) to effectively mimic SRM and assess their global impacts. Challenge-2 is separating SRM signals from other co-varying confounders like greenhouse gases (GHGs) and meteorology. Challenge-3 is a lack of robust climate-relevant scale observational constraints to improve modelling and attribution of SRM’s impact. Large global and regional perturbations during the satellite-era offer opportunities to address these challenges. For example, the Pinatubo-1991 eruption, which injected about 18 Tg of SO2 into the stratosphere, serves as a strong analogue for SAI, while the International Maritime Organization’s 2020 regulation that reduced global shipping sulphur emissions by 80% provides an ideal analogue for MCB-termination. While large-scale analogues helps to better represent SRM (Challenge-1), their challenge is to isolate the effects of SRM from that of weather variability which is different with place and time (Challenge-2). However, our recent development of novel machine-learning application means that Changes-1&2 can now be addressed simultaneously and therefore achieve QUESTION’s ambition. By training machine-learning on long-term satellite data, we can estimate how clouds or stratospheric aerosols would behave without perturbations (counterfactual), such as changes in ship emissions or volcanic activity, thus clarifying the impacts of large-scale perturbations. QUESTION (Theme-3) will enable us to constrain and advance climate models, and to attribute the recent quick warming and weather extremes to the quantified influences of these natural events using robust climate attribution methods (Challenge-3). This research aligns with Theme-1 and Theme-2, providing a strong scientific foundation for informed and responsible climate action through supporting comprehensive risk-risk assessment: comparing detrimental impacts of climate warming scenarios versus SRM deployment.    

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

Deciding whether, when, and how to disclose an autism diagnosis or autistic identity is a complex process with potential benefits (e.g., increased understanding and acceptance) and risks (e.g., stigma and discrimination). Despite growing evidence of the significant challenges associated with disclosure and its impact on autistic adults’ wellbeing, there is limited structured, evidence-based support to help autistic adults make informed and strategic disclosure decisions. During my PhD, I developed and piloted ‘Who, When, How to Share’ (WWH2S), a guided self-help programme to support autistic adults in disclosure decision-making. My pilot study found that WWH2S was feasible and acceptable, while participants suggested adapting the programme into a digital format to improve accessibility and engagement. Furthermore, while WWH2S incorporates many behaviour change techniques, it was not explicitly grounded in behavioural science theories. Therefore, the findings of my PhD research on WWH2S suggest that refinement of intervention design and theory is warranted. This fellowship project aims to extend the impact of my doctoral research by: Co-designing a digital version of WWH2S for autistic adults informed by behavioural research, lived expertise, and knowledge exchange.   Conducting a small-scale usability test of this digital intervention using think-aloud interviews and post-intervention surveys.  Developing a follow-on grant application for a future process evaluation exploring the intervention’s mechanisms of change on a larger scale.   I will carry out this project in collaboration with a creative organisation that has strong expertise in co-designing inclusive digital solutions with and for marginalised groups, including neurodivergent communities. My partner organisation mentor will support me in facilitating co-design workshops with autistic adults, digital prototyping, and creating accessible dissemination materials, advancing my ability to translate behavioural research into real-world benefits. Findings from this project will be used to further improve the intervention and optimise usability to support scale-up beyond the fellowship.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

University of Birmingham’s Research and Cultural Collections (RCC) recently acquired culturally significant African artworks commissioned in the 1970s by British art historian, Jill Salmons, and her late husband, the ethnographer, Keith Nicklin. Among the collection are five wooden figurines depicting ‘fattening room’ maidens. Once common in Nigeria’s Cross River region, the ‘fattening room’ was a space of seclusion and physical, aesthetic, and moral transformation for pubescent girls. Fed and waited on over several months, girls emerged as women ready for marriage and motherhood. Today, ‘fattening rooms’ are largely defunct. Urbanisation, a greater importance placed on formal education, the spread of Pentecostal Christianity, and an increased awareness of medical interventions surrounding childbirth have meant that the expectations placed on girls and their transitions to adulthood have changed significantly. Despite this, the image of the ‘fattening room’ maiden remains iconic, epitomising femininity and fecundity. These ‘fattening room’ figurines – instantly recognisable yet obscuring contemporary lived experiences – call into question the ways in which Cross Riverian young women must navigate competing ideals of femininity to ‘grow up’ into socially recognised adults. Equally, Nigeria’s changing social landscape raises questions about how to communicate the significance of these art objects to different publics as they are re-homed in RCC’s African Collection. Beyond the Fattening Room puts the five ‘fattening room’ figurines in dialogue with women’s contemporary lived experiences, creating a ‘third space’ between art and social life in which to explore feminine ideals in Cross River and reflect on how they are crafted. The project has two distinct but interlinked aims: 1) understand continuities and tensions between past and contemporary feminine ideals in Cross River, providing insights into the challenges that women face and the relationships and practices shaping their experiences, particularly of motherhood; 2) introduce an important new dimension into recent decolonial debates within museum studies by presenting a case study for evaluating how care of an African art collection requires engaging objects in social life. A collaboration with RCC in Birmingham and a women’s rights advocate in Nigeria, the project has four objectives: 1) Employing experimental ethnographic methodologies, conduct fieldwork in Calabar, Nigeria, to understand women’s lived experiences. Use the figurines to elicit life histories and create artistic responses, enabling Cross Riverian women to ‘speak back’ to feminine ideals; 2) Exhibit the ‘fattening room’ figurines and their artistic responses to publics in Nigeria and Birmingham, encouraging feedback through a project website; 3) Hold stakeholder workshops in Calabar, using project’s findings to identify solutions to improve maternal care practice and women’s wellbeing; 4) Hold a symposium in Birmingham to discuss best practice for using African art objects in socially transformative research, creating a ‘tool kit’ for advising other UK-based collections. Beyond benefitting women of reproductive ages and healthcare stakeholders in Calabar, RCC and UK-based collections, the project benefits me by further establishing myself as an anthropologist of gendered lived experience; extending my methodological expertise; providing close mentorship; developing non-academic partnerships and offering experience of public engagement activities, laying pathways to future impactful research.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

Sexual harassment, though often under-addressed in research and policing, is a widespread and complex issue. It includes behaviours such as unwanted sexual messages, inappropriate jokes, sexualised gestures, persistent hassling, non-consensual sharing of explicit materials, unwanted touching, and indecent exposure. Predatory behaviours like sexual harassment remain overlooked by police and policy, despite their foundational role in the broader continuum of violence against women and girls (VAWG). Given escalating VAWG rates, high victim attrition in sex crimes, and declining trust in police, understanding what the police are doing to prevent street sexual harassment—and how community-based women perceive it—is a critical and timely topic for improving operations. Delivering data-driven recommendations for incorporation into evidence-based policing strategies is essential for long-term criminal justice impact. This fellowship advances sexual harassment prevention and contributes to theory, and to academic and practical understandings of predatory behaviour, policing, and prevention. It has broad societal impacts and is directly relevant to legislative, governmental, and policymaking bodies. The research is in partnership with Thames Valley Police (TVP), which has implemented Operation Vigilant (OV) since 2019 to prevent sexual violence by disrupting predatory behaviours/sexual harassment at nightlife hotspots. OV trains uniformed and plainclothes officers in behavioural observation to identify concerning behaviours before they escalate. The units patrol pre-identified high-risk locations, such as clubs, pubs, or large events. All units observe public behaviour; plainclothes officers only observe without interacting, but if concerns arise, uniformed officers are alerted to engage the suspect and conduct brief on-site questioning (e.g., suspect is asked to provide contact details; to justify their own behaviour). Following, decisions regarding whether formal investigation and interrogation are made. Potential victims are approached only when immediate risks are suspected. Post-patrol, units reconvene for reflection and debriefing. Unlike many forces, which have not implemented hotspot policing despite evidence of its effectiveness, TVP has begun embedding evidence-based policing principles to tackle sexual violence. However, targeted research is needed to deepen understanding of high-risk behaviours, improve officer training, enhance risk assessment processes, and refine operational strategies.   The research aims are to: a) map and understand predatory behaviours and sexual harassment in nighttime economy hotspots, including community women’s experiences and the related policing; and b) build an evidence base to strengthen OV, through improving their training and practice. The research questions are: A.     In what contexts and situations within the nighttime economy do predatory sexual behaviours, including sexual harassment, happen, by whom against whom, why, and how? (field observations with police on patrol) B.      How do these behaviours manifest individually and as a group, and what are the influencing situational elements? (field observations with police on patrol) C.      What are the community women’s views and experiences of these behaviours, and how to they view police action at hotspot locations? (survey with community women) D.     How does OV operate in policing these behaviours, namely how do they make their decisions about what suspects to stop, how is the stop conducted, and what makes a successful Vigilant stop of a suspect? (semi-structured police interviews) A range of activities are planned to translate the new research into knowledge and impact. These include academic and non-academic articles, reports, updated training materials for OV and TVP, conference presentations, community talks, and police workshops and webinars.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

Cornea - the transparent front window of the eye - serves as a critical structure to normal vision and ocular surface defence. Damage to the cornea can lead to significant ocular pain and permanent scarring with resultant visual impairment or blindness. Infectious keratitis (IK), or commonly known as corneal infection, is the leading cause of corneal blindness globally. It has caused ~5 million cases of blindness and is estimated to affect ~2 million people each year. Affected patients are usually debilitated by pain and visual impairment, and they often require long-term hospital admissions for intensive antibiotic treatment. However there has been a growing concern on the declining antibiotic efficacy due to emerging antimicrobial resistance (AMR), polymicrobial infection (i.e. infection caused by more than one organism), and limited treatment options. In addition, AMR has emerged as a global health threat and is estimated to cause over 1 million deaths annually. These issues highlight the urgent need for new effective antimicrobial treatment for tackling IK and AMR. Antimicrobial peptides (AMP), or host defence peptides, form an important component of the first-line defence in all living organisms (including human). They are made up of amino acids (the basic structural units of protein) and can be found in various parts of the human body, including the eye. They have recently shown promise as potential treatment due to their unique antimicrobial activity against a wide range of organisms, such as bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses. These positively charged AMP usually kill the pathogens by disrupting the negatively charged membrane (outer surface coating) of the organisms. However, the clinical utility of AMP is limited by several issues such as potential toxicity to human cells, instability in certain body environment, susceptibility to breakdown by human / bacterial enzymes, and cost. Recently, I have developed efficacious and safe hybrid AMP, based on rational combination of human beta-defensins (HBDs) and human cathelicidin (LL37), for treating IK. I have also developed highly accurate artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms in predicting the activity of AMP. The overarching goal of my MRC Fellowship is to develop novel AMP for treating a range of IK and tackling AMR, using AI and novel drug delivery systems. During the first stage, I will develop novel peptide language-based generative AI models to help optimise my human-derived hybrid AMP and potentially discover new AMP. I will then test the antimicrobial activities, safety and mechanism of action of the improved AMP against a range of bacteria and fungi related to IK and AMR, through both laboratory and ethically designed animal studies. In the second stage, I will explore various formulation strategies to enhance the efficacy, safety and stability of my AMP, using novel fluid gel technology (Gellan) and biodegradable nanoparticles/polymers. I will perform a series of experiments, including laboratory and animal experiments, to characterise and examine the properties, efficacy, safety and stability of my formulated AMP. These represent the essential steps before advancing the AMP therapy to human clinical trials. The proposed experiments will be conducted collaboratively in the UK, the US, and Singapore. Successful development of these AMP can bring new exciting therapies to the clinic, ultimately benefitting patients with ocular and potentially non-ocular infections. This may also offer a potential novel solution to AMR.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

This fellowship aims to improve mental health support for Paralympic athletes by creating the first international consensus statement tailored specifically to their needs. While mental health is increasingly recognised in elite sport, Paralympians remain underserved and underrepresented in current frameworks. This project addresses that gap by developing a comprehensive, athlete-centred approach that reflects the unique challenges faced by Paralympic athletes before, during, and after major competitions like the Paralympic Games. Paralympic athletes experience many of the same pressures as Olympians, such as: intense training, media scrutiny, and injury. However, they also face additional barriers linked to disability. These include limited access to adapted facilities, societal stigma, misclassification, and unequal funding and support. These factors can increase psychological vulnerability and discourage help-seeking. Despite growing concern among health professionals, many feel undertrained and constrained by systemic issues, and current policies often treat Olympians and Paralympians interchangeably, leading to misaligned support. To address these challenges, the fellowship will bring together experts in mental health, sport, and disability to co-create a set of practical, evidence-based recommendations. These will be informed by behavioural science and systems thinking to understand what is needed at every level of the sports system, from individual athletes to coaches, organisations, and the wider culture of sport. The project will also consider the diverse backgrounds of athletes, ensuring that mental health support is inclusive and adaptable across different countries and both summer and winter Games. By embedding behaviour change strategies from the outset, the fellowship aims to create lasting improvements in how mental health is supported in Paralympic sport. Key outcomes include: Reducing stigma and encouraging help-seeking among Paralympic athletes. Improving access to inclusive facilities and mental health services. Changing public perceptions of disability and mental health in sport. Influencing policies and training programmes ahead of future Games, including Milan-Cortina 2026 and Los Angeles 2028. The fellowship will also contribute to academic research by generating new knowledge on mental health, disability, and behaviour change in elite sport. It will produce high-quality publications and promote further research in this underexplored area. By partnering with the UK Sports Institute (UKSI), the project will benefit from expert training, access to elite sports networks, and support for implementing its findings in real-world settings. Overall, this fellowship seeks to create a more equitable and inclusive sports system that recognises the unique experiences of Paralympic athletes and promotes mental health for all.