The Open University

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2026 · 2026-09

This project will use the unique and world-leading radio surveys carried out by the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR), together with additional multiwavelength datasets and modelling, to examine the energetic influence of jets from active galactic nuclei. The overall motivation is to understand the role of jets as a component of galaxy feedback, a fundamental process in galaxy evolution. We will examine the influence of jets at multiple epochs, from the local Universe to the period in which star formation peaked and galaxy groups and clusters were assembling at “cosmic noon” (redshift 2-3). To do this, we will make use of new and unique catalogues we have constructed of tens of thousands of well-resolved radio jet structures, for which sizes can be measured accurately and inferences made about the underlying jet physics. We will also use our new measurements of group/cluster environmental richness for the jet populations. Finally, we will incorporate new insights into the particle and magnetic field content of radio galaxies, which enable accurate translation between radio luminosity and jet power. Together these new datasets and physical insights will enable us to model the history of energy injection in galaxy groups and clusters at multiple epochs in the history of the Universe. The main outcomes will be: a modelling tool that can be applied to obtain energy injection histories for jet populations in different environments, a comprehensive set of jet energy injection histories as a function of halo mass in the local Universe, the first large catalogues of extended radio galaxies at z~2, and the first systematic comparison of jet energy injection locations and history in the local Universe and at cosmic noon. The project outcomes will inform the research fields of jet physics and the physics and evolution of cosmic environments, including providing detailed benchmarks for tuning feedback prescriptions in cosmological simulations. Correctly modelling galaxy feedback processes is essential for modelling the evolution of large-scale structure, with important implications for reducing systematics in cosmological studies such as major ongoing weak-lensing experiments. As with our previous work, our curated catalogues of extended jet populations and environments, and our analysis codes, will be publicly released for use by the wider community. The project is low risk, as the LOFAR surveys project is in a highly productive period with the necessary datasets in hand or at an advanced stage of preparation. As a result of our team’s work to characterise the well-resolved LOFAR source populations and their environments, we now have all the ingredients needed to construct jet energy injection histories for galaxy groups and clusters, at any redshift for which radio luminosities and source size distributions are well determined. The proposed project therefore offers the potential for a major step forward, building on large datasets,  software tools and expertise developed over many years by our group.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2026 · 2026-09

This project will combine cutting-edge laboratory experiments with James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations to investigate the chemical and physical properties of astrophysical ices. These ices, which coat interstellar dust grains, play a crucial role in their journey from dense molecular clouds to star formation, influencing the chemical evolution of nascent planetary systems. JWST’s unprecedented sensitivity is revealing exciting new details about ices in dense clouds, but key uncertainties remain in interpreting their spectral signatures, particularly the distortion of ice absorption bands because of scattering effects – a consequence of grain growth and aggregation. These uncertainties limit our ability to accurately interpret ice band profiles and determine molecular abundances. To address these challenges, we will systematically characterise how ice composition, thermal history, and scattering influence mid-infrared spectra. With high-quality experimental data, this project aims to enhance the interpretation of JWST observations by disentangling the chemical (composition and thermal evolution) and physical (scattering) influences on spectral profiles. This work is timely and essential, as JWST continues to produce ground-breaking ice spectra that require robust laboratory benchmarks for accurate analysis. Our project focuses on three key objectives: O1 Chemical Influence: Examine how molecular composition affects absorption band profiles, focusing on major ice species (H2O, CO2) and minor constituents (e.g. CH3OH, NH3). High-resolution infrared spectroscopy will be used to extract optical constants, essential for modelling light interactions in icy environments. O2 Thermal Processing: Investigate how ice structure and composition evolve with temperature, simulating the thermal history of interstellar ices from molecular clouds to protostars. This will provide critical data on spectral changes caused by thermal effects. O3 Scattering Effects: Quantify how ice grain growth and aggregation distort mid-infrared spectral features. Using acoustic levitation, we will suspend ice aggregates to study their scattering properties, providing essential inputs for radiative transfer models. Our approach builds on a strong foundation of laboratory astrochemistry. Our previous studies have demonstrated how molecular interactions and thermal processing influence absorption spectra. Our pioneering work in acoustic levitation provides new laboratory insights into how ice aggregates affect mid-infrared spectra. By integrating these techniques, we will generate a comprehensive dataset to disentangle the chemical (compositional and thermal), and physical (scattering) effects in absorption spectra. The project will be executed through three work packages, addressing each of the research objectives. The first two work packages will investigate the spectral signatures of vapour deposited ice analogues as a function of composition and thermal history, using high-resolution infrared spectroscopy. This will allow us to build a spectral library for direct comparison with JWST data and provide ratio- and temperature-dependent optical constants for abundance determination. The third work package will use acoustic levitation to study the effects of ice grain growth and aggregation on scattering properties, directly addressing long-standing spectral anomalies observed in JWST data. Our team is uniquely positioned to execute this project, combining expertise in laboratory astrochemistry, infrared spectroscopy, and observational astronomy. We have access to state-of-the-art facilities and strong collaborations with JWST consortia, ensuring that our laboratory findings are directly applicable to ongoing and future space-based observations. By integrating laboratory experiments with JWST data, this project will significantly improve our ability to interpret ice spectra, shedding light on the origins of molecular complexity in star-forming regions. The resulting spectral database and modelling tools will be valuable resources for the broader scientific community.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2026 · 2026-09

Understanding the source(s) of water in Solar System planetesimals, which are considered the building blocks of terrestrial planets, is critical for constraining the fundamental processes involved in planetary accretion, differentiation and the development of habitable worlds. Beyond our Solar System, the search for life on Earth-like exoplanets is one of the grand challenges of 21st-century science. Unfortunately, we do not fully understand the sources of Earth's water, making it very difficult to extrapolate to exoplanets. Although we think of inhabited Earth as water-rich, only 0.03% of its mass is in surface water. This is almost too small to explain. The scientific consensus is that Earth acquired its water by accreting a fraction of its mass from C-type asteroids / carbonaceous chondrites; but these typically contain 10-20 wt% H2O, and models based on this source tend to predict a much higher fraction of water accreted by Earth. An alternative is that Earth accreted very little carbonaceous material but ingassed H2 (which was oxidized to form H2O) directly from solar nebula gas in contact with an early magma ocean. This idea was long disfavoured because it was thought that Earth took much longer to grow and form a magma ocean, by which time the solar nebula gas would have dissipated. However, recent discoveries in the exoplanet field are causing us to re-examine ingassing as a source of hydrogen on Earth and other planets. At the same time, there are strong geochemical and isotopic hints that hydrogen ingassing did occur on proto-Earth and Theia (Moon’s progenitor) and that early Mars had a thick hydrogen atmosphere. In this project, we will test the hypothesis of a nebular contribution of H (water) to the Earth-Moon system by studying selected lunar samples, complemented by a group of unique meteorites, representing some of the earliest differentiated planetesimals, forming before the gas dissipation from the nebular disk. This proposal is built upon the light element isotope measurements expertise using NanoSIMS at The Open University (OU) and the complementary expertise of collaborators bringing experience from additional analytical and modelling techniques. The main goals of the project are: To establish the endogenous signatures of volatiles in the Moon through investigations of lunar samples providing a window into the earliest history of the Moon formation and its subsequent differentiation, and by extension the early Earth To constrain the isotopic composition of H in early Solar System planetesimals, which could have a shared history of volatiles in the Earth-Moon system, and assess the “uniqueness” of each planetesimal H reservoir To test the hypothesis for a nebular source for volatiles in the inner Solar System objects through modelling of the data in an astrophysical context Our results will have an impact across the wider planetary science, astrobiology, and astrophysical modelling communities, providing a new understanding of the origin and distribution of water in the Moon and other inner Solar System planetesimals.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2026 · 2026-09

How does solar heating lead to gas emissions and alter the surface composition of near-Sun asteroids? This is the key question driving the ICARUS project, which focuses on asteroid (3200) Phaethon, the largest known example of an asteroid experiencing extreme heating. Initially stable in the asteroid belt, these objects can be gravitationally perturbed into trajectories that bring them close to the Sun. Intense solar heating triggers dramatic surface changes, including gas release, dust emissions, and even disintegration. Phaethon, for instance, reaches temperatures of up to 730°C during its closest approach, with emissions dominated by gas with minimal dust release. Telescope observations during recent close encounters have revealed no significant dust clouds, placing strict limits on its dust emission rate. This puzzling observation highlights that much is still to be understood about asteroid activity. As the target of the Japanese DESTINY+ mission, scheduled for a flyby in November 2030, Phaethon presents a unique opportunity to study near-Sun asteroid behaviour. Why should I care? Understanding how asteroids behave is critical because they may have played a significant role in delivering water and organic compounds to Earth, essential building blocks for life. This process of volatile delivery from asteroids and comets to terrestrial planets is thought to be a key factor in the origins of life. In addition, studying the activity of near-Sun asteroids helps us understand their life cycles: why some remain active, while others cease activity or even disintegrate. These insights could expand our knowledge of the conditions that influenced the development of life on Earth and offer broader implications for the evolution of the solar system. The ICARUS project will simulate the solar heating experienced by asteroids like Phaethon by exposing meteorite samples to controlled heating cycles that mimic the extreme conditions near the Sun. We will track gas emissions, identify the minerals responsible, and observe how the surface composition evolves over repeated heating. To ensure the relevance of our findings, we will measure our experimental samples using instrumentation that mirrors the technology on the upcoming DESTINY+ mission, which will fly past Phaethon in 2030. This approach will allow us to create essential reference datasets that are key to interpreting the data from the mission’s dust analyser. Why will ICARUS succeed? The ICARUS project is built on solid preliminary results that demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of our approach. Our team has extensive expertise in conducting such experiments, and we have secured valuable support from the DESTINY+ science team, who recognise the importance of our work. By generating critical datasets for the mission, ICARUS will directly contribute to the interpretation of data gathered by DESTINY+, enhancing the mission's scientific value. Furthermore, our work will allow us to develop a broader framework for understanding the behaviour of near-Sun asteroids, supporting global efforts to answer fundamental questions about the solar system’s evolution. ICARUS will advance our understanding of asteroid evolution and the role of small bodies in delivering key materials to Earth. By providing the necessary reference data to interpret the findings of DESTINY+, this project will not only maximise the scientific return of the mission but also strengthen UK science as a leader in asteroid research.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2026 · 2026-09

In recent years, the field of exoplanet science has moved decisively from the discovery phase into the realm of characterisation. The launch of JWST opened the possibility for atmospheric study across both a broad wavelength range and a wide target parameter space. JWST spectra of exoplanets obtained as they transit their parent stars can be analysed using retrievals – Bayesian computational frameworks that compare vast numbers of synthetic spectra with observational data, and thence provide a statistical inference of the planet’s atmospheric characteristics. Hubble and JWST transit spectra of hot Jupiter exoplanets have revealed that aerosols – solid or liquid particles suspended within an atmosphere – are as ubiquitous in the atmospheres of these objects as they are within solar system atmospheres. Aerosols play a key role in determining both the thermodynamical behaviour of a planet’s atmosphere and its observed spectral characteristics. If not properly accounted for within the retrieval framework, the presence of aerosols can significantly limit the ability to accurately recover gas abundances and constrain the planet’s metallicity and carbon budget. Aerosols can be produced from condensation of atmospheric gases (such as water clouds on Earth, or ammonia clouds on Jupiter and Saturn); photochemical processes (such as tholin haze on Titan); or erosion of surfaces (such as dust devils on Mars). In contrast to the relatively cool solar system planets, aerosols on the hot Jupiters observed with JWST are thought to consist of silicates and minerals such as corundum and perovskite. Whilst the likely composition of aerosols on a given planet can be determined to first order from the conditions a particular species requires to condense, we know from detailed studies of solar system planets that cloud formation is complex and predictive models are rarely completely accurate; for example, the ammonia cloud decks on Jupiter and Saturn do not sit at the expected pressure level, and there is spectroscopic evidence of impurities in these clouds. Until recently, most exoplanet retrieval frameworks adopted a parametric approach to aerosols, representing Rayleigh-scattering-type behaviour where the scattering efficiency follows a simple power law, and grey clouds where extinction is constant at all wavelengths. With the arrival of JWST, however, comes access to the mid-infrared where cloud species such as silicates have distinct absorption features, and power-law parameterisations are no longer adequate. To accurately represent the spectral behaviour of aerosols with a specific composition and size distribution would require a computationally intensive Mie scattering calculation to be performed for each retrieval iteration, which is not viable.  We propose to use neural networks to emulate the Mie scattering calculation within the well-established NEMESISPY retrieval framework. We will generate a training set of wavelength-dependent aerosol scattering properties, generated using Mie theory from a variety of compositions, both pure and mixed, over a wide range of particle sizes. The network will then be trained to infer the aerosol scattering properties without the need for a Mie scattering calculation. This innovation will enable us to accurately reproduce the contribution of aerosols to transit spectra, allowing us to break degeneracies between cloud properties and gas abundances, and also to infer aerosol composition and characteristics. This work is key to understanding the overall composition of gas giant planets and will be critical for interpreting JWST data, and for supporting future missions such as Ariel and Habitable Worlds Observatory. 

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2026 · 2026-09

This project will deliver the first quantitative framework linking surface composition to geologic history at our Solar System’s icy ocean worlds, enabling upcoming space missions to identify the most valuable regions for deciphering the habitability of the oceans below. Beneath their icy crusts, Jupiter's moons Europa and Ganymede harbour deep salty oceans that potentially could host life. Salts have been detected on their surfaces, suggesting that ocean water sometimes breaks through the ice. Rapid eruption of subsurface liquids, such as in plumes, leads to the best chance for preservation of ocean chemistry and signs of habitable conditions. Distinguishing salts produced by these rapid processes from salts that have formed gradually or have been delivered from space is therefore vital for guiding imminent missions JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE; ESA) and Europa Clipper (NASA) in their hunt for evidence of habitability. Our previous STFC-funded research led to a groundbreaking discovery: when salty water freezes at different rates, it creates different types of minerals. We have shown that a "metastable" form of NaCl (an abundant salt on Europa) appears only when freezing happens quickly and can be identified by infrared sensors like those carried by JUICE and Clipper. Our discovery suggests that we could use the types of salt minerals on the surface of icy worlds to understand how quickly they formed – unlocking a new approach for missions to identify salts formed through rapid freezing. Building on our success with NaCl, we will systematically investigate how all major salts found on Europa and Ganymede behave when frozen at various rates and identify their characteristic infrared signatures. We will combine thermal analyses, spectroscopy, and beamline experiments to: Identify which of the different salts detected at Jupiter’s icy moons form metastable minerals during rapid freezing. Determine how the amounts of these metastable minerals change at different freezing rates, unlocking a new framework for identifying the most valuable regions for deciphering ocean habitability at icy worlds. Establish an effective infrared technique to identify metastable minerals amongst mixtures of salts typical of those found on icy worlds using techniques carried by imminent space missions The outcome of our project will be the first quantitative framework to infer the formation history of icy world surface material from measurements of its composition. The timing of our project is crucial. Not only are observations by telescopes continuously providing new data in need of interpretation, JUICE and Europa Clipper will begin seeking ocean-derived materials at Jupiter’s icy moons just 1-2 years after project end. Having our results in advance of arrival will allow their science teams to incorporate our data into their workflows and respond to discoveries during the missions, prioritising specific regions for in-depth investigation. We will ensure our findings reach the relevant communities rapidly through our formal Project Partners and our involvement in international consortia with mission science teams. We will also share our discoveries with the public through science festivals and engaging articles on the Open University's OpenLearn platform, which reaches millions of learners. By delivering vital knowledge about how to interpret icy world surface composition, our work will provide new perspectives on existing spacecraft data and transform the capability of upcoming missions to understand whether life could be possible at Jupiter’s icy moons.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2026 · 2026-07

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a powerful technology that utilises many (shared) resources and has far-reaching impacts for individuals, populations and our wider ecologies. We have to (re)think carefully about its role, particularly in light of the emergence of Generative AI (GenAI) and the environmental costs of computing. However, the discourse around these topics is not inclusive or accessible. There are several assumptions which have become hegemonic and act as barriers for innovation in AI research, which has farther-reaching consequences. For the renewal, the PI will explore three of these that are interconnected under a conceptual umbrella of "Unlearning AI". ``Unlearning” has different meanings, depending on the discipline, such as cognitive restructuring, dismantling of habit, or cognitive load associated with switching from one mental model to another. Unlearning AI will draw from queer philosophy and theory to expand on these definitions, including power relationships and the influence of dominant discourses in how we build our understanding of AI. The aim of this research is to subvert the dominant discourse with alternative models of AI research and development, which can lead to innovation that serves public interest over profit. The first assumption is that increasing data and power to AI will result in improved reasoning (the concept of Large Reasoning Models, LRMs). Recently, researchers at Apple showed that LRMs "face a complete accuracy collapse beyond certain complexities." Models failed to reason consistently or apply the correct algorithms for certain tasks. In our team, we are exploring how our values/beliefs offer a banner of understanding; of interpreting complexity in very specific and useful ways. Values allow us to prioritise, guide ethical judgement, frame problems, filter information, and resolve conflicts. When others (effective altruists, rationalists, etc.) discuss the "Alignment Problem", they tend to talk about values as necessary for determining the goodness of AI. We are suggesting they may be necessary for AI to function past a certain threshold of complexity and we will experiment with this in the upcoming renewal. There is a second assumption that it will be possible to arrive at consensus on the values that AI should have that will be universally applied. Unlearning AI makes a different assumption, that plurality is inevitable and useful for innovation. Our team will explore the interconnection between subjectivity and objectivity in AI research, across the dimensions of individual -> group, and experience -> interpretation. This will include the further development of "Thought Collectives" (Ludwig Fleck) to support collective AI prototyping, exploring the use of GenAI for personal self-reflexivity, and bringing reflexivity back to the analysis of qualitative data with GenAI through curated training data and fine-tuning models to researcher positionality. Finally, our previous research highlighted unequal distribution of benefits through AI as an important feature of harm often ignored in frameworks associated with Ethical, Fair or Responsible AI. It is necessary to unlearn the ethos that preventing negative impacts is only (or mostly) related to direct harms. Instead, we will explore ways of measuring and articulating how the benefits of AI impact power relationships within institutions (such as universities, charities, hospitals, etc.). This research is driven by a clear purpose (shifting power), executed with rigor and integrity (using all tools/methodologies available), and supported by resources (UKRI and the Open University). Dissemination plans include publications, but also public engagement via podcasting and post-disciplinary collaboration.  

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2026 · 2026-03

Understanding microbial contamination is crucial for ensuring the accuracy of scientific investigations for both outward and backward missions aimed at detecting life/habitability. Our project aims to expand on previous STFC-funded research to develop a highly sensitive (>99%) method for measuring microbial contamination using molecular techniques. This innovative approach will help bolster the UK's leadership in planetary protection and astrobiology and offer commercial services to support space agencies such as ESA and NASA, as well as industry. According to the Outer Space Treaty, we are required to safeguard the integrity of scientific research on Mars and the Earth's biosphere from harmful contamination. The current standard method for measuring microbial contamination detects less than 1% of known microorganisms, which leads to an underestimation of contamination levels. This is particularly concerning for NASA's and ESA's ambitious Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, where underestimating contamination could result in false positive detection of life when analysing samples returned from Mars to Earth. Our project seeks to adapt molecular-based techniques commonly used in medical diagnostics to create a sensitive approach for quantifying microbial contamination. Leveraging the OU's expertise in characterising microorganisms in extreme environments, our approach will provide crucial information on terrestrial contamination of samples returned to Earth, thus supporting future scientific investigations. Our specific objectives are as follows: 1) develop a sensitive nucleic acid assay to quantify microbial contamination; 2) optimise the assay to differentiate between living and dead microorganisms; 3) compare the assay's effectiveness to industrial standards; and 4) provide training and commercial services for the space sector. This project is particularly timely, as the UK is leading the development of the Double-Walled Isolator (DWI) qualification model to safely handle, analyse, and curate material returned from Mars within the Sample Receiving Facility. This project will solidify the UK's leading role in planetary protection, aligning with the UK's aspiration to lead global regulation and standard setting for sustainable space activities, as outlined in the National Space Strategy.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2026 · 2026-01

The Moon’s environment is entering a period of unprecedented change. Recent and upcoming sample return missions, such as China's Chang'e-6 and India's Chandrayaan-4, are just the beginning, with crewed missions, exploitation of the ice-bearing poles, and a lunar base all in the advanced planning stages. Drilling, human occupation and the creation of long-term infrastructure can be environmentally destructive and require adequate governance. The Outer Space Treaty (OST), the primary regulating framework for space activities, consists of high-level principles and does not define permissible space operations. Without new regulatory mechanisms, irreversible damage to the Moon is predicted. Sites of significance, where scientific, cultural and commercial interests overlap, are targets of different missions and particularly vulnerable. Discussions about how to protect sites of interest on the Moon are emerging, but these remain fragmented in siloed constituencies. For example, the International Astronomical Union's guidelines on protecting lunar sites of scientific interest focus exclusively on their relevance to radioastronomy. These guidelines are distinct from the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Planetary Protection Policy, which ensure that scientific investigations of possible extra-terrestrial life forms are not jeopardised. Concerns about the cultural heritage value of landing sites and debris are discussed in entirely different contexts, while debates about the cultural implications of space activities to communities on Earth are only beginning to emerge. The absence of a shared, interdisciplinary understanding of what harm and protection might look like on the Moon significantly increases the risk of future conflicts. MoonRISE aims to respond to the current siloing of knowledge to advance debates on harm and protection, and to translate cutting-edge knowledge into best practice for careful and equitable governance. This aim requires the sharing of interdisciplinary knowledge about the cultural, environmental and scientific significance of the Moon within the context of intensified exploration. Enhancing Moon Trek, NASA’s multilayered lunar mapping portal, with maps of sites of interest will enable the convening of different knowledges and ensure that results can travel robustly into policy contexts. MoonRISE’s collaboration with NASA will ground exchanges between disciplinary experts, policy stakeholders, and other relevant groups in a series of interdisciplinary workshops. Moon Trek maps and bespoke artistic maps will be used to explore specific scenarios of human activity on the Moon with a view to both drawing out different understandings of harm and protection, and stress testing different governance mechanisms. The approach of enabling careful conversations among different actors for different interests to converge towards a shared position is what we call ‘space diplomacy’. This approach is intended to maximise the ‘buy in’ of the different parties to produce the core outputs of MoonRISE: 1) a multilayered digital map of sites of scientific and cultural interest on the Moon; 2) a programme of engagement of interested publics, space actors and policymakers and 3) principles and guidelines on best practice in lunar governance. The guidelines seek to have impact on emerging negotiations at the UN Committee for Peaceful Uses of Outer Space because the project will directly engage with delegations through bespoke events and produce outputs for UK representatives. The conceptual innovation will spearhead a new field of studies that re-imagines outer space through an integrated, interdisciplinary lens. Like the Earthrise photo shaped consciousness of environmental change on Earth, MoonRISE will give rise to urgent new perspectives on the protection of lunar environments.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-12

Context Global numbers of forcibly displaced people stand at a record high (UNHCR 2025). In the year ending September 2024, The UK Home Office (2024) granted settlement visas to nearly 150,000 people, including over 35,000 people who were granted refugee status. Over 100,000 people claimed asylum the same year (House of Commons Library 2024). Integration remains at the centre of political/public discourse due to rising immigration and the focus of successive UK governments on reducing this. Challenge Whilst immigration is controlled by the UK Government, language education and integration policies for refugees/migrants are devolved to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. There is no UK-wide integration strategy. Language education is fragmented, underfunded and informed by a one-nation, one-language ideology (Rampton, Cooke and Simpson 2023). Language learning is central to integration (Phipps, Aldegheri and Fisher 2022) with growing evidence that multilingual education enhances belonging and wellbeing (Higham 2024; Simpson and Pöyhönen 2024). Yet, UK provision remains overwhelmingly monolingual, focused solely on English. Moreover, tensions exist between the UK ‘hostile environment’ policies and the more inclusive, language-supportive policies of the devolved nations. Despite the pioneering WSOL (Welsh for Speakers of Other Languages) initiative in Wales, the potential for integrating multilingualism and including indigenous languages (Welsh, Irish, Gaelic, Ulster Scots, Scots), into refugee and migrant language education remains underdeveloped (Higham 2024). The project Using Critical Participatory Action research and underpinned by decolonising methodology, MDLE uses data from focus groups, interviews and observed knowledge exchange events with key stakeholders (policymakers, refugees/migrants, language teachers) to inform a series of workshops, learning materials and a professional development course for language teachers. This will create a transformative framework for language education which integrates indigenous languages, refugees’/migrants’ home languages and English for the first time. Partnering with 13 influential organisations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to co-produce the research and maximise impact, MDLE will bridge the gap between policy, practice and theory, thereby making a unique intellectual contribution to refugee integration, ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) and indigenous language learning. Aims Develop a new multilingual learning framework by building an interdisciplinary knowledge base with teachers, policymakers, and communities. Shift attitudes and practices in language education, equipping teachers with the confidence and skills to implement multilingual approaches. Strengthen networks between ESOL teachers, indigenous language experts, and refugee/migrant communities to ensure integrated and long-term collaboration. Influence policy by demonstrating the value of multilingual, decolonial educational practices and advocating for more inclusive integration strategies. Objectives Compare and analyse current language education policies and practices by interviewing stakeholders across the devolved nations, assessing the impact of underfunding, policy fragmentation, and monolingual ideologies. Co-design and co-deliver workshops and learning materials with partners to equip teachers with practical strategies for multilingual, decolonial approaches, leading to the development of an online, open-access teacher upskilling course.  Evaluate impact through stakeholder dialogue, interviews, focus groups, and knowledge exchange visits to assess how multilingual strategies affect integration and belonging. Establish cross-sectoral networks to support collaboration and ensure the sustainability of multilingual, decolonial language education. MDLE benefits: Language teachers/organisations by increasing skills, knowledge, confidence about multilingual, decolonial approaches. Researchers/policymakers via findings shared in articles in high impact journals/policy briefings. Refugees/migrants through inclusive, multilingual pedagogies and increased opportunities to learn indigenous languages. Indigenous language communities by increasing interest/focus on these languages.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-12

Graphs, or networks, are abstract mathematical objects ubiquitous in modern life, from social network Instagram, the London Underground transport network, neural networks in artificial intelligence, to disease networks used to model epidemics. Beneath them all are a common object: a graph — a collection of points (vertices) some of which are joined by lines (edges) — for example, each point represents a station and if there is a train line between them, we draw a line. To decide whether it is possible to visit every station exactly once and return to the starting station, the underlying graph captures all the information that is needed, and what we seek is a structure inside the graph called a Hamilton cycle. Mathematical tools from the combinatorial field of graph theory — the study of networks — can now be brought to bear. Efficient algorithms for problems such as these are of particular importance: Google's PageRank algorithm used by its search engine assigns scores to webpages by analysing the underlying graph; while ChatGPT's brain is a knowledge graph capturing the relationships between a huge quantity of data points. Many graph theoretic problems are NP-complete, meaning that it is unlikely a fast algorithm — in relation to the size of the network — exists. Hence, for the huge networks that are employed today, it is of great interest to obtain sufficient conditions that guarantee a particular property and to understand the worst-case — or extremal — behaviour of graphs. This is the realm of extremal graph theory. Mathematicians have been studying graphs and related combinatorial objects for centuries. This study has led to numerous applications of which I only offer a glimpse above. Much of this research has been driven by the pursuit of understanding the most fundamental properties of graphs and their structure. My proposed research has two ambitious strands, each investigating different fundamental properties of graphs related to structures within them. The first strand addresses counting structures in graphs and related objects and the extremal problem of maximising or minimising this count. This question is at the very heart of extremal combinatorics and has driven several of the key developments in the field such as flag algebras and the use of computers to produce mathematical proofs. I will investigate new and old problems of this type, focusing on the intriguing connections between seemingly unrelated problems that have been hinted at in previous work. The second strand is about graph decomposition which is the problem of partitioning a graph into given structures, such as Hamilton cycles. Whether this can be achieved is an old problem going all the way back to Euler in the 1700s, while today decompositions have applications in the design of statistical experiments. I will address some of the unsolved theoretical questions concerning decomposition, building upon my previous advances in this area.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-11

Despite universities being a key pillar of democracy, the hierarchical, managerialised and neoliberalised university, which emerged in the 1980s, inherently works against it. In European higher education (HE), threats to democracy are most obvious in the process towards Englishisation which undermines multilingual European language policies and widens the gap between those who speak English and those who do not. Meanwhile, in UK universities, truth, facts and evidence have come under attack as identity politics has taken a hold across the sector, threatening the very nature of universities as a key pillar of democracy that can counteract and challenge mis- and disinformation. This is particularly visible in the Israel/Palestine issue where academics who speak out against Israel’s decades-long violations of international law may be silenced and suppressed under EDI and terrorism legislation. As UK universities face sector-wide challenges on how to balance their commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) under the UK Equality Act with their legal obligation to promote academic freedom and freedom of speech, the very nature of universities as a key pillar of democracy and social justice is under existential threat. This project adopts a novel interdisciplinary approach that capitalises on the strengths from linguistics and political science to work towards a democratisation of universities in Europe and the UK. Premised on an unashamedly left-wing, progressive agenda, the project seeks to call out, backset and transform neoliberal governance where it is, at best, failing, and at worst, perpetuating global injustice and Western imperialism. Three objectives guide the work. Firstly, for European HE, we will co-create a decision-making support tool to democratise the governance of Englishisation by bringing together key stakeholders, raising their awareness of power inequalities and supporting them to think through the factors that lead to Englishisation. Secondly, as knowledge must benefit wider society, we will develop process tracing, a case-based qualitative research method borrowed from political science, as a rigorous methodology that can assess and evidence the impact of research in society, thus working towards a greater democratisation of knowledge. Thirdly, through a set of additional synergising activities, we will work to strengthen universities as key pillars of democracy by enabling the UK sector to strike a better balance between EDI and academic freedom/freedom of speech. The project will deliver new knowledge, methodologies as well as practical tools. For European HE institutions, the decision-making support tool will ensure processes and decisions that generate Englishisation are democratised and properly planned and thought through. This will benefit university lecturers, students and professional staff who will be supported with requisite institutional resources. For UK HE institutions, the outcome will be an impact evaluation tool, operationalised as a Proof of Concept, that can rigorously assess the impact of research in society. This will benefit the general public who will be able to see more clearly the value of the knowledge universities produce through their taxes. The Proof of Concept will also benefit institutional administrators, research leaders and funding bodies who are under obligation to evidence and assess the impact of publicly funded research. In sum, this programme of work will work towards a more equitable, inclusive and democratic governance in neoliberal HE institutions in Europe and the UK, safeguarding universities as places for rigorous intellectual inquiry, key pillars of democracy and champions of social justice.    

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

Current research skills training and capacity building often operate within rigid structures, requiring researchers to attend in-person workshops with a small number of experts, or completing generic online modules. This approach reduces potential engagement opportunities, impact insights and diversity of training that does not fit rapidly changing needs of researchers. The Research Capability Hub (RCH) is an innovative programme using Open University existing and innovative technology infrastructures with PolicyWISE’s four nations engagement and expert partnerships with UCL, Swansea, Queen's Belfast, Gothenburg and established networks (UKRI Future Leaders Fellows Development Network, SoLAR, Social Partnership Networks). This will enhance research skills training and capacity building for social scientists through scalable, co-created, and personalised approaches. Social Science research landscapes are evolving rapidly, with new data-driven methodologies, artificial intelligence (AI), and interdisciplinary approaches shaping how research is conducted. Researchers require adaptable training that not only enhances their methodological expertise but also connects research to impact, particularly in policy-making and social change. However, existing research training does not always align with the dynamic and changing needs of the research community and other stakeholders. The Challenge Traditional training approaches are often centralised, inflexible, and resource-intensive. These models limit accessibility, sustainability, and adaptability to different disciplines and learners’ needs. There is a gap in training provision that supports personalised learning journeys, fosters community-driven research skills development, and connects research with policy engagement. Moreover, as data-driven research gains prominence, research training must integrate emerging methodologies such as AI and interdisciplinary methods. Ensuring that researchers can apply their expertise effectively within policy and societal contexts is also crucial. The RCH addresses these gaps by delivering an inclusive, flexible, and scalable learning ecosystem in OpenLearn Create. Aims and Objectives Transform Research Training – Move away from centralised, top-down models to a flexible, co-created capacity building approach aligned with individual researcher needs by co-creating > 23 research methods courses jointly prioritised with stakeholders. Enhance Accessibility and Inclusion – Provide open-access, high-quality learning experiences through the established OpenLearn Create platform, allowing researchers to engage with training at their own pace, co-create new resources, and receive recognition. Foster Community Engagement – Establish a policy-linked federated, researcher-led structure where stakeholders collaborate in identifying training needs and co-creating learning pathways. Ensure Sustainability and Impact – Develop a self-sustaining model leveraging the Open University’s digital learning expertise and existing partnerships to ensure long-term impact. Expected Benefits and Impacts The RCH will generate substantial benefits for researchers, policymakers, and the broader academic community, including: Enhanced Researcher Skills Development – personalised training that aligns with > 15,000 individual researchers’ needs across all career stages. Wider Research Community Engagement – A collaborative, interdisciplinary approach that connects stakeholders across diverse domains. Translating understanding of training insights into policy recommendations – Supporting researchers in translating findings into policy recommendations, bridging the gap between research and decision-making. Sustainable and Scalable Training Infrastructure – A cost-effective and proven ecosystem that maximises existing resources and avoids redundant efforts. By integrating AI-driven feedback mechanisms and evidence-based training methods, the RCH ensures that researchers receive relevant, high-quality support throughout their careers. RCH fosters a co-creation agenda, working with diverse research disciplines and methodologies, emphasising researchers interdisciplinary lifelong learning, and will be continually refined through the project’s performance evaluations. A flexible fund enables agile responses to evolving needs, with contributors leading innovation projects.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

During this Fellowship, I will carry out activities that illuminate the significance of young children’s embodied engagement with the storyworlds of picturebooks as a valuable and inclusive reading practice. The Fellowship will also support my career ambition of becoming an academic, focused on literacy in education. My research contends that young children make meanings with their bodies. Yet, in classrooms there is an emphasis on children talking about stories, overlooking the body’s role in meaning-making and disadvantaging those with diverse communicative competencies. To redress this imbalance, my research explores young children’s embodied engagement with the storyworlds depicted in picturebooks. Bridging research with practice, I positioned myself as a class adult, designing a novel play-based activity to foreground young children’s embodied engagement with storyworlds. Video observations of play were innovatively analysed by attending to the interplay between movement and affect, surfacing the unseen elements of embodied engagement. This cutting-edge approach illuminated how young children used fluctuations in movements and shifts in proximity to extend and deepen their engagement with storyworlds. Significantly, this fluidity arose as children interacted with objects and individuals. Deviating from dominant understandings in literacy research, my findings advanced an original conceptualisation of young children’s embodied engagement as relational and distributed. Class adults occupy salient contingent and generative roles within this conceptualisation, with their movements reacting to but also influencing children’s embodied engagement. These findings matter to teachers, highlighting how embodied approaches can support young children’s reading engagement as a route to reading enjoyment. I argue for changes to education practice and policy so that young children’s embodied engagement is valued and embedded as part of reading. Through this Fellowship, I will maximise the impact of my innovative classroom-based research through targeted dissemination, networking and teaching activities. I will write a monograph entitled ‘Embodied Reading: Young Children Engaging with Stories Through Movement and Affect’ that outlines the study’s provenance, before presenting the research’s original insights and considering implications for classroom reading practices. The monograph’s readership will be teachers, teacher educators and literacy researchers, with Routledge’s Education series being the proposed publisher. A short-form accessible article for a reputable online outlet will be produced to complement the monograph. Alongside these activities, I will engage a wide range of academics in my research through presenting at three high-profile European education, literacy and early childhood conferences. Additionally, I will build networks by curating a three-part researcher-practitioner seminar series. Networks created through this series will be used to carry out further limited research (less than 25% of the Fellowship's time) linked to the PhD, in the form of two focus group and action planning workshops with teachers, investigating how teachers attune to movements and affects. Insights from these workshops and my PhD research will be used to create online practitioner resources. Finally, I will influence the research and teaching culture of the Open University by providing cutting-edge teaching related to young children’s embodied reading practices for Education courses. My research and the activities of this Fellowship are vital and timely, given heightened international concerns regarding children’s reading engagement. Ultimately underpinned by a social justice stance, the activities of the Fellowship will foreground children’s diverse ways of making meanings and, in so doing, advance an inclusive approach to young children’s engagement with stories, one that is capable of enthusing children about reading.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

The drastic rise in displaced populations necessitates a comprehensive reconsideration of refugee solutions. In the past decade, many Western countries have expanded resettlement programmes and introduced Complementary Pathways (CP), allowing displaced individuals to relocate to third countries (UNHCR 2024). Among these, Community Sponsorship (CS) stands out by involving local individuals and community groups in welcoming and supporting refugees, potentially enhancing integration (ICMC 2017; European Commission 2018). However, there is limited evidence on how resettlement programmes, CS and CP work in practice and their impact on refugees as well as a gap in understanding their intersection with global refugee protection policies (Ahad et al. 2020; Phillimore et al. 2024). This project will address these gaps by examining the operation, challenges and potential of these programmes to improve refugee protection and integration. I will produce a monograph that traces the history and development of resettlement, CS and CP, and examines their role in the global refugee protection system and migration policies. Few studies have examined these programmes from a historical perspective (Phillimore et al. 2024), but understanding past patterns, successes and failures is key to informing current approaches (Ryan et al. 2024). The monograph will highlight key developments, policy shifts and challenges, offering evidence-based strategies to adapt these programmes to better meet refugees’ needs. This work will contribute to academic scholarship and policy discussions, enhancing our understanding of migration and refugee protection. Drawing from my PhD research on the UK’s CS and Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme, I will further produce policy briefs with recommendations for improving these programmes. As concerns grow about the effectiveness of resettlement and sponsorship programmes in addressing refugee needs (Bond 2021, Labman 2011), compounded by limited data (Ahad et al. 2020), these briefs will propose evidence-based recommendations for the UK Government, local authorities, NGOs and volunteers. The aim is to strengthen policies to ensure they meet refugees’ evolving needs and highlight best practices for resettlement, CS and CP programmes globally. I will also organise a conference on CS and CP, bringing together scholars, policymakers, refugees and practitioners to discuss refugee integration and protection, as well as recommendations for improving these initiatives. Building on the 2019 CS Summit at the University of Birmingham, the conference will showcase my research, foster collaboration and generate strategies to enhance integration efforts. Effective collaboration across all levels is vital for ensuring the sustainability and success of CS and CP, fostering long-term integration and shared responsibility (ARI, 2019; GRSI, 2021). Additionally, I will expand my professional network by collaborating with organisations like Pathways International and Talent Beyond Boundaries. These partnerships will help advance my research and support global refugee protection. By presenting my findings at the IMISCOE Conference, I will engage with leading migration scholars and explore potential future research collaborations. Ultimately, this research aims to improve refugee protection and integration by exploring resettlement, CS and CP. Through in-depth analysis, evidence-based recommendations and cross-sector collaborations, the project will contribute to more effective and sustainable refugee solutions.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

This project will explore the hidden histories behind a set of early modern objects belonging to the Museum of the Home, including but not limited to a costly Flemish tapestry, a rare Japanese Arita vase, a tea caddy with rosewood bands, several pieces of Chinese porcelain and many Delftware tiles. These diverse objects all share one quality: a relationship to the Netherlandish maritime trading networks (‘Netherlandish’ here refers to the profoundly entwined economies and cultures of what is now roughly Belgium and Holland). In turn, these networks are central to understanding the many histories of early modern immigration into London, and more broadly into England, including those pertaining to colonialism and slavery. Netherlandish networks spanned the globe, from Pernambuco and Paramaribo in South America to Macau, Manila, Nagasaki and Batavia (now Jakarta) in Asia. At the centre of these networks lay the cities of Amsterdam and Antwerp, not least because their Sephardic Jewish communities facilitated otherwise difficult trading connections between Northern Europe and the extensive Spanish and Portuguese Empires. London and the emerging British Empire relied heavily on these Netherlandish networks, especially across the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  Crucially, these extensive networks allowed for the circulation of merchants, skilled craftworkers, enslaved people, specific materials like tropical hardwoods, actual artworks, domestic objects and types of design that were then copied locally. The central aim of the project is to explore how these Netherlandish networks enabled the many and complex journeys resulting in the interior fittings and furnishings that increasingly formed part of home-making in early modern England as it became part of the emerging global economy. To a large extent this economy rested on colonialism and enslavement; what was homely and perhaps comforting was simultaneously imported, exotic and sometimes the product of exploitative violence. A further aim is therefore to consider how hidden stories of such violence can be told effectively yet sensitively in a museum environment. One specific concern is what homely objects might be and mean in diasporic communities, where daily lives were sometimes framed by temporary lodgings like boarding-houses as well as by religious institutions like churches and synagogues. Particular attention will be paid to relevant ritual behaviour, for example the Jewish festival of Sukkot, which is about the very notion of diasporic home-making. On a less formal level, colonial foodstuffs such as chocolate, tea and sugar may play an important role together with relevant dishes and utensils. This project is resolutely centred on object-based research but with a view to reflect on and refine this methodology by exploring the various social histories behind the early modern holdings of the Museum of the Home. In effect, the aim is to uncover the hidden histories, including those pertaining to colonialism and enslavement, behind luxury objects such as the Flemish tapestry, the Arita vase and the tea caddy with rosewood bands but also behind the well-nigh ubiquitous Delftware tiles used, for example, along skirtings and around fireplaces (the first such tiles made in northern European were from Antwerp).

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

The overarching aim of our research is to study the structure and behaviour of the dusty and icy material that dominates the space environments where stars and planets form. In particular we are interested to understand how ice particles collide, stick, aggregate and grow, since these are the first stages of planet formation. The challenge is that our icy particles are often very small (about the same diameter as the width of a human hair), and moving very slowly (relatively speaking just a few centimetres per second - which if you were swimming at the same pace would mean it could take you 45 minutes or more to swim one length of a 25 m swimming pool!!). At this velocity particles are influenced by gravity on Earth, and that makes it difficult to collide them together, so typically we conduct these experiments in microgravity. To complicate matters further the type of ice that dominates in space is not like an ice cube from a fridge, but more like a fluffy sponge - it's amorphous ice. So to be able to study such systems we combine constraints determined from observations from world-class telescopes with laboratory experiments, first conducted on Earth but then conducted on parabolic flights, or sub-orbital flights, to study icy grain aggregation. These experiments combine many techniques - but the dominant one is ultra-fast camera technology - much like the images you may have seen of slow-mo crash-test dummy images - we do the same - take multiple images (a video) of our particles colliding to work out what happens to them. And although this studentship is motivated by a science research question, what we really need is increasingly more sophisticated camera technologies to elucidate the collision outcome processes. So-called light-field tracking, enables us to identify the exact positions (locations in space) and velocities of our particles during the experiments. But it turns out ice is not very easy to spot. So the aim of this proposal is to develop hyper-spectral infrared camera technology - where instead of looking for the icy grains with visible light, we will look at them at a variety of infrared wavelengths (up to 4 filters) where ice has spectral features specifically associated with water, and therefore be able to identify between icy and dusty grains, and potentially between amorphous and crystalline ices too. The development of hyper spectral light-filed tracking camera technology will greatly benefit our research and enable us to study more complex systems and feed data back to the astronomy and space science community, but a hyper spectral light-field tracking IR camera has the potential to be a more widely applicable technology. Think of those areas like transport and food manufacture where ice play an important role. This project is reliant on the unique partnership between the OU (academia) and DIAL Ltd, an SME with patents and expertise in camera technologies. Without this partnership the proposed technology development, and its testing in a research environment could not be realised, and not lead on to potential applications beyond astronomy.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-06

Collaborative data-centric design and sensemaking activities support individuals’ understanding of their own data. This contrasts with the approach commonly used in the medical domain, where Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) are discussed individually between patient and clinician. This proposal will: Explore overlaps in design and analysis approaches between sensemaking and digital health researchers, and consider methods for using sensemaking approaches to support collaborative sensemaking with patients using PROMs data. Build on this knowledge exchange to establish the key research questions on supporting patients to make use of sensemaking, and to build a consortium for Horizon Europe grants. Dr Bourgeois (Delft University of Technology (NL)) has a significant track record in different approaches to collaborative sensemaking. This work has used health-related data which is not clinically sensitive, such as heart rate and sleep tracking. He has already explored the benefits and challenges of using sensitive health data by working with people who are tracking menstruation data; this project would expand their research to also consider clinical data, principally pain data. Dr Gooch (Open University) has been working with colleagues at Milton Keynes University Hospital (MKUH) on an effective method for logging pain data called the PainPad. Designed for joint-replacement patients, the system has been used by over 500 patients. Analysis has shown that the PainPad provides many benefits, including greater accuracy and volume of data collected. At the request of MKUH clinical colleagues, data has been analysed from a cohort perspective, demonstrating the use of a tourniquets during Total Knee Arthroplasty does not result in greater patient pain. We have also established a more detailed profile of how patients’ pain changes in the days after their operation. This proposal will provide Dr Gooch with the support to visit Dr Bourgeois’ and his research team at Delft University of Technology, and investigate the potential of using collaborative sensemaking approaches to data analysis.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-06

The lack of diversity in UK higher education in the environmental sciences, and professions in the environment sector, is a well-recognised challenge. For example, ethnic minorities make <5% of the labour force in environmental professions (compared to 19.3% of the UK population). Similarly, those representing low socio-economic backgrounds as well as those who identify as disabled are underrepresented in the sector. Furthermore, as secondary school pupils progress towards higher education in STEM subjects there is a steady decline of underrepresented members of the community, in what is referred to as the ‘leaky pipeline’. Various reasons have been suggested for the low representation in environmental science subjects, a salient one being lack of early exposure to, and connection with, the natural world.  Across the UK, areas of multiple deprivation are known to be the least connected to nature, as well as being ‘cold spots’, i.e. areas of low inclusion, in higher education. These structural inequalities, combined with a hegemonic system that reconstructs existing privilege, feed into low diversity in environmental sciences in universities and environmental professions. Professional bodies, such as the British Ecological Society, have recognised the challenge of promoting early engagement with nature, via the local community or at school. However, barriers in promoting inclusive opportunities to engage underrepresented groups in the environment sector remain. This is why innovative approaches to inclusion are needed.  The BEYOND project will connect young people living in a ‘cold spot’ with their school, natural environment, and local higher education institution, creating a first stepping stone from nature engagement to education and professional expertise.  Milton Keynes, a new city designed in the 1960s on a template of garden city movement, will be the case study for this project. While Milton Keynes includes an extensive network of parks and greenspaces, there are also areas of multiple deprivation. These coincide with lack of green space and low success in higher education. They are ‘cold spots’.  BEYOND will pilot the opening up of nature, and environmental sciences engagement and learning, at Woughton parish, a ‘cold spot’ next to The Open University.  BEYOND will provide young people with opportunities at the Woughton Community Fridge, Larder and Cafe to gather, eat, tell stories, and build connections with nature, while motivating them and providing career options and mentoring support to higher education and subsequent profession in the sector.  We will undertake five interventions (four at the Community Council and one at The Open University) engaging approximately 30 young people (15 of them at Key Stages (KS) 3-4 level and 15 at KS5). The events at Woughton Community Council will be supported with partnership and expertise from local and national conservation and professional organisations such as The Parks Trust MK, National Trust and The Open University. Whilst we focus on these areas close to the University in response to the 2025 call, our vision is to take the learning from this into the 2026 call where we would look to work across the four nations through the OU’s offices in Belfast, Cardiff, and Edinburgh covering Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, as well as extending our work in Milton Keynes.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-06

Reconstructing the evolutionary history of angiosperms is vital to explaining their spectacular rise to ecological dominance. However, the timing of angiosperm diversification and the evolutionary relationships between major lineages are currently unresolved, with molecular dates for their origin typically tens of millions years older than the dates of their first appearance in the fossil record. This has created an impasse, with successive molecular phylogenetic studies consistently providing older origination dates than fossils, and the fossil record yielding no convincing angiosperm fossils of a comparable age. We propose to bridge the gap between molecular and fossil origination dates using pollen grains, a category of terrestrial microfossils that have been largely neglected in research on the early evolution and diversification of angiosperms. Pollen grains are abundant in Early Cretaceous sediments worldwide, but methodological limitations and the ambiguous taxonomic status of key taxa mean that the evolutionary information that pollen grains can provide has not yet been fully harnessed in interpreting early angiosperm evolution. We will overcome these barriers by employing methodological innovations developed and pioneered by our team. Specifically, we will use superresolution microscopy to increase the amount of morphological information that can be captured from fossil pollen and make more precise assessments of botanical affinity than is possible using traditional microscopy techniques such as transmitted light. This morphological detail will be quantified and interpreted within a phylogenetic framework through the use of machine learning. This will allow us to produce more accurate and fine-scale assessments than would be possible by a human analyst alone. Our research is focused on the Chloranthaceae, an early-diverging lineage of angiosperms that occupy a critical position in angiosperm evolution. We will build a new phylogenomic tree of this group and will use novel deep learning methods to place Early Cretaceous (c.125 million years ago [Ma]) fossil pollen grains with putative affinities to the Chloranthaceae in the phylogeny, determining whether the fossils are early- or late-diverging members of the Chloranthaceae or fall outside the family. By establishing the timing of Chloranthaceae diversification, we will provide a new window into the tempo and timing of early angiosperm evolution. Recent phylogenomic work indicates modern Chloranthaceae diversified as part of an explosive evolutionary radiation of angiosperms in the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous (154–c.125 Ma), and our approach will use fossil pollen to date the diversification of Chloranthaceae and allow us to evaluate this hypothesis empirically. Our results will also help resolve the timing of diversification of early angiosperms more widely, by constraining the age of lineages at the base of the angiosperm phylogeny, and will provide new insights into the diversification of angiosperms at a critical period in their evolution, transforming knowledge of the Early Cretaceous terrestrial biosphere. Our research will provide unique training in cutting-edge methods for two postdoctoral researchers, and will support the pursuit of international biodiversity targets through the development and application of quantitative methods to characterise biodiversity across scales.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-03

This research project is in the field of group theory which is the mathematical study of symmetry. The purpose of this research project is to classify the binary actions of finite groups. A faithful group action is binary if and only if it is isomorphic to the action on vertices of the automorphism group of a homogeneous edge-coloured graph. The notion of a binary action was introduced by the model theorist, Gregory Cherlin, who described an "organising principle" for the universe of finite permutation groups, via actions on homogeneous relational structures. From this point of view, binary actions form the most basic examples of such actions. Still, basic or not, 25 years later we still do not know the binary actions of the finite groups. A major breakthrough in this regard was achieved when 3 members of the proposed research team were able to complete a classification of the finite primitive binary permutation groups. Primitive groups are a special class of permutation groups and Cherlin himself gave a conjecture as to what the binary ones should look like. It took 20 years, but we now know that Cherlin's conjecture was correct. The challenge now is to extend this classification to all finite permutation groups. If we are able to do this, then the full force of the model theory developed by Cherlin to understand finite permutation groups will be able to come into play. The proposed research proposes to approach this challenge by utilising the Classification of Finite Simple Groups (CFSG). All finite groups can be broken down into simple groups and, according to CFSG, finite simple groups come in four flavours: they are of prime order, they are alternating, they are a group of Lie type, or they are sporadic. In recent work, two members of the research team developed new techniques that allowed them to completely classify the binary actions of the alternating groups. They were also able to identify a number of new binary actions for the simple groups of Lie type. As a result of this research, we now believe it is possible to classify the binary actions of the finite simple groups. This is the first main aim of the proposed research. This aim will require a focus on the groups of Lie type (a highly theoretical endeavour) and on the sporadic groups (a more computational project). Running parallel to this first main aim is the job of proving a ``reduction theorem'' which connects the binary actions of an arbitrary finite group G to the binary actions of the simple groups of which it is composed. This kind of reduction is a well-established approach to problems in the theory of finite group actions and, indeed, such a reduction was an integral part of the proof of Cherlin's conjecture for finite primitive binary actions mentioned earlier. Nonetheless, the method of proving such reduction theorems varies from case to case, and we expect this to be the more difficult part of the proposed research project. That said, the prize at the end -- a full classification of the binary actions of finite groups, the first level of Cherlin's organising principle -- has the potential to shed a great deal of new light on some of the most ubiquitous objects in mathematics, namely finite groups.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-03

This research project aims to tackle the pressing issue of misinformation, especially concerning climate change, by leveraging the powers of GIS. Despite numerous efforts to combat misinformation, its prevalence continues to rise, influencing public perceptions and derailing climate policy debates and decisions. This proposal identifies and addresses several key challenges: the absence of effective tools for geospatial mapping and analyses of climate misinformation alongside climate data, the limited understanding of how climate misinformation spreads geographically, and the lack of effective tools to visualise the interplay of geospatial, temporal, and topical patterns of climate misinformation. To address these challenges, we propose the development of a Multidimensional Geographic Information System (GIS). This GIS will integrate climate data (temperature, precipitation, wind, carbon emission), climate misinformation data from fact-checkers and traditional and social media platforms, analyse its correlations with geographical and climate information, and enhance our predictive capabilities to counter the spread of misinformation effectively and proactively. The next three Conference Of the Parties (COP) will be used as use cases to train and evaluate our research and outcomes. This project, ClimateSense, aims to maximise the capabilities of GIS, enabling it to significantly influence societal understanding and policymaking in the face of climate change and misinformation.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-02

The Euclid mission, launched in July 2023, is an ESA space mission with the objective of mapping the geometry of the Universe to better understand dark matter and dark energy. While in space, like all spaceborne instrumentation on any satellite, Euclid is bombarded with highly energetic particles, mainly from the Sun, which will slowly degrade the focal-plane detectors and thus have a have a major impact on the scientific data unless fully understood and corrected for. The Centre for Electronic Imaging (CEI) at the Open University has been involved in the Euclid mission since its conception as part of the Euclid VIS instrument development work, carrying out detector characterisation and leading the radiation damage testing of the focal-plane imaging detectors; detectors designed and produced by Teledyne e2v. As part of this work, the CEI has developed the trap-pumping technique, which allows for the characterisation of single defects in the silicon lattice caused by the space radiation environment that leads to the degradation of the science images returned. This new technique, originally developed in the CEI a decade ago, allows for a much deeper understanding of the actual damage the devices are subject to when in space and will be performed on a daily basis as part of the in-orbit calibrations. This will be the first time that the technique has been used in space, opening up a new era in the understanding of radiation damage to detectors in-orbit. As part of the data processing and calibration routines for the Euclid VIS instrument, the data from trap pumping will be analysed to provide parameters for the image correction algorithms. However, the data are able to tell us much more about the space radiation environment, radiation damage processes, and how accurately our current ground-based testing can replicate the conditions in-orbit. Through a deeper analysis of the in-orbit data, not funded under the current UKSA/STFC grants, coupled with targeted ground-based experiments in the laboratory, we will for the first time be able to directly analyse the radiation damage processes in space. For the Gaia mission, a previous STFC CASE PhD student in the CEI in collaboration with Te2v, investigated the differences between pre-launch predictions of radiation damage and what happened in-orbit using the basic calibration data available. Their findings have shown very interesting correlations with device batches, as well as fine-tuning the calibration process used in the RVS instrument. However, a first proper investigation of radiation damage while in-orbit in this new studentship will help our fundamental understanding, not just for CCDs but also for future missions using CMOS image sensors, DEPFETs and other technologies. Having access to a highly accurate and much deeper analysis technique in trap pumping gives the power to analyse the performance in great detail and investigate many open questions that can't be answered from ground testing, important to all future X-ray and visible space missions: How does a 5 minute on-ground irradiation test performed before launch compare to a steady rate of radiation dose increase over 5 years in-orbit? How does a NIEL scaled 200MeV dose (i.e. bombarding a detector on the ground at a single energy) compare to the bombardment received in-orbit from a wide spectrum of particle types and energies? How does annealing of radiation-induced defects in space compete with the rate of new defect production?

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-01

The UK has had an important success in securing elections of President (CP) and Vice-President (SS) of the International Astronomical Union's Division J on Galaxies and Cosmology, each for a term of three years. We therefore request some travel funding (£3k/year for each of CP and SS), and a very nominal shard of staff time each (CP: 0.05 FTE, SS: 0.03 FTE) so this can be allocated within our university workload models. Through this, STFC would be able to ensure UK visibility and prominence in the activities of this very large IAU Division, and link/combine IAU initiatives in development and diversity with STFC's own reporting and activities. The travel funding would enable stronger UK representation at the next IAU General Assembly, and by funding attendance at NAM each year STFC will also facilitate greater engagement of the wider UK community with the IAU.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-01

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are emerging as powerful tools for sustainable environmental monitoring, playing a vital role in comprehending the diverse effects of climate change on ecosystems. The integration of state of the art techniques such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) with UAV technology has introduced innovative pathways for various environmental applications. However, their full potential remains to be explored. ACCELERATE proposes the development of a fertile inter-discipline and inter-sectoral ecosystem that aims to radically contribute towards enhancing UAV technology to enable the sustainable environmental management. The specific objectives of the project are to: a) Create a continuously updated ecosystem with UAV datasets suitable for environmental studies and climate change impact assessment, b) promote methodological advances in the field of UAVs technology, by exploiting the unique capabilities of those data with state-of-the-art techniques and c) establish clear guidelines and homogenized protocols for the characterization of the exploitation of UAVs in specific application domains. Experimental analysis will also be carried to showcase the practical use of the project outputs via four carefully selected and innovative Use Cases, that will serve as Key Performance Indicators of the project. ACCELERATE brings together enthusiastic staff from academia and industry via a series of carefully-designed secondments, establishing a unique fertile collaborative research and innovation environment to promote pioneering research in environmental and socioeconomic studies implementation within urban, natural and agricultural environments. A strong inter-sectoral experienced research team of 17 partners from 9 countries, of 9 academic and 8 industrial partners coming from Greece (2), Romania (3), Italy (2), Cyprus (1), United Kingdom (5), North Macedonia (1), France (1), Germany (1) and Portugal (1) constitute the project’s Consortium.