LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-06

AIGreenBots is a MSCA Doctoral Network that will implement inter-and-cross multidisciplinary training, career development and research collaborations for 9 researchers (i.e., ESR: PhD students), by an international and complementary partnership involving top Universities, research institutions, agriculture-related stakeholders, "living lab" and "robotic farm" infrastructures, and companies from different countries (PT, NL, UK, FR, ES), to provide tomorrow's talent with the skills and knowledge to tackle one of the major challenges of our society and the environment - agricultural robotics for precision/digital agriculture. By engaging the ESRs on a research-to-industrial exploitation paradigm, the AIGreenBots doctoral-level training brings together academic and non-academic participants from different areas: robotics, automation, remote sensing for precision agriculture, reliable artificial intelligence (AI) and probabilistic machine learning, systems engineering, probabilistic inference, sensor fusion, safety and real-deployment of agricultural robotics. Collectively, AIGreenBots will work with the Researchers to develop new agri-bots platforms (WP3), robotic perception and sensor fusion systems (WP4), reliable machine learning (WP5), decision-making under uncertainty (WP6), safety and important legislation aspects will be learned as well (WP7). Currently Europe-wide, there are no PhD training programs that focus on agriculture-robotics that expose students to such broad concepts and expertise, yet there is a rapidly growing need for that research. After completion of the project, Researchers will be fully capable of driving interdisciplinary research at the international level. Thus, AIGreenBots's structure will serve as a European platform for outstanding doctoral training in intelligent robotics for precision/automated agriculture and digital farming.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-06

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a severe threat to patients where tissue is exposed to the environment (e.g. surgical/traumatic wounds, burns, diabetic/pressure ulcers, or chronic wounds). Fungi, in particular, are a serious, and increasing, cause of chronic, non-healing wounds that are difficult to treat. Systemic antimicrobials and local wound care offer limited benefits and there is a distinct lack of new wound care solutions to combat AMR and an alarming lack of progress on development of new antifungal treatments. To this end, it is clear that new technologies are needed to combat AMR. A bench to bedside pipeline, strategically targeting multimodal, non-drug-based treatment, is needed to bring new solutions to eradicating fungal infections. Our aim is to develop and validate safe, effective, and targeted antimicrobial nanomaterials, which can be delivered to the site of wounds and will promote healing as well as ensure ‘on-demand’ wound sterilisation. The technologies will be incorporated into gel-based dressings, which can kill and repel microbes during healing. Our multidisciplinary consortium will engineer targeted, on-demand antifungal therapeutics utilizing nanomaterial platforms to optimize wound infection prevention, treatment, and management. We will establish a robust developmental pipeline to address the pressing challenges of antifungal resistance, preventing infection, and enhancing wound care efficacy and patient welfare if infection arises.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-06

Microneedles (MNs) are micron-scale and minimally invasive medical devices that can penetrate the skin's outer layer without reaching deeper tissues, such as nerve endings. The development and translation of MNs to meet the clinical and market needs require several steps, from the initial concept design and fabrication to regulatory approval and market introduction. Mathematical model (MM) is acknowledged for contributing significantly by providing cost-efficient insights into these steps. For example, physically-based MM can optimise the MN penetration depths in skin and material properties at the pre-fabrication stage, ensuring they can effectively deliver drugs or detect biological markers/parameters. However, the current studies on MN-based biosensors rely on ad-hoc fabrication of the MNs, calibrating them for particular skin micro-environments and analysing their responses, and there is a lack of rigorous MMs that can enhance the experimental results and rationalise their designs (e.g., MN geometry and density in an array). With in-depth expertise of different domains residing in research groups in various parts of the world, increased collaboration and cross-fertilisation of ideas and expertise among these groups (e.g., experts of MN fabrication for biosensing and MM), both nationally and internationally, can remove the current gaps and accelerate the development and application of MNs to meet clinical needs. In addressing these points, the overseas travel grant (OTG) aims to accelerate the UK’s collaboration with the USA as a leading nation in MN research and application, with a central focus on identifying a concrete scope and pathway for developing MM for MN biosensors. The OTG also aims to provide Das (project lead) with a dedicated research environment at the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill, USA, to gain first-hand experience of MN biosensors and conceptualise an MM for a MN-based biosensor. With a proven strong track-record in MM of MNs, Das is motivated to experience and enter into research on MN-based biosensing, a new research topic for Das, with the help of the OTG. He has worked extensively on MM of MNs for TDD in the last 20 years, where his focus has been on designing, modelling, and optimising MNs using different MM approaches and studying combinational techniques, e.g., MNs with ultrasound to enhance TDD. Das proposes to use his overseas travel now since there are significant research needs for MN-based biosensors, such as how to rationalise their design. Addressing these research challenges in a timely manner can avoid the potential development of erroneous MNBs. With Das’ work MM for TDD maturing well, it is an ideal time for him to expand his work and develop MM for MN-based biosensors. Travelling now will open up new collaborative opportunities to co-develop these ideas with world-leading scientists and generate significant future impacts for himself and the UK on MN-based biosensors. The USA is one of the UKRI’s strategic international funding partners and is home to significant cutting-edge research and expertise on MNs for biosensing. An in-person presence is essential for networking with potential collaborators to co-develop transnational projects (e.g., EPSRC-NSF projects).

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-06

Miscarriage affects around 1 in 5 pregnancies and has recently received more public attention than ever before. Yet while conversations are opening up, only certain perspectives and voices are really coming through. Newspapers and magazines now regularly publish stories of ‘celebrity miscarriage’, for example, but the experiences of impoverished/racialised communities are routinely overlooked despite their higher miscarriage rates; and emotional responses other than grief and loss are rarely represented in public. Research also shows that the ‘baby loss’ framing of miscarriage is becoming increasingly institutionalised within advocacy organisations and the NHS, which for some people is appropriate and validating, but can be alienating for those who understand their miscarriages differently. Over the past couple of decades, academic studies have revealed the wide-ranging ways that people feel about and conceptualise their miscarriages, including but not limited to grief and loss. Yet no large-scale interdisciplinary research has yet been conducted, and existing studies focus predominantly on white/middle-class/heterosexual/non-disabled women. Like the wider public discourse, then, academic research has been insufficiently attentive to social diversity and inequality. The Feminist Miscarriage Project thus has two overarching aims: 1. to provoke an urgent shift in miscarriage scholarship, advocacy and clinical care - towards methodologies and protocols that incorporate the full range of miscarriage experiences; and 2. to diversify and change the public conversation. Over two years, the Project will advance a feminist approach to miscarriage rooted in bodily autonomy and lived experience, and steer miscarriage research in new intersectional and interdisciplinary directions. Ultimately, it will act as a springboard to a major future research project on ‘Pregnancy Endings’ that will explore connections between miscarriage, abortion and maternity experiences and promote a joined-up ‘full-spectrum’ model of care. To work towards these goals, the Project’s immediate core objectives are to: start bringing a wider range of miscarriage experiences to public awareness; establish an international, interdisciplinary network of miscarriage researchers to produce new intersectional research; and facilitate new dialogues between academics, clinical practitioners and miscarriage/abortion/maternity advocates. We will meet these objectives through a range of activities and outputs: an ambitious series of public engagement activities including focus-groups, a podcast series, art displays, a film screening and a photography exhibition; a top-quality website providing multi-media resources for academics, professionals and the general public; a major interdisciplinary conference culminating in a special academic journal issue; a pioneering knowledge exchange workshop with academics, clinicians and miscarriage/abortion/maternity advocates; and a co-authored interdisciplinary research article. Throughout the Project, we will challenge participants with bold and searching questions: What kind of research is needed to understand how social factors like race and class impact miscarriage experiences? How can we identify commonalities while attending to inequalities and differences? What are the connections and tensions between miscarriage and abortion advocacy? Is a more joined-up approach possible, and how might new alliances be forged? We are passionate about making real-world impact and will design our activities to benefit not only academics but also clinical practitioners, advocacy organisations, contributing artists and members of the public seeking alternative interpretative resources.    

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-06

Transport will continue to produce particulate matter (PM) even as internal combustion systems are phased out, with current research identifying that at least half of airborne PM emissions originate from non-engine sources in low emission zone compliant cars. These particulate emissions have been identified to have significant health impacts, and with no scope to displace non-tailpipe emissions future urban air quality will be impacted by these sources. As electric cars can use regenerative braking, tyre PM will become the main pollution source from the operation of future electric vehicles, however the physical mechanisms which generate this PM are not sufficiently well understood to enable engineers to design tyres to mitigate their health effects. In addition, the mechanisms by which these particulates enter the environment are complex: around 10% of tyre particulates become airborne, with the rest remaining on the road surface. Finally, generating tyre particulates in a laboratory environment is challenging, due to the need to use a realistic road surface to correctly generate representative particles. Because of the complexities involved, current discipline-specific research has focused on quantifying tyre particulate pollution, rather than quantifying the effects of this pollution. With imminent legislation looking to limit the quantity of these particulates, there is a desperate need for knowledge that can be used to select the correct metrics and design appropriate quantification approaches. Without this knowledge, transport policy has the potential to repeat previous disastrous mistakes of promoting one technology (diesel) over another (petrol) due to using the wrong metric to evaluate environmental and health impacts. A similar event could occur with tyres: current fillers used in tyres (such as carbon black) reduce tyre wear but are known to impact lung health when inhaled, so knowledge of these sorts of trade-offs between toxicity and quantity are needed to inform future policy decisions. The vision for this network is to bring together researchers working in disciplines with the potential to address the knowledge gap between tyre pollution creation and its effects on environment and health. The network will define key research questions that need to be solved before tyre pollution effects can be predicted. This network will consider the pollution challenge over a range of scales, from an individual tyre level up to city-wide. Through a series of workshops, network participants will define key challenges within and between the range of disciplines involved: disciplines which will include environmental sciences and medicine in addition to engineers and materials scientists working on rubber friction in tyres. The network will output a white paper detailing the research challenges that need solutions before in-use tyre pollution can be predicted, and a roadmap for reaching this end goal. The knowledge developed through this network will inform future research that will minimise tyre PM pollution, thus improving the air quality in urban areas and minimising the environmental impact of future transport systems. Ultimately, improving urban air quality will save lives.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-06

This project invites a variety of audiences to reassess past and present depictions of LGBTQ+ people in broadcasting through activities ranging from plays, hands-on workshops to roundtables, websites and resources for secondary schools. The project enables participants to discover how television and radio represented and moulded the lives of lesbian, gay and trans people during the twentieth century. It asks them to consider how we can reinterpret these sources in the twenty-first century and repurpose them for use on the stage, in the classroom and in public events like Pride and LGBT+ History Month. Ongoing controversies about LGBTQ+ representation in broadcasts as varied as Doctor Who and news coverage of trans teenagers make the project timely and significant for broadcasters, policy-makers and the general public. The core project team consists of the historian Marcus Collins and the dramatist Stephen Hornby. Dr Collins is an expert on postwar Britain who specialises in the histories of popular culture, sexuality and social change. As AHRC BBC Centenary Fellow in 2022, he collaborated with a dozen schools, three theatre companies, two museums, a library, a subject association, an examination board and the BBC itself to assess whether the BBC experienced a 'cultural revolution' in the 1960s. 'Re-viewing LGBTQ+ Lives' applies this experience of public engagement to the subject-matter of his forthcoming monograph Arrested Development: Queer Broadcasting in Britain from Wolfenden to AIDS to explore how lesbian and gay people fashioned identities, created communities and interacted with wider society in an age of mass communications. Dr Hornby is a multi-award winning author of nine plays who has pioneered the dramatisation of British LGBTQ+ history and whose forthcoming monograph Writing from Archives for Stage and Screen shows other playwrights and screenwriters how to research, narrativise and dramatise historical records. His latest play, The BBC's First Homosexual, is based on research on Dr Collins about the BBC's ill-starred attempt to broadcast a discussion programme about male homosexuality in the 1950s. It interweaves snippets from the original transcript and production files of the programme with a fictional account of a man learning to live with homophobia in fifties Scunthorpe and will tour as a full production across England as part of this project. Other elements of the project will be conducted in partnership with Learning on Screen, OUTing the Past and community venues including the Queer Britain Museum in London and the Proud Place in Manchester. LGBTQ+ communities will be invited to engage with their histories and to develop a shared understanding with straight people of how media representations shape and are shaped by evolving sexual identities. Secondary schoolchildren will learn to analyse texts and comprehend social change, dramatists will discover how to adapt old broadcasts into new art and researchers will be equipped to use audiovisual sources alongside written ones. In this manner, the project will showcase how 're-viewing' LGBTQ+ broadcasting can reconnect academics to non-academic audiences and effect an audiovisual turn which transforms understandings of twentieth-century culture, society and politics for everyone from schoolchildren to scholars.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-04

Environmental change is happening on a global scale. Freshwater ecosystems represent some of the most endangered habitats in the world, with declines in diversity (83% in the period 1970-2014) far exceeding that of terrestrial counterparts. One of the primary causes of reduced riverine ecosystem health is a loss of habitat associated with excessive fine sediment deposition (typically referred to as particles <2mm). Fine sediment is a natural part of river systems, however alterations to land use (e.g. intensive farming) and channelization / impoundment (via dams and reservoirs) have altered the quantity of fine sediment such that inputs now far exceed historic levels. Additionally, increasing hydrological extremes associated with climatic change, such as intense rainfall events, are likely to further increase the delivery of fine sediment to river channels. Fine sediment deposition alters and degrades instream habitats making rivers unsuitable for flora and fauna to live in. Such changes lead to reductions in the biodiversity of riverine ecosystems and affects all components of the food web from fish and insects through to algae. Understanding the ecological implications of fine sediment is therefore imperative to be able to manage our rivers so that they can support and sustain healthy ecosystem functioning and support anthropogenic activities (e.g., fisheries, recreational activities). This is however challenging because a number of environmental factors control the consequences of fine sediment for flora and fauna. The proposed Fellowship aims to understand and quantify which environmental factors (e.g. land use, size of fine sediment and of the gravels within the river, time of year) influence the severity of fine sediment deposition for river communities. Specific objectives are to (i) quantify the trends between fine sediment loading and ecological responses in the UK and internationally; (ii) determine if there is a threshold of fine sediment loading before ecological degradation occurs and how this varies within individual rivers, (iii) develop understanding of how environmental controls (e.g. grain size, hydrological exchange) structure the effects of fine sediment and; (iv) outline a future research agenda to tackle the management of fine sediment in rivers. In achieving these objectives, my Fellowship will provide a framework to determine when and which river types (e.g. highland or lowland, geology) are most at threat from fine sediment pressures internationally. The Fellowship will focus on macroinvertebrates (river invertebrates such as snails, insects and crustaceans) as a target organisms being abundant, diverse and occurring across the globe. The Fellowship represents a novel and exciting research programme with international reach and applicability that combines global datasets with multi-country field and artificial stream channel experiments (alpine and lowland) and laboratory experiments over different spatial scales to develop and validate theories spanning different environmental settings. The fellowship will lead to an exciting step-change in our understanding and will address unique fundamental research questions whilst working synergistically with UK statutory regulatory agencies and end-users such as the Environment Agency of England, Natural Resources Wales and Scottish Environmental Protection Agency. The research generated will have important ramifications for how stakeholders allocate resources to monitor and manage UK riverine ecosystems and will enable more efficient and targeted conservation and restoration plans.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-04

New heterogeneous catalysts, which are compounds that increase the rate and selectivity of a chemical reaction, are required for the transition to net-zero carbon society. A key challenge is that many catalysts are reliant on rare and expensive elements, holding back the implementation of important technologies. Yet, it has long been known that Earth abundant and affordable alkali and alkaline-earth species, such as potassium and calcium, very effectively improve the performance of catalysts or are effective catalysts in their own right. However, our understanding of how these species work and their structure within catalysts is limited. While significant work has been performed on model systems, this has yet to be translated to materials that can be applied in catalytic processes. Consequently, it is difficult to optimize and maximize the potential of these elements in producing more sustainable and affordable catalysts. The project makes use of advanced X-ray spectroscopic techniques, in conjunction with simulation, to directly characterize potassium and calcium species in catalysts for two important reactions in the production of sustainable fuels; (i) reverse water-gas shift reactions to enable carbon dioxide utilization, and (ii) coupling of bioderived alcohols to produce valuable long chain products. An important objective will be to employ X-ray spectroscopies to study the nature of potassium and calcium as the catalyst functions, under realistic reaction temperature and gas conditions. This is referred to as operando spectroscopy and provides direct evidence of what species influence catalyst performance. Combined with computer simulations of how these species promote reactions by changing their fundamental mechanism, the findings will correlate potassium or calcium speciation with performance and inform catalyst design. While established for transition metals, these approaches are underutilised for alkali species and require methodological and technological developments to achieve success. Finally, given the limited application of X-ray spectroscopies to understanding alkali and alkaline-earth specs, interpretation of data is challenging due to a lack of prior literature or databases, so we will use simulation of these spectroscopies to rationally understand the data and maximize our interpretation of results. Through a combination of catalyst synthesis, testing, X-ray spectroscopy, and computer simulations, we will rationally understand evolving structure function relationships of potassium and calcium in important net-zero enabling reactions. These results will benefit those wishing to optimize these specific catalysts in addition to those working on any catalysts system influenced by alkali or alkaline-earth species, including electro-catalysis for green hydrogen production, ammonia synthesis and catalytic oxidation for clean air applications. Beneficiaries include academics, industrial manufacturers and users of catalysts. The project will highlight the potential of X-ray spectroscopies to gain understanding of alkali and alkaline-earth species across various other functional materials including batteries and photovoltaics. Finaly, central facilities and synchrotron scientists will benefit from the methodologies developed to study and understand the spectra of group 1 and 2 elements under non-ambient conditions. Our project will form a vibrant community that combines simulation of fundamental processes (i.e kinetics and adsorption) and X-ray spectra themselves to enable complex operando experiments at challenging energies and edges.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-04

Busi-Governance: Who Plans Your City? For most of the 20th century in Canada and the UK, urban planning was managed by public sector planning departments, guided by elected officials, and informed by public input. However, this traditional model is being increasingly replaced by a broader range of actors, especially private sector players, who are now taking a leading role in urban planning and governance. Land developers, real estate investment trusts (REITs), and multinational tech companies like Google, Uber, and Airbnb are all actively involved in the planning of our cities. With the shift from public- to private-sector-led planning, concerns have arisen about the drive for profit overriding the need to deliver public good outcomes. The question of who plans your city is an increasingly important one. This shift from public to more private influence over urban planning processes shapes the form of our cities through housing and infrastructure projects. While the private sector has always played a role in urban planning, their increasing involvement, scale, and influence in the process and its outcomes is changing the nature of that role. For elected officials, civil society organizations, and community members, this change is difficult to transparently identify. This lack of transparency can impede the development of urban planning governance responses that advance the public interest. To identify urban governance systems that work, our research asks: What successful urban planning governance interventions have emerged in response to the rise of privately planned cities to uphold the public good? Our team will conduct a scoping review of literature focusing on governance interventions designed to mitigate the influence of private sector actors in urban development projects in Canada and the UK. The review will focus on articles published from 2014-2024, and include both academic research and grey literature. The data will be analyzed to identify patterns and themes related to the success or failure of these governance interventions, with the goal of identifying research gaps and informing future urban planning practices. The findings will shed light on how private sector interests are reshaping urban governance structures, housing, and infrastructure, while also offering insights into emerging interventions that aim to strengthen planning in the public interest. Ultimately, this research will provide valuable insights into how cities can navigate the complexities of private sector involvement in planning by, first, identifying the mechanisms through which private control is being exerted; next, evaluating the urban governance interventions that have been developed in response; and, finally, identifying the research gaps that present barriers to more effective urban governance. Our research team seeks to build on our findings by addressing these gaps in a future multi-country research project.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-04

Fluid movement driven by a density difference is very common. When a freezer is opened, or a window on a winter's day (a ventilation flow), you may have noticed that the dense, cold air rushes across your feet. This effect can be felt even if you are on the other side of the room, the cold air warming a little as it mixes with the warmer air above, but remaining sufficiently cool and distinct as it flows like a flood across the floor. These are part of a very broad family of fluid flows present across our homes, industries, and the wider environment, known as gravity-currents. Ventilation flows are important to understand for the spread of pathogens and disease, and cold-fronts are essentially the same but on the scale of 100-1000km. In industry, accidental spills of hazardous gas must be planned for, and suitable defences put in place. A very dangerous subset of gravity-currents are particle-driven currents, the suspended particle load providing the driving density and facilitating immense destructive power. For example, powder-snow avalanches are a hazard in mountainous regions, easily burying people and buildings. Pyroclastic density currents, searing hot clouds of ash released by volcanos and flowing out across the ground, famously buried Pompeii, leaving a city of people entombed in volcanic rock. Massive submarine turbidity-currents, >1000km long and moving at up to 10m/s, carry nutrients and carbon into the deep ocean, and have destroyed numerous cables and pipes carrying internet data or energy. Smaller (though still substantial) turbidity-currents will pose an increasing hazard to the UK as we develop deep-marine wind power, which must be connected back to shore by cables. The feasibility of these and other developments rely on our ability to predict and mitigate natural hazards. The front the current pushes aside the ambient fluid, and it is the dynamics here which determine the rate of advance of the current. In addition, this region is a principal source of mixing, and for some currents it is also a region in which there is intense erosion of the bed. As the current mixes with the fluid around it, it becomes more dilute, and the current becomes bigger while simultaneously having a reduced driving density. Conversely, as it erodes the bed the driving density increases. Thus, the front exerts a very strong control on the advance of the current, and the mixing and erosional processes are a critical part of this. However, to date these processes have not been included in the mathematical models that are designed to predict these currents, which has limited their applicability to flows over short distances so that the mixing does not substantially affect on the overall density. Additionally, the front of the current is the most dangerous part: the same processes that enable the rapid erosion of the bed can facilitate immense destructive power. In this fundamental scientific study, I will develop novel mathematical models that capture the dynamics of the front of a gravity-current, including the mixing and erosional processes. First, experimental work using newly developed techniques will yield data of unprecedented quality for a cool, temperature driven current, measuring the details of the vortices and mixing in both the head of the current and throughout. Additional experiments will focus on capturing the details of the erosional processes in sediment-driven currents. Informed by these measurements, I will capture the vital aspects of the dynamics of the head within a new mathematical model, for the first time including the mixing and erosional processes. Finally, the model of the head will be combined with a model for the rest of the current, which I developed previously, to give a complete model that can predict the motion of the current. This urgently required project represents a substantial leap-forward in our understanding and predictive power for this important and dangerous class of flows.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-03

Over 69 million people are affected by traumatic brain injuries (TBIs)1 around the world. The cost to the global economy is estimated at £350 billion2. In the UK, TBI is the leading cause of death and disability in people under-forty with an annual economic burden of £15 billion3. These TBIs are mainly caused by falls, traffic accidents involving vulnerable road users (e.g., cyclists) and sport/recreation. Mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBIs), such as concussions, account for up to 90% of all TBI cases presenting to hospital and around 50% of adults take more than six months to fully recover2. Across many activities and occupations, helmets are used to reduce the risk of TBIs and in cycling for example, have been found to be most effective against moderate and severe TBIs4. However, making them effective against all severities of TBIs is a major challenge. Their design intent relies on scientific understanding of the underlying injury mechanisms and how to best represent them with test methods that allow for meaningful evaluations of the helmet’s performance to be measured. Current evaluation methods are limited in the following ways: real-world impact conditions that result in injury are rarely quantified; only head-first severe cases are represented and; the surrogates used do not adequately represent the human’s biomechanical response to impact. Significantly, the role of the neck and its influence on the head’s response is often not included. Therefore, the objective of this research is to make a significant step towards the realisation of next generation helmets through: quantifying impact conditions using real-world video and embedded sensor data; new test methods that represent the varied conditions of real-world collisions; digital twin services that enable manufacturers to evaluate new materials and designs prior to volume manufacture and; establishing the foundations of world-class testing facilities for helmet capability evaluations. Given the UK’s push towards active mobility with its associated health and wellbeing benefits and positive contribution to net zero carbon targets, this research will focus on cycling helmets. UK cycling participation has more than doubled compared with pre-COVID times, and is predicted to continue to grow. Cycling is however, a leading cause of mTBIs5 and with increased participation comes increased exposure to injury risk. To contribute towards effective helmet design, this research will address the shortcomings of current helmet evaluation methods. Firstly, it will use video and embedded helmet sensors to quantify impact parameters, as recommended in the 2022 Lancet Neurology Commissions on TBIs report2. Secondly, it will develop body-first test apparatus to evaluate helmet performance across the varied scenarios experienced in the real-world. Finally, it will use a biomechanically representative surrogate neck with tuneable posture, stiffness and range of motion to investigate the neck’s influence on rotational response of the head, which is commonly associated with mTBI risk5. This research will result in new test methods with appropriate representation of the real-world collision case. It will improve understanding of mTBI injury mechanisms and enable the development of targeted helmet technologies to protect against it. This project is timely and could reduce the socio-economic cost of TBIs on an international level.   1Dewan MC, et al. 2018; DOI: 10.3171/2017.10.JNS17352 2Lancet Neurology. 2022; DOI: 10.1016/S1474-4422(22)00309-X 3Parsonage M. Traumatic brain injury and offending: an economic analysis. Centre for mental health 4Sone et al. 2017; DOI: 10.3171/2016.2.JNS151972 5Bland et al. 2020; DOI: 10.1007/s10439-019-02330-0

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-03

Polymer nanoparticles – small balls of polymer that have diameters around one thousand times less than the thickness of a human hair – are used in a wide variety of applications, from drug carrier and delivery systems, medical imaging techniques (such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) contrast agents) all the way to engine oil additives. Smart polymers – materials that can change their properties on response to changes in temperature or acidity for example – are becoming more widely used in these applications, offering advantages such as controlled release of drugs or selective thickening of liquids. These smart polymers typically have an unreactive coating – often known as a stealth polymer – to shield from unwanted interactions with their surroundings. However, if the correct balance of smart polymer with unreactive shell within the particles is not achieved, problems can occur such as; rapid clearance by the liver or cell death (in drug delivery and imaging) or irreversible binding to surfaces (in oil additives and recovery). In this project computer simulations will be coupled with practical experiments, to predict what the outside of a smart polymer particle will look like when it responds to its environmental conditions. This will allow us to predict when the surface will change, and design more effective, safer smart polymer particles for use in drug delivery, imaging and oil additives.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-03

Context: This project will create a proof of concept for an innovative Museum of AI Cultures (MAIC). AI is typically integrated into heritage settings for the purpose of analysing user experience, enhancing collection management, extending curation, and exhibiting generative AI. The originality of this project lies in its participatory approach to modelling a new museum that (i) engages publics in conversations about AI; (ii) devises novel approaches to exhibiting cultural artefacts produced by or with AI; and (iii) integrates AI into its practical operation to produce an audience-responsive institution. Challenges: The project addresses three important challenges: Imposition of AI: Much information about AI is generated by companies with a vested interest in how technology is perceived and/or used by audiences. Countering this, the project will create the prototype of a responsive, ethical, and sustainable museum model that explores and exhibits the social, scientific, and aesthetic roles of AI in contemporary societies ('AI cultural heritage'); Audience participation. Through interactive workshops with publics, artists, and museum professionals, the project opens new dialogues with and about AI through collaborative making and story-telling. Workshop data from events with heritage-specialist Project Partners will shape the mission statement and design of the museum model and ensure that the proposed institution’s beneficiaries determine its ambitions, collections, and programming; Technological Transparency. The project addresses the 'black box' aspect of technological integration into museum settings by modelling an interactive testing ground for audiences' uses of, and engagement with, AI. This involves the transformation of complex computer science into meaningful museum narratives that privilege human experience in a new techno-heritage context. Aims and Objectives: Our interdisciplinary team will collaborate with museum specialists to model an adventurous Museum of AI Cultures that is transparent and responsive to user needs. This dynamic, computer-based representation will simulate human behaviour in a new heritage environment, accurately model real-world outcomes, and enable us to evaluate the composition, content, and curation of the proposed physical museum. The project's primary objectives are to: Objective 1: model an innovative new museum in which AI responsibly analyses audience experience for the purpose of continuously upgrading itself; Objective 2: collaborate with museum professionals to design audience-centred programmes that exhibit algorithmic artefacts and narratives about AI; Objective 3: co-create an inclusive technological heritage with museum specialists and publics that privileges novel audience engagements with AI; Objective 4: adopt a transparent approach to the application and mediation of technologies; Objective 5: develop strategies for using and exhibiting AI in ways that augment human expertise and remain subject to oversight by museum beneficiaries. Application and Benefits: This project offers solutions to urgent problems at the intersection of science and heritage by generating new and inclusive discourses about AI that will engage publics, artists, museum professionals, researchers, and policy makers. The museum model will serve as the prototype for a physical Museum of AI Cultures to be based at Loughborough University, ultimately contributing to the levelling up of UK regions by creating an innovative cultural institution outside the South East.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-03

The amount of data generated in the last decade has significantly increased, putting pressure on modern nanoelectronics to move beyond silicon technology and harness quantum technologies for next-generation computing, sensing, and information communication technologies. However, several bottlenecks are associated with transforming these quantum technologies into practical applications, including sensitivity to electrical/thermal noise, the external environment, and large-scale integration into everyday computing devices. We propose using two-dimensional quantum materials to address these challenges and showcase efficient magnetic recording technologies that utilise symmetry-demanded spin currents in topological quantum materials. We aim to create highly effective spintronic devices using Weyl semimetals and demonstrate the possibility of magnetic-field-free switching of nanomagnets at extremely low current densities. This breakthrough will significantly impact spintronics and other alternative computing technologies. To achieve this, it is essential to (i) establish ultra-clean spintronic interfaces and optimise the conditions for the efficient charge-to-spin conversion process in Weyl semimetal and ferromagnetic systems and (ii) use these spin currents to manipulate nanomagnetic bits that arise due to the underlying crystalline symmetry of low-dimensional topological materials. The newly established experimental capability at Loughborough – a multi-chamber system with in-situ manipulation, patterning, and electronic characterisation of two-dimensional nanodevices – enables us to engineer multifunctional nanodevices without exposure to air and, therefore, preserve their quantum properties for spintronics.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-03

The project investigates the use of nonlinear parametric generation in micro-resonators, for future networks, focusing on the integration of classical and quantum channels within a single, compact microcomb source. Such a source will enable the distribution of both an ultraprecise clock signal for ultradense optical communication and quantum-secure information. Microcombs are optical sources that produce equally spaced frequencies using compact microcavities, with key impacts in metrology and quantum optics. Our approach explores novel topologically protected regimes arising from the interplay between topology and nonlinearity sustained by cavity solitons—microcomb states characterised by high spectral efficiency and resilience to perturbations. These features make them particularly suited for applications requiring robust and precise control, such as metrology, and we envision their application in quantum optics. Quantum communication is a priority within the National Quantum Technology Programme for both Canada and the UK (QT Mission 2). Hence, the development of practical quantum sources compatible with classical networks is a key technology in these areas. Moreover, the project envisions a system capable of transmitting ultraprecise clock signals, directly targeting UK QT Mission 4 on position, navigation, and timing, and network synchronisation under UK QT Mission 5. The primary objectives are: to validate the topological protection of quantum states, to generate combined classical and quantum microcombs, to lock classical microcomb states to atomic references, and to validate the persistence of quantum microcomb channels when the classical comb is locked to the metrological reference. To meet these goals, our research leverages a nested-cavity microcomb laser to achieve simultaneous generation of a primary comb for synchronisation with atomic references and quantum-correlated photons in different channels of the same nonlinear microcavity. The topological protection inherent in this design isolates the classical and quantum combs in distinct resonator modes, overcoming challenges related to crosstalk and ensuring the stability of quantum channels in the presence of classical signals. Moreover, the quantum states are pumped directly by the classical state oscillating in the microcomb. Such a source enables new kinds of classical-quantum sources and has important potential for future telecommunications, requiring ultrafast data synchronisation and quantum-secure protocols within the same networks. To realise the topological approach, a main oscillating microcomb in the microcavity sustains secondary states with a phase shift in one loop significantly different from 0 (i.e., a large fraction of p). These states exist due to a field transformation in the cavity (a topology), allowing the optical path to close in more than one cavity round-trip. In the literature, this has been realised in so-called Möbius topologies, where these modes oscillate in equivalent 'cavities' that exist and are protected by the system's nonlinearity. Key to exploiting this regime is a setting in which those modes are below the oscillation threshold and are kept fed only by spontaneous conversion of the comb lines. Our investigation, combining theoretical and experimental approaches, will characterise the stability, efficiency, coherence, and correlation properties of these microcombs, assessing their potential for integration into existing networking infrastructures. This project leverages the joint expertise of Canadian and UK researchers in quantum and lasing microcombs, providing a strong foundation of established knowledge and research infrastructure. The outcomes will significantly advance the development of quantum technologies and their application in the next generation of communication networks.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-02

This project breaks new ground in exploring a hitherto understudied aspect of Cold War History - the competition between the Soviet and Chinese models of socialism in Africa. We use Tanzania as a case study to examine the connection between global and local factors and to analyse tangible interactions "on the ground", highlighting the agency of African actors and their ability to navigate between the two socialist powers and use them to their own ends. Finally, we draw attention to the fact that in forging ties with Africa, the Soviet Union showcased its Central Asian republics as models for a successful socialist modernisation. We will contrast this with the PRC's focus on its Han-majority areas in highlighting the commonalities of the Chinese and African experiences, such as the trauma of imperialism/colonialism, anti-imperialist resistance and developmental models. The project relies on the collection and evaluation of a wide range of unpublished and published documents from archives and libraries in China, Germany, Tanzania, the UK, the United States and, importantly, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, two former Soviet republics in Central Asia whose archives and libraries hold relevant materials pertaining to the Soviet era. In addition, members of the project team will conduct interviews in China, Kazakhstan, Tanzania and Uzbekistan. Examining a broad mix of sources will help to overcome difficulties of access or information gathering associated with one specific type of source, strengthening the robustness of our approach. Owing to the complexities of the topic, as well as the varied language expertise it requires, the organisation of the project is based on the principle of division of labour. The research team will consist of a UK sub-team focusing on the Chinese side and a German sub-team focusing on the Soviet side. This both necessitates and strengthens the ties between a UK and a German research institution and between the UK and German research more generally. The inclusion of a Tanzanian early career scholar, who will be formally integrated into the German sub-team but will also make his expertise available to the UK sub-team, not only complements the existing expertise of the UK and German sides and critically adds a local, African and non-Eurocentric perspective. It will also help to extend the research collaboration between a UK and German institution towards partners in the Global South. The overall aim of the project is to make a significant contribution to the existing knowledge about the global Cold War and African decolonisation, furthering the understanding of processes that continued to impact the world today. To achieve this, the applicants have taken steps to disseminate their findings from as early as possible. A workshop and an international conference will make the project visible to the scholarly community but will also be accessible to potential stakeholders outside academia. One online primary source edition (accessible to the general public), one conference volume and one monograph will synthesise the outcomes of the project. Specific findings will be published in the form of 8 journal articles and 2 PhD theses (which, in accordance with German regulations, will also be published).

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-02

Hydrogen production via water electrolysis technology has been a major focus of discussions for practical carbon-neutral transportation fuel and a key component for other chemical syntheses for the past decade. Particularly, Africa’s total announced electrolyser pipeline capacity has reached 114 gigawatts. However, the costs of water electrolysis to be reported in the range of 2-5 £/kg H2, which is still twice as expensive as the existing fossil fuel-based technologies. Among various electrolyser technologies for hydrogen production, alkaline water electrolysis is considered to be the most mature type for industrial scale-up and has strong cost-effectiveness. Despite these advantages, its cold-start nature, unfortunately, requires a certain ramping-up time (approximately 1 hour). This makes it challenging to integrate with renewable energy sources, which are difficult to predict. Alkaline water electrolysis at elevated starting temperatures offers a promising solution to enhance catalytic reactivity and reduce required electric energy, increasing cost-effectiveness. The cobalt- and nickel-based catalysts, known for their prominent temperature dependence, could be the key to enhancing the hydrogen production rate. In this study, we aim to establish a feasible fabrication method of temperature-sensitive catalysts for alkaline water electrolysis and to explore the multi-element catalysts' physical and chemical bonding structure change at elevated temperature conditions. Exploring the underlying mechanism of intrinsic kinetics change is a challenging yet crucial step towards more efficient and cost-effective hydrogen production. The ultimate goal of the proposed collaboration entitled "Temperature-sensitive Earth-abundant Catalysts for green HYDROgen production (TECHydro)" is not to develop new catalysts but to discover new combinations that have a high-temperature sensitivity and explore underlying principles, giving rise to fresh perspectives of the developed catalyst for their application to AWE. The outcomes will provide a methodological achievement in cost-effective catalyst preparation. Moreover, the project will make a rigid bridge for further joint-research funding applications and staff exchange between African (South Africa and Kenya) and UK partners. We believe that the outcomes of this study could set benchmarks for hydrogen production that operates more efficiently in South Africa and Kenya's hot climate, contributing to the global transition towards a hydrogen economy.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-01

Flooding is the deadliest and most costly natural hazard on the planet, affecting societies across the globe. Nearly one billion people are exposed to the risk of flooding in their lifetimes and around 300 million are impacted by floods in any given year. The impacts on individuals and societies are extreme: each year there are over 6,000 fatalities and economic losses exceed US$60 billion. These problems will become much worse in the future. There is now clear consensus that climate change will, in many parts of the globe, cause substantial increases in the frequency of occurrence of extreme rainfall events, which in turn will generate increases in peak flood flows and therefore flood vast areas of land. Meanwhile, societal exposure to this hazard is compounded still further as a result of population growth and encroachment of people and key infrastructure onto floodplains. Faced with this pressing challenge, reliable tools are required to predict how flood hazard and exposure will change in the future. Existing state-of-the-art Global Flood Models (GFMs) are used to simulate the probability of flooding across the Earth, but unfortunately they are highly constrained by two fundamental limitations. First, current GFMs represent the topography and roughness of river channels and floodplains in highly simplified ways, and their relatively low resolution inadequately represents the natural connectivity between channels and floodplains. This restricts severely their ability to predict flood inundation extent and frequency, how it varies in space, and how it depends on flood magnitude. The second limitation is that current GFMs treat rivers and their floodplains essentially as 'static pipes' that remain unchanged over time. In reality, river channels evolve through processes of erosion and sedimentation, driven by the impacts of diverse environmental changes (e.g., climate and land use change, dam construction), and leading to changes in channel flow conveyance capacity and floodplain connectivity. Until GFMs are able to account for these changes they will remain fundamentally unsuitable for predicting the evolution of future flood hazard, understanding its underlying causes, or quantifying associated uncertainties. To address these issues we will develop an entirely new generation of Global Flood Models by: (i) using Big Data sets and novel methods to enhance substantially their representation of channel and floodplain morphology and roughness, thereby making GFMs more morphologically aware; (ii) including new approaches to representing the evolution of channel morphology and channel-floodplain connectivity; and (iii) combining these developments with tools for projecting changes in catchment flow and sediment supply regimes over the 21st century. These advances will enable us to deliver new understanding on how the feedbacks between climate, hydrology, and channel morphodynamics drive changes in flood conveyance and future flooding. Moreover, we will also connect our next generation GFM with innovative population models that are based on the integration of satellite, survey, cell phone and census data. We will apply the coupled model system under a range of future climate, environmental and societal change scenarios, enabling us to fully interrogate and assess the extent to which people are exposed, and dynamically respond, to evolving flood hazard and risk. Overall, the project will deliver a fundamental change in the quantification, mapping and prediction of the interactions between channel-floodplain morphology and connectivity, and flood hazard across the world's river basins. We will share models and data on open source platforms. Project outcomes will be embedded with scientists, global numerical modelling groups, policy-makers, humanitarian agencies, river basin stakeholders, communities prone to regular or extreme flooding, the general public and school children.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-01

Radiotherapy (RT) is a mainstay of modern cancer treatment. Conventionally, RT is delivered to the patient lying on a treatment couch, while a beam steering device (gantry) aims the radiation from any angle around the target. Positioning the patients in upright body posture (upRT) instead enables to orient the patient arbitrarily toward a fixed beam. This enables smaller facility footprint and reduced treatment cost, placing upRT in the core of the UN sustainable development goals, and opening global access to advanced treatment options: 80% of cancer patients live in countries which host only 5% of the world's RT resources. Moreover, upRT improves patient comfort and is associated with anatomical and physiological advantages, such as reduced breathing motion. It therefore comes as no surprise that, with new upright patient positioning & imaging solutions entering the market, upRT is enjoying a surge in interest. Yet, key scientific questions remain, international guidelines for upRT are lacking, and existing RT workflows are geared to lying patients. As the first clinics adopt new upRT technologies, there is a global need for trained professionals in industry, clinics and academia, to reach the promised benefits for patient care. UPLIFT builds this next generation of experts by addressing key research questions related to: treatment planning, clinical workflow and equipment design. Leveraging latest upRT technology available through our world-class consortium, UPLIFT propels Europe to the forefront of the upRT paradigm shift. UPLIFT focuses on: Learning (through its academic and clinical centres of excellence); Innovation (through its leading industrial partners); Fellowship & Training (through an outstanding cross-sector programme of workshops, secondments & mentoring). Input from patient advocacy groups and an internationally renowned advisory board will maximise its impact. UPLIFT will revolutionize modern RT, making it more human, accessible and sustainable.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-12

This Core Equipment Award will enable Loughborough University to purchase nine items of multiuser equipment underpinning our engineering and physical sciences research and active EPSRC funding portfolio. The equipment will enhance and extend the reach of recent institutional investments in our STEM infrastructure and equipment, supporting key research areas under Loughborough’s Research and Innovation strategy ‘Creating Better Futures. Together’ and strongly aligning to one of our three core strategic themes ‘Climate change and Net Zero’. The equipment will be carefully embedded within dedicated spaces of our facilities ecosystem to maximise usage, ensuring efficient staffing support and provision of consumables resources across the different engineering and physical sciences disciplines and fields. Adopting this centrally co-ordinated and institution-wide approach to core equipment will facilitate new research collaborations within academia and with industry partners. The equipment requested in this application will optimise our internal capability and breadth of capacity and will additionally increase our ability to support academic, postdoctoral and technical staff. The training needs of our doctoral researcher community will be fully supported through prioritised time allocation on dedicated equipment and provision of training and development workshops, as well as opportunities to work alongside academic and technical mentors for all Early Career Researchers and students. The selected equipment includes an enhancement of our mass spectrometry capability which is needed to support our growing environmental research activities spanning multiple Schools and research groups across the University, ranging from Chemistry and Physics to Physical Geography, Chemical Engineering, the Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology (CREST) and the Water Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC). Our multi-user facility for thin film deposition and lithography will be substantially expanded and enhanced through the purchase of a new Reactive Ion Etcher and a maskless Microwriter. This will support the thin film and lithography infrastructure established in the Physics Department extending resolution from ~200 nm to 20 nm and will enable our upcoming early career researchers working across our Physics, Chemistry and Engineering departments to flourish. The award will also support growing demand for our multi-user access facility in thin film and lithography as well as creation of a cross-university ‘Advanced Smart Textile Facility.’ Together these investments will enable accelerated scale-up of current research and innovation endeavours and provide a set of Research Technical Professional-led platforms to support collaborative research across the university, alongside bespoke researcher training and broader career development pathways.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-12

The transport of sediment by environmental flows shapes the world around us. Our ability to predict sediment transport is therefore key to a range of disciplines and sectors, and is critical to water, energy and food security. For example, accurate sediment transport prediction is key in the management of natural environments, screening and mitigation of geohazard risks, design and operation of offshore windfarms and exploitation of natural resources. Research in these areas directly addresses key UK and global challenges, including clean and secure energy, geohazard resilience and ecosystem management in changing natural and societal environments. Despite its clear importance, state-of-the-art predictive sediment transport models are still based on a century-old paradigm, recognised as flawed, and of limited applicability, even when first proposed. Therefore, our current ability to predict sediment transport in real-world environments is limited. Predicting sediment transport is dependent on understanding how much material is kept aloft, suspended in flowing water. Current models of sediment suspension are inaccurate, dependent on a model of mixing of slowly-settling particles, over vanishingly small length-scales, by random fluid motion (turbulence). However, recognised even when first developed, these models are based on flawed assumptions of the role and scale of turbulence in real-world flows. Moreover, recent research spanning earth sciences and mathematics highlights that chaotic, turbulent fluid motion is not always entirely random. Under many conditions coherent structures can develop, and in atmospheric flows it has been shown that coherent structures result in self-organisation. The emergence of self-organisation from chaos is fascinating, operating against preconceived notions of increasing entropy, and hinting at higher levels of physical complexity than is currently understood. Building on my multidisciplinary background, covering mathematics and earth sciences, and collaborating with international experts in academia and industry, I will undertake the first study of the development of coherent structures and self-organisation in sediment-laden environmental flows. To achieve this, this Fellowship aims to integrate recent developments in theoretical and empirical research of turbulent flows - with the objective of making a step-change in the way in which sediment suspensions are modelled. Such integrated research is not only crucial, but it is also timely, only now possible due to scientific and technological advances made in the past decade. Critical to this is University of Hull commitment to directly support development of a globally unique stratified flow facility for studying suspended sediment transport. Moreover, I will advance the Fellowship research to study real-world systems, where the composition of sediment suspensions vary, enabling impact across the applied sciences. Working with international collaborators, I will apply these sediment transport models to help constrain the magnitude and frequency of geohazard risk posed by environmental flows. Synergistic to the Fellowship 2xPhDs , funded by the University of Hull, will facilitate impact as students will apply Fellowship research to address challenges in energy security, geohazard resilience and ecosystem management. Direct engagement with academic, industrial and government collaborators will maximise impact throughout the Fellowship. Collaboration will enable me to naturally develop a Centre for Environmental Fluid Dynamics at the University of Hull, which I will use to develop and broaden Fellowship research studying the impact of the built environment, e.g. offshore windfarms, on environmental flows and the mechanics of high-concentration flows. Thus, this Fellowship, and subsequent research, will enable me to address current and future societal challenges in earth surface science as a research leader in environmental fluid dynamics.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-09

Young forced migrants experience significant challenges to their wellbeing as a result of traumatic displacement experiences, loss and destruction of home, and separation from and or/death of family and friends (Chase & Alsopp, 2020). These challenges are exacerbated in the UK due to long asylum waiting times, fragmented social networks, social exclusion, and poverty, often resulting in a lack of safety, mental health issues, loneliness, and reduced quality of life (Chase, 2013). There is growing interest in understanding how community sport and leisure may support the wellbeing of young forced migrants. While sport can enhance wellbeing through fostering social interaction, belonging, and positive emotions, programmes are often delivered from the top-down to asylum -seeking young males, with limited attention directed toward how sport may enhance and restrict the wellbeing of diverse forced migrant groups (Spaaij et al., 2019). Thus, sport can also be a site for social exclusion and re-traumatization, which may be particularly problematic for marginalized young refugees who have experienced trauma (Nunn et al., 2022). My timely PhD research used participatory approaches, involving young people and community partners throughout the research process, to explore community sport, leisure, and wellbeing in the lives of young forced migrants in the UK. The proposed fellowship activities aim to facilitate my transition to being a world-leading early-career researcher in sport, forced migration studies, and participatory methodologies. To achieve this aim, I will: (1) Develop my publication track record, enhance research leadership skills, and promote research excellence in forced migration and sport through disseminating PhD and postdoctoral findings in high-impact journals, at national/international academic conferences, and through leading the creation of a special issue on youth forced migration, leisure and sport. (2) Expand collaborative partnerships with academics, third-sector and public organizations, and policy makers, and work with partners to widely disseminate PhD findings to inform national and international policy and practice. I will deliver regional workshops for sport for development practitioners on sport and leisure programming for young forced migrants and co-create policy guidance. (3) Conduct further research related to my PhD to strengthen the foundation for future grant applications and develop specialized participatory analysis and co-authorship skills. LGBTQI+ young forced migrants experience unique challenges to their wellbeing, yet this population has been under-explored in research and there are significant gaps in service provision (Yarwood et al., 2022). To build foundational knowledge and inform the development of sport/ leisure services for this population, I will conduct pilot participatory research with key stakeholders and young people exploring wellbeing and experiences in sport and leisure activities. (4) Build from the pilot research to develop funding applications for a prestigious early career award to enable my transition to independent researcher. Applications will be co-developed with an advisory group of practitioners and academic mentors in this field. Through these activities, I will advance knowledge in this pressing research area, inform policy and practice to enable young forced migrants to lead a life that they value, and establish myself as a future research leader.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-09

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 2024 · 2024-09

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

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-09

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimated that bacterial biofilms are involved in 65% of microbial diseases and in more than 80% of chronic infections. Most of the existing antimicrobial strategies are to develop coatings that release chemical agents such as antibiotics and silver ions to kill the bacteria. However, these chemical-based bactericidal strategies can often contribute to the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The development of AMR presents a global challenge that threatens to undermine many of the advances of modern medicine, with the consequential massive human and financial costs . It is expected that AMR will kill more people than cancer and diabetes combined by 2050 by World Health Organisation (WHO). Therefore, there is a pressing need to develop novel strategies to kill bacteria without involving antibiotics. Recently, bio-inspired nanostructures have been proposed to kill bacteria by mechanically rupturing bacteria cell wall, which represents a novel approach to tackle biofilm infection. However, these nanostructure's antimicrobial efficiency varies significantly between bacterial species, which hinders their future applications. To predict the complicated bacterial killing process by nanostructures and aid the development of next generation of structured surface to enable efficient antimicrobial for a wide spectrum of bacteria, it is essential to understand the mechanics of bacteria envelop with different structures. Therefore, this fellowship aims to determine stiffness and viscosity of key subcellular structures of bacteria, determine the mechanical strength of different bacteria and predict bacterial death on various nanostructures based on bacterial mechanical properties, which has never been achieved before.