LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-08

The Parliamentary Thematic Research Lead on AI and Digital, will be embedded in the UK Parliament, working alongside parliamentary staff. This lead role will bring the research perspective to work carried out by select committees, libraries and Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST). The role will include leading horizon scanning and futures work and supporting parliamentary staff to take a strategic approach to planning their work programmes, including supporting the development of committee Areas of Research Interest. The Thematic Research Lead will identify upcoming needs for Parliamentary Academic Fellows and opportunities for co-production of briefings between academics and Parliamentary staff. They will connect and expand their networks (including research, learned societies and industry) to support parliamentary activities and will liaise with those in the Government CSA Network team. This will enhance engagement with those working in research to policy, fostering collaboration and knowledge exchange. The Thematic Research Lead will liaise with UKRI and its research councils to enable increased parliamentary impact of UKRI investments. They will share insights from Parliament back to the research councils and UKRI; by doing so, they will contribute to the development of the research-policy ecosystem. The Thematic Research Lead will support with identifying the skills and experience needs of members of the parliamentary thematic team and relevant development and training opportunities. They will also help to identify opportunities for secondments, placements or people-exchanges both into and out of Parliament. Beyond working in their policy area, the Thematic Research Lead will work as part of a network with the other Thematic Research Leads to identify cross-cutting opportunities or issues and develop strategic responses, share information, learning, insights and best practice.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-08

How do entrepreneurial projects driven by regenerative goals to renew and restore the environment lead to tangible new products, services and systems? Guided by this overarching research question, Becoming Regenerative (B-Regen) seeks to empirically unravel how regenerative innovations emerge. It will achieve this aim by investigating - in unprecedented detail - the work of pioneering entrepreneurs across fields such as biodesign, sustainable fashion, product design and architecture. Stepping into the flow of a total of 45-50 innovation journeys that involve both human and nonhuman co-creators, activities in the lab and 'in the wild' as well as complex entrepreneurial dilemmas, this study will be among the first to unpack how incipient regenerative ideas find expression and traction in the real world (or fail to do so), within a changing innovation economy that may be becoming more receptive to regenerative creativity. B-Regen will contribute to the emerging regenerative sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation literatures as well as to organisational creativity research by addressing the following gaps and needs: -General paucity of process-oriented, empirical research and data on regenerative creativity, innovation and design (amid a heightened awareness of the need to respect planetary boundaries, align with living systems and restore ecological damage). We will offer the first rigorous study that opens up regenerative creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation from a longitudinal, process-based - rather than prescriptive - perspective. -Lack of criticality within the regenerative discourse. We challenge and extend the regenerative literature by empirically and critically interrogating the entire regenerative innovation journey including its many tensions and complexities such as (potentially clashing) commercial, social and ecological objectives. -Prevalence of single-domain and single-case approaches. We will examine regenerative innovation across multiple areas of practice (from biodesign and fashion to architecture and product design), overcoming the biases and limitations of narrower, single-domain approaches. -Limited accessibility of the regenerative field despite its growing importance. Our research and dissemination activities will render the emerging area of regenerative innovation far more accessible to a wide range of actors in the innovation economy, to help promote rapid transitions to regenerative sustainability across diverse fields and organisations of all types and sizes. Our work is driven by the following research questions: RQ1. How do regenerative innovations emerge? In other words, how does the journey to regenerative innovation flow from the discovery of regenerative potentials (the creative phase) to their actualisation (the entrepreneurial phase)? This is our overarching research question. RQ2. How do instances of human-nonhuman co-creation - of new materials, products, services and systems - shape the regenerative creative journey? What is the role of empathetic and imaginative interspecies interactions herein? RQ3. How does a regenerative project gain traction and grow through entrepreneurial work that requires human creators to address complex tensions, trade-offs and dilemmas? Beyond generating a minimum of 8-10 submissions to competitive journals at the intersection of organisation science, entrepreneurship studies and sustainability, our research will produce a public-facing monograph and a large volume of compelling online content while also directly informing the co-design of innovation communities and supportive service ecosystems (in the UK) that can directly accelerate the development of regenerative projects and companies amid growing demand and social-ecological urgency. As such, B-Regen seeks to offer excellent value for money in terms of pioneering scholarly research, high-quality data and impact.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-06

This research comprises two strands: the creation of a unique tire spray rig and a world leading experimental database of NWTF aerodynamic research data. The first strand will allow real sensors from road vehicle Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) to be tested in water sprays from rotating car wheels. In wet conditions there can be a significant reduction in visibility caused by the spray from other vehicles. Whilst this is dangerous to the human driver, it can become critical for ADAS systems and could constrain the future operational use of full Autonomous Driving Systems. It is not only obscuration that is problematic, an ADAS sensor that 'imagines' a vehicle due to the density of spray and initiates emergency breaking could also cause unnecessary accidents. Understanding the limits of such systems in adverse weather conditions is vital in the development process so that appropriate mitigation actions can be taken. The Experimental Database strand creates a digital infrastructure to ensure that expensive and time-consuming aerodynamic tests can be fully exploited by the user community. It builds upon and complements the existing EPSRC NWTF network grant with the ambition of creating a world leading portal to access high quality aerodynamics data. It will also create two reference models and test across a number of UK low speed wind tunnels to assess their strengths and weaknesses.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-06

Global energy sustainability, achieving net-zero carbon emissions, and energy security are overarching societal challenges. Solar currently provides 5% of the UK's electricity and is expanding five-fold to 70 GW by 2035. The cost of solar electricity is now often cheaper than fossil fuel-generated electricity without subsidy, thus providing a solution to achieving net-zero. The UK is an essential participant across the solar value stream and a recognised leader in solar research and innovation. Key facets of the UK solar industry are world-class: specialised glass materials manufacturing, new solar materials development, analytics, new approaches to maximise ecological benefits, asset management, and solar power plant design, development and installation. The solar industry alone is expected to require 60,000 jobs in the UK by 2035. Many of these are high paying careers. An additional 6000 new engineering graduates are needed in the solar sector to achieve the 2035 goals. The significant impediment to solar achieving a preeminent role in the UK energy mix is the deficit of knowledgeable workers. The increasing complexity of solar installations will require additional interdisciplinary skills that can be successfully applied at a systems level. New and existing solar professionals will need a meaningful, practical knowledge of such diverse topics including modules, installation approaches, and performance analytics, ecological consequences, policy, finance among others. This Sustainable Solar Energy Systems (SES) Network Plus will develop an industrially facing, practical coalition for skills and workforce development to enable widespread solar implementation and ultimately net-zero in the UK. The Network will create, coalesce and share both new knowledge and best practice through skills development programmes. These will be open to Early Career Researchers and industry professionals looking to expand their capabilities. Rather than focus on a single topic, these programs will present a systems perspective giving the participants an interdisciplinary understanding. We will develop a Network Plus drawn from Universities, Industry, Government, Finance, and the legal profession involved in solar implementation and systems development. The SES Network will provide participants with the tools to understand and interact across this broad landscape. Activities will include: Industry Led Skills Development Workshops bringing best practices and new solar specific "add on" skills to jump-start and promote careers in the solar industry. Innovation Support Programs: This new seed fund will support innovation needed by the industry while fostering collaboration between diverse stakeholders. A new Peer To Peer Mentoring Program will support the dissemination of best industry practices, extend the learning from the workshops while promoting the participation of underrepresented groups. An industry-aligned International Travel Fund will enable travel to key conferences, industry events and training opportunities not directly sponsored by the Network. An Industrial Secondment Fund will allow participants to develop solar specific skills through internships at leading companies active in the solar value stream. Public policy and engagement approaches will be developed to more broadly promote the need for solar and interdisciplinary skills development.