University of Stirling

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2026 · 2026-06

Ensuring a sustainable supply of healthy and nutritious food is one of the most critical challenges facing the world. With increasing pressures on terrestrial space, marine fish aquaculture has been identified as an essential route to increase food production. However, climate change poses a severe threat as fish production is highly sensitive to the environment. Traditional aquaculture climate change assessments focus on global or regional scale analysis using long-term decadal averages, and do not capture the environmental variability and the multiple stressors that influence fish production. As a result, impact assessments lack the necessary detail for action, and progress on climate change adaptation has been slow, leaving the marine aquaculture sector vulnerable to climate stressors such as increasing sea temperatures. Industry and policymakers are now demanding urgent access to reliable information, evidence-based approaches, and robust tools that will allow them to better understand how farm environments are changing, the implications for future fish production, and the potential options for adaptation. The overall vision of my Future Leaders Fellowship (FLF) is to deliver a rigorous scientific framework for assessing the impact of climate change on marine aquaculture that allows the industry to respond and adapt in a responsible manner. The research integrates detailed analysis of what is happening in the complex farm system now, with future farm-level projections of climate change and potential stakeholder response. Atlantic salmon, the world’s most produced marine finfish species, and the UK’s top food export is the primary focus. The underlying principles and information are also highly relevant and applicable to other farmed species and aquaculture production systems. The intention is to disrupt current approaches that are stifling progress on climate adaptation, by providing the industry-relevant knowledge and tools for robust, farm-level assessments, allowing the sector to accelerate climate action. The first phase of my FLF has made substantial progress towards this vision, delivering essential data, methodologies, knowledge and tools to pave the way for a new approach in data-driven climate risk assessments and adaptation planning at marine aquaculture farms. This interdisciplinary research combines aspects of climate, environmental, biological and social sciences, and exemplifies how complex problems need innovative and comprehensive solutions. The Renewal phase will build on this work through increased translation of the scientific approaches into actionable information, empowering industry and policymakers to develop robust site-specific climate risk assessments and adaptation plans. This includes developing evidence-based classification schemes for strategic and operational climate risk reporting, creating robust indicators for monitoring and evaluating climate adaptation progress, and developing a climate change resilience platform that will be a central resource and focal point to help industry and policymakers develop farm-specific impact assessments and adaptation plans. All this research is conducted in close collaboration with industry stakeholders, regulators, policymakers, and research organisations to enhance knowledge transfer and optimise outcomes for end-users. This FLF will deliver the route to significantly advance climate action in marine aquaculture through a comprehensive package of information, data, methodologies and tools, structured in a convenient and user-friendly format for end-users. The FLF outputs will enable the industry, policymakers and other associated stakeholders to respond effectively and responsibly to the climate emergency, whilst enhancing blue economy opportunities and optimising the role of marine fish production in global food and nutrition security.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2026 · 2026-03

This project examines why, and in what ways, military institutions in troop-contributing countries (TCCs) socialise and comply with UN peacekeeping norms. It will assess the incentives and challenges associated with norm compliance in policy and practice from the vantagepoint of domestic military institutions.  The insights will help inform policies, standards, and monitoring mechanisms for effective compliance with such norms, ultimately contributing to both the effectiveness of UN peacekeeping operations and promoting inclusive military cultures in TCCs.   The UN invests significant resources to ensure that peacekeepers from Troop Contributing Countries (TCCs) for peacekeeping operations comply with liberal norms such as human rights, gender mainstreaming, and the rule of law by setting guidelines and standards, training requirements and vetting. These liberal norms form the ideological basis of UN peace operations and compliance with these norms is central to the UN’s objectives, including, regulating the conduct of peacekeepers, compliance with international law, and enhancing the legitimacy and effectiveness of peacekeeping missions. Beyond shaping the conduct of individual soldiers, engagement with such norms creates incentives for military institutions in TCCs bringing international legitimacy, opportunities for continued deployment to UN missions, and other political, and economic benefits accompanying peacekeeping deployments. While extant scholarship in International Relations have offered significant insights on norms compliance by individual peacekeepers during deployments in host countries, we know little about how military institutions in TCCs engage with and integrate liberal norms in their legal and policy frameworks and everyday practices. This is despite a large body of comparative work acknowledging the correlation between domestic military cultures of TCCs (before deployment) and the adherence to norms such as human rights by peacekeepers in host countries (during deployment). Discussions on the compliance and diffusion of liberal norms by the UN peacekeeping operations are irrelevant if we do not know whether and how TCCs internalise them domestically. The project addresses this gap by asking how do military institutions (military and the Ministry of Defence) of TCCs navigate, socialise and comply with liberal norms advanced by the UN peacekeeping department in their domestic legal and institutional frameworks? In answering this question, the project will investigate the changes that have been adopted by military institutions in TCCs in their everyday practices in recruitment, training, management and deployment of soldiers to comply with the UN’s normative push on gender mainstreaming, human rights, and the rule of law. It will assess the incentives and challenges associated with norm compliance in policy and practice from the vantagepoint of military institutions in TCCs.  Finally, it will offer an analysis and explanation for why some liberal norms are better adopted or complied with by the TCCs than others. Empirically, the project focuses on India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, which consistently feature as the highest TCCs, providing for 27.7% of the total peacekeeping troops as of January 2025. While South Asian states have historically been the largest contributors to UN peace missions globally, much of the evidence on peacekeeping research has been informed by the scholarship on Africa. The project focuses on the three norms whose violations have recently been highlighted in the scholarship, including, human rights, gender mainstreaming, and rule of law.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-12

Challenge: ‘Languages are strategically vital for the future of the UK’ (British Academy 2020), offering social and economic benefits (Ayres-Bennett 2022), but across the Anglosphere formal language-learning is in steep decline (Lanvers et al. 2021). More fragile than other Anglophone nations (Churchward 2019), the position of languages other than English (LOTE) in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has been referred to as a ‘languages crisis (Bowler 2020). Between 2003 and 2023, GCSE or equivalent entries fell by 76% in Wales, by 56% in Northern Ireland, and 70% in Scotland. Only 10% of learners in Wales now sit a languages GCSE (excluding mandatory Welsh). With languages teacher numbers in decline, access to formal language-learning is under threat. Context: Does the dominance of global English make this inevitable? In Ireland, 84% of pupils of the same age are learning a LOTE (DES 2023) without mandatory study. Meanwhile, Ireland has grown its language teachers by 80% since 2012 (DES 2023). Little is known about the causes of these dramatic differences. England’s size – 85% of UK pupils study in England – means it dominates academic studies of language-learning in the UK (Lanvers and Coleman 2017) including UKRI’s major OWRI initiatives (2016-20), but the effects of the English Baccalaureate and devolved education (Scotland’s 1+2/Curriculum for Excellence; Curriculum for Wales) make English findings inapplicable. Put simply, we do not know why, despite our best efforts, there are pronounced differences in language take-up across the Celtic jurisdictions. Without this knowledge, learners, teachers, employers and policymakers miss out on the personal and professional benefits of language-learning. The research gap surrounding language-learning in the Celtic jurisdictions is acute, the benefits significant, the proposal timely, and the need urgent. Aims and objectives: The project aims to intervene in this sustained decline in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland by analysing the Celtic educational ecosystems to identify the factors that sustain healthy cultures of language-learning. Recognising language-learning as a socially embedded practice, inclusive of both formal and non-formal language-learning, the project analyses language-learning as a lifecycle shaped by interconnected and mutually reinforcing cultural, social, political and economic forces. Building on Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model (1998), we interrogate the factors that sustain a thriving and diverse language-learning culture, as emerging technologies transform experiences of language-learning (Parmaxi 2023). We identify three critical stages in the learner lifecycle – learner school experiences of language-learning (microsystems, real and virtual); the drivers of the decision (not) to become a teacher (mesosystem); and the influence of employers, careers advisors and policymakers (macrosystem). Across four Workpackages our objectives are: to collect new comparative data on the bioecological conditions for language learning; to investigate the impact of digital technologies on learner motivation and teacher confidence; to evaluate the factors affecting languages Initial Teacher Education, using new mentoring models. Applications and benefits: The project ambitions are to have a transformative impact on key decision-makers who shape Celtic and other Anglophone languages ecosystems; to action new virtual language-learning technologies; and to achieve a step-change in cultures of language-learning in the four jurisdictions.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-11

What is the relation between the belief-revision of adults and young children? Are humans the only rational animals? ARED takes up these questions by bringing together, for the first time in a long-term project, analytic epistemology, developmental psychology and comparative cognition. The work done in the original award suggests that the unreflective belief-revision of young children and adult humans differ in degree rather than kind. On the basis of empirical and philosophical research, we argued that the ascent to the reflective level in which subjects identify and evaluate their reasons for belief is driven by capacities that can be exercised unreflectively. If so, it is doubtful that humans--in particular, adults humans--are unique with respect to rationality. In the extension of the award, we aim to do three main things. First, we will articulate in further detail the stages that lead from unreflective belief-revision to the full-fledged reflective activity involving thoughts about other thoughts. Second, we will investigate the transition from the imagistic representation of perception to the conceptual representation of propositionally structured beliefs. Third, we will design and run a new round of experiment to seek evidence of basic forms of reflective thought in presumed unreflective subjects, such as young children, dogs and pigs. Pursuing the aforementioned goals will lead to an account of human rationality as embedded in, and emerging naturally from, the animal world. This raises a prima facie challenge for the currently accepted framework where the rights of animals don't extend much beyond the right to be spared from unnecessary pain. Rather, if animals are responsive to reasons like humans, we ought to respect their dignity as rational agents. ARED will continue to shape the new interdisciplinary area of research on knowledge, rationality and cognition. ARED's theory on the transition between unreflective and reflective belief-revision is shaped by interdisciplinary discussions and, in turn, guides the design and execution of experiments. ARED shows that so-called "armchair" philosophy can fruitfully cooperate with empirical science. ARED's research is carried out at the University of Stirling (philosophy and psychology), and at the Messerli Research Institute of the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna (comparative cognition).

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-09

Scotland’s reputation for progressive penal policy has persisted and evolved even in the face of exceptionally high rates of imprisonment, community supervision and harm across the Scottish penal system. Growing disillusionment with cycles of reform has renewed interest in abolitionist alternatives and critical carceral perspectives both within academia and beyond. But histories of prison resistance and abolitionism in Scotland have been largely neglected or unknown. My doctoral research explored the contemporary resonance of penal abolitionism and anti-carceral strategies in Scotland. I critically evaluated the 2016 reform of community justice in Scotland, and I extended and deepened this analysis by exploring campaigns and organisations seeking more radical transformations to the criminal justice system in Scotland. This included developing the first historical case study of Scottish prison resistance, activism and abolitionism. I also found that the reform of community justice continued with carceral practices under the guise of benevolent welfarism, and did not offer a much-needed alternative to imprisonment. Those campaigning for change faced challenges of tokenism, co-option and exclusion, heightened in the context of a small and purportedly progressive Scotland. Overall, in a landscape dominated by the state’s community justice strategy, the research highlighted the importance of peer-led, autonomous and historically informed campaigns, critiques and alternatives. Crucially, activists relied on their knowledge and experience of past campaigns and reforms to develop strategies in the present. In this fellowship I will share the histories and legacies of anti-carceral activism. I will contribute to the exploration and strengthening of critical and abolitionist interventions across campaigns, policy and research. I will do this by creating a public and accessible website, called ‘the anti-carceral archive’, which will display archival materials collected during my PhD and additional contributions generated during the fellowship. This includes activist newsletters and fragments of oral histories. To accompany this resource I will run in-person workshops and an online seminar series. These events will promote the collection and facilitate knowledge exchange between campaigners, policymakers, people with lived experience, archivists and activist-scholars. Additionally, I will develop and disseminate my PhD findings by producing academic papers, attending conferences and building a network of scholars interested in the intersections of abolitionist analysis and the role of the state in progressive and community focused initiatives. The project will be of interest and benefit to campaigners, policymakers and scholars; to community archive and activist history projects; and to the general public as a resource of Scottish history. In raising awareness and deepening understandings, the fellowship aims to strengthen the work of those seeking to challenge the harms and existence of the current system. The impact will be first, in supporting the development of anti-prison strategies and policies, resistant to co-option and exclusion. In the long term this will contribute to reducing the harms of imprisonment on individuals, families and communities. The findings and catalogue of archival materials from my PhD are extensive. Sharing them in the form of academic and non-academic outputs will ensure they can be drawn and built upon by the growing movement of people seeking meaningful alternatives to imprisonment.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-06

Increased incidents of internal conflict, along with the desire to assert power and control territory, has seen cultural heritage become a key target in warfare, positioning heritage as a source of tension and violence. In response to this and to mitigate against the loss of heritage under threat, there has been an increased focus on the protection and preservation of heritage in fragile and conflict affected contexts (FCACs). However, the last two decades alone have seen unprecedented levels of heritage violence across the Middle East and North Africa, including the destruction of the Buddhas in Bamiyan, wide-scale damage to the ancient city of Babylon by US forces in Iraq, the desecration of sacred tombs in Mali, the looting and burning of Coptic Churches in Egypt, and the vast devastation wrought by Daesh to the rich and diverse heritage of Iraq and Syria. Such incidents illustrate the failure of current international mechanisms to ensure recognition and respect for cultural heritage in all its dynamic forms, with the limitations of current frameworks widely recognised. This project will redress these gaps through a novel and interdisciplinary approach that draws together studies in the fields of heritage, geography, international relations, and law to develop innovative solutions and new protocols and toolkits for understanding, engaging and preserving heritage under threat. Advancing the notion of 'pacific heritage' which attends to the potential of heritage to advocate peace, and peace as a means of protecting heritage in all its myriad and changing forms, this project investigates how affective encounters and engagements with community heritage are conceived and employed in embodied acts of everyday peace and resistance in FCACs in response to persecution, displacement and oppression, and as a form of remaking and resilience. Working alongside peer-researchers in in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan this project explores the diversity, contestations and nuances contingent in heritage and the ways in which practices of belonging can also be practices of exclusion. As such, it unravels the ways in which heritage is being reconfigured by young people in the Middle East and the impacts and affects this has in reconfiguring their communities. It also explores opportunities for sharing and learning about heritage as a means of facilitating peaceful encounters across difference. Through creative methodologies that weave together ethnographic and participatory methods with host community and displaced youth - with the methods themselves used as a means of exploring how peace, trust and agency can be enhanced within the research process - this project asks: 1) What role can heritage play in cultivating peace in the aftermath of violence and displacement? a. How is heritage encountered, engaged with, and produced by young people living amidst fear, dispossession, and insecurity? b. In what ways is heritage employed by young people in everyday acts of peace, resistance, and/or exclusion? How does this relate to human rights, security, and wellbeing? c. What are the implications of this knowledge for international, national, and community-based projects and frameworks related to heritage and/or peace? Working with peer-researchers across three countries and key stakeholders at the local, national, and international levels, this study will generate longitudinal and contextually informed research - across geographic boundaries and time - that is rooted in local cultures, histories, identities and knowledges. Moreover, through an approach that foregrounds collaboration, in the design, methods, analysis and outputs, this project paves the way for decolonising research and peacebuilding initiatives to evidence how cultural rights can be used in the realisation of justice, equity, wellbeing, and security.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-02

Rivers, seas, and deltas are particularly vulnerable to rising water temperatures, salinization, pollution, and changes in sediment flow due to natural and anthropogenic environmental change. These changes disrupt ecosystems, reduce biodiversity, and threaten food and water security, disproportionately impacting developing nations. We have chosen the Mekong Delta (MKD) in Vietnam to develop our framework approach due to its relevance to the wider SE Asia region aquaculture development for a number of reasons including; 1) scale with more than 80% of national production @ 5 million tonnes, growing at 3.3% pa and a value over $8.9billion, 2) multi-species production and 3) complex one health landscape driving anti-microbial resistance (AMR). Adding to the complexity of developing sustainable aquatic food systems in the MKD is the increasing burden of infectious diseases. Indeed, infectious diseases in Asian and global aquaculture are a major continuous threat to sustainable production representing a ‘wicked problem’. Ongoing research at the University of Stirling coupling pioneering Earth observation technology into a Digital Observatory at the river-to-sea systems scale will be harnessed to build the Aqua System of Systems (AquaSoS). AquaSoS will be designed to address the above ‘wicked problem’. Our inter-disciplinary approach will brings together digital information on the component parts of this complex system to understand the current and projected interactions and influences. We will deliver suite of products and solutions for developing sustainable aquaculture that truly embeds consideration for natural resources (and protection thereof) and the peoples who's lives depend on aquaculture. This will provide a framework to tackle this ‘wicked problem’ across the SE Asia region and indeed globally. A critical component of our approach is the integration of both existing data and future data generation from multiple sources (metagenomics, biodiversity indices, in-situ sensors, satellite etc) into a scalable data formats into a one-stop-shop of information (SoS) accessible to stake holders including, policy and decision makers, scientists and industry to resolve the conflicts between environmental responsibilities and sustainable aquaculture practise and development. AquaSOS brings together a world-leading researcher consortium incorporating critical elements of Earth observation, biodiversity understanding, and one health approaches directly linked to cutting edge health biotechnologies. This is further supported by a network of international experts, with emphasis upon the SE Asian region that is global aquaculture’s powerhouse of production. AquaSoS team members furthermore actively engage with many relevant industry, government and policy bodies, both nationally and internationally, and with public engagement fora, that will provide effective conduits for ensuring the science and solutions developed are communicated effectively and widely to support knowledge sharing and action. Our consortium will use this project to further build upon a ‘SE Asia Woman in Science Research Network’ that promotes and recognises leading women scientists and takes their leadership to build capacity and legacy by providing research collaboration opportunities and career advancement.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-01

How humans collectively respond to environmental change will determine whether many global challenges of the 21st century are met. Global challenges are reflected across multiple United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including conserving biodiversity (SDGs 14 & 15), ensuring food and water security (SDG 2, 3 & 6), and responding to climate change (SDGs 7 & 13). These global challenges will require solutions to wicked problems, which, by their very nature, are complex and resistant to clear solutions or even clear definitions. The EcoKnowGames project will launch a novel inter-disciplinary research programme that delivers a transformative theoretical framework, methodology, and modelling software. It will enable researchers to conduct experiments *in silico* that are intractable for wicked problems that occur in real-world systems, provide a methodology for integrating game data into agent-based social-ecological models, and use games to engage with under-represented communities and give them a voice in shaping urgent SDG solutions. The virtual worlds of online video games already provide rich, complex, and immersive environments within which players interact with one another in simulated natural systems on a massive scale. Nevertheless, the usefulness of these games in research is restricted by the missing methodological framework and technology linking game play with scientific data collection, model parameterisation, and policy impact. Developing new methodologies and software with a focus on knowledge generation using games would have immediate and far-reaching application to diverse global challenges. By underpinning games with realistic ecological and social models, it will also be possible to more effectively communicate the lived experiences of people and communities, thereby giving a voice to marginalised groups. The EcoKnowGames project will address the following 5 objectives 1. Develop open-source modelling software (WickedABM) and a decision-support tool to simulate complex joint natural and social systems that model wicked problems hindering SDG solutions. 2. Improve the realism of decision-making in social-ecological models by integrating game output and data. 3. Evaluate how knowledge games built with realistic underlying natural and social models can test hypotheses in the social sciences. 4. Develop a blueprint for applying knowledge games results to impact policy, promote ethical design, and engage communities. 5. Develop an open-source game-builder software to provide researchers, policy-makers, and the public with a tool to build social-ecological games that are grounded in science for inclusion and creative expression. All data and software will be free and open source, giving researchers and policy-makers access to a new range of information and tools for delivering on urgent Sustainable Development Goals. Following initial game and modelling development, we will encourage the widespread uptake of these tools and community-driven approach to developing open software. The EcoKnowGames project has the potential to transform how urgent SDGs are addressed. The game and modelling technology to deliver this transformative approach has existed for decades. This ambitious project requires a highly interdisciplinary team, and a truly engaging, fully open-source, game builder and game requires substantial initial funding with a focus on community, rather than commercial, success.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-01

Nonprofit organizations play multiple and sometimes conflicting roles in a democracy: they facilitate representation of non-majority interests, but also provide services with or at the direction of a majority-based government. Private wealth is amassed, but then transferred to foundations and then to operating charities. These roles complicate attempts to assess trust in the sector and the sector's potential to moderate or mediate trust in other institutions. Further, public trust in charities has decreased over recent years in many countries, as has public opinion of government. Meanwhile, interest in charitable regulation and accountability is increasing. Why are public-serving organizations trusted so little? This project utilizes four unique country contexts (Canada, the U.K., Switzerland, and the U.S.) to map and understand cross-sector opinions on trust and accountability. Though these four countries have much in common, there is significant variation in regulatory approach, interpersonal trust, and popular sentiment toward public-serving institutions. We will rely on this variation to understand trust and accountability, focusing on the mutual perceptions of four audiences in each context: operating charities, foundations, governmental agencies such as regulators, and the public. The study has four phases. In the first phase, each country team will conduct an extensive document review to create historical-institutional profiles, including the scope of the nonprofit sector (as in Salamon) and relevant socio-cultural norms such as institutional trust toward the non-profit, private, and public sectors. In the second phase, teams will convene both single-audience focus groups and mixed-audience Delphi groups to gather novel data. The third phase will produce practice-oriented reports, while the fourth phase involves academic book and article production and contains an international conference event that serves not only to share knowledge, but to further study the influence of peer learning on trust, accountability, and governance in different types of democracy.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-09

The aim of the fellowship is to fulfil the impact potential of my PhD and help forge a career in university-based knowledge exchange (KE). The fellowship would allow me to complete the following objectives to achieve these interrelated aims. My thesis argued that ability-grouped reading compounds classed and raced social inequity in education. It also presented more egalitarian research-informed alternatives to this practice. Ultimately, the impact of my research must be judged at school level, by the liberating effects on children's reading. Through extensive use of exemplification, I would translate key findings and theoretical principles of my thesis into a book for (and partly, by) primary teachers, which I term an 'anti-manual'. This 'anti-manual' would be a source of inspiration and practical reading pedagogies for teachers to try, as well as an encouragement to go beyond those pedagogies to notice and dismantle barriers in taken-for-granted reading practices. Although mainly written by me, based on my thesis, it would incorporate 23% new research with a small group of teachers engaging with my PhD findings. Complimenting the 'anti-manual' I would work with a filmmaker to show teachers' practice and discussion; the films posted on a dedicated website. The website would act as a forum for teachers to discuss egalitarian approaches to literacy learning, which could further increase the impact of my research from the ground up. In addition, the University of Stirling would offer an excellent context to achieve my dual aims of thesis impact and KE career development. Through this placement I would gain knowledge of how university-based KE works, which would act as a platform to forge a career in KE in academia. Specifically, I would have the opportunity to work with and learn from a mentor (Dr Sarah Wilson), whose expertise includes visual activism, participatory research and social justice with young people. I would participate in the influential Stirling Centre for Research into Curriculum-making (SCRCM) led by Professor Mark Priestly, which would introduce me to policy-making contacts in Scottish Government and provide opportunities to deliver KE based on my PhD research. I would attend departmental and faculty meetings, and gain teaching experience in an education department that is characterised by anti-racist, anti-colonial approaches to education and challenges socioeconomic inequity in children's education. I would also have the opportunity to work with education students on the principles and findings of my research. Establishing a career in university-based KE also benefits from a track record in publications. To that end, I would write two journal articles based on my thesis as well as the 'anti-manual'. As presentation at conferences also supports career development and dissemination of research findings I would use the fellowship to attend two conferences in different disciplines, literacy education and sociology of education. To sum up, the fellowship outcomes to support the aims of impact and KE career development are as follows: Publish an 'anti-manual' with and for teachers. Produce films of egalitarian literacy practices. Create a website as a forum for egalitarian approaches to literacy learning. Development of visual participatory research skills. Connections made with policy-makers and KE activity undertaken. Teaching experience and knowledge of how university departments work, particularly in the area of KE. Two journal articles published. Two conferences presentations, networks and collaborations extended.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-09

Health and care services need high quality information (‘evidence’) from research to help make decisions to benefit patients and the public. Qualitative evidence from studies using, for example, interviews or focus groups can explore and explain people’s behaviours, experiences and perceptions of health. Bringing together evidence from many individual qualitative studies (called ‘qualitative evidence synthesis’) is a good way of making sense of research information, for example, to explore and explain why patients, the public or health professionals behave in certain ways; what it is like to experience an illness, service or treatment; and how and why health services or policies work or not. Qualitative evidence syntheses are seen as increasingly important and are produced ever more frequently. Major healthcare guideline developers, including the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the World Health Organization (WHO), now commission qualitative evidence syntheses to inform their guidelines. From 2015 to 2019, qualitative evidence syntheses contributed to 28% of NICE guidelines. Published qualitative evidence syntheses increased dramatically in number from only 31 in 2007 to 1,695 in 2020, but reporting quality varies and is often poor. For example, 84% of qualitative evidence syntheses published by Cochrane, a respected publisher, did not report their research question. Low-quality reporting means that patients, guideline developers, and health and care managers, may feel less able to trust qualitative evidence synthesis findings. Consequently, they will be less likely to use potentially valuable information about people’s experiences and preferences to improve treatments and services. Researchers need to carry out high-quality syntheses reported to a high standard. Reporting guidelines such as PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) for quantitative evidence e.g. drug trials, are proven to improve research reporting quality. However, researchers do not have an up-to-date guideline to help them report qualitative evidence syntheses. The ENTREQ (enhancing transparency in reporting the synthesis of qualitative research) guideline for qualitative evidence syntheses is widely used but outdated. Many important innovations in qualitative evidence synthesis methods have occurred since ENTREQ was published in 2012. Furthermore, ENTREQ did not follow good practice in reporting guideline development, e.g. researcher agreement was not sought on guideline content. The eMERGe reporting guideline that we developed more recently is only for one specific type of complex qualitative evidence synthesis; most content is not relevant to the wide variety of other QES methods. The widely-used, high-quality PRISMA reporting guideline is not suitable for qualitative evidence syntheses. Over 60% of PRISMA reporting items require adaptation or are inapplicable and several important reporting aspects are missing. An up-to-date reporting guideline for qualitative evidence syntheses is needed urgently to raise reporting quality to increase trust in and use of their findings for improving health and care. We propose to develop a new version of the PRISMA reporting guideline, for qualitative evidence syntheses. We will identify reporting recommendations and guidance from the literature, academic experts, and other stakeholders including patients and the public; define good practice principles and standards; agree guideline content with all stakeholders; test how user-friendly the guideline is with researchers; and disseminate the guideline. One guideline is excellent value for money: it can raise the reporting quality of all subsequent qualitative evidence syntheses, and so better inform development of policy and practice and, ultimately, improve outcomes for patients and the public.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-08

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 · 2024-08

The project brings together researchers in the humanities and gerontology at the University of Stirling with Memories Scotland, a leading co-ordinator of cultural reminiscence, to deliver innovative solutions for the creation of new audio-visual and digital archive reminiscence packs, known as Lightboxes, to be used as memory triggers with older people, some living with dementia. Recent research by the applicants addressed the need for innovations in digital design for sport-based reminiscence with older people. Generating Older Active Lives Digitally (GOALD) was a three year project funded by the ESRC as part of the UKRI's Social, Behavioural and Design Programme for the Healthy Ageing Challenge. A key outcome of the research was the creation of a developer toolkit for organisations and companies to respond to the needs of older people to live active and more connected lives. Innovations for sport reminiscence were included in the toolkit, which focused on the use of bespoke short-form video and piloted by the Scottish Football Museum through the GOALD Challenge Fund, a mini-award competition for SME's which was subsequently evaluated for its efficacy. The benefits of using themed digital content for reminiscence were viewed as 'game changing' by the project co-ordinator and the challenge is now to develop this to scale for wider use in community contexts, the care sector and in the home. The Museum co-ordinates Memories Scotland in partnership with the National Library of Scotland, Alzheimer Scotland and Scottish local authorities. Memories Scotland deliver reminiscence activities and guidance for 550 groups across Scotland. The museum support the delivery of group reminiscence and one-to-one reminiscence through an extensive network of local, regional and national partners. Developing and strengthening older people's 'connectivities' - their links with community, resources and meaningful activities - is a key part of supporting healthy ageing and reducing health inequalities in later life. Memories Scotland meets the challenge of caring for an ageing population head on, but faces its own challenge of delivering sustainable resources for reminiscence activities. The GOALD project directly focused on the use of audio-visual design to deliver products to enhance older people's participation in activities to promote health, well-being and social connection. The aims and objectives of the project are: 1) Implement the interdisciplinary research of the GOALD toolkit for reminiscence to develop innovative digital content to meet the needs of Memories Scotland and their partners. 2) Create up to forty new Lightbox reminiscence packs based on themed audio-visual and archival material designed to resonate with the needs of cultural-based reminiscence facilitators and participants. 3) Produce online training and guidance on the use of the Lightbox reminiscence packs. The project will produce innovative and scalable solutions for the delivery of meaningful reminiscence resources, easily accessible on the Memories Scotland digital archive, available to view on tablets and smart phones enabling the material to be viewed at bedside (particularly for NHS hospital groups and in hospices) as well as on larger screens. The digital content can also be repurposed for use by older people at home with carers.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-08

Medical humanities research, namely interdisciplinary research in humanities and social sciences studying the links between society and health, is often biased: it focuses on ideas from the Global Northwest or doesn't take into account the importance of movements started by people of colour all over the world. Along with this, studies of global protest cultures have only recently started to try to include the different experiences and voices of people around the world, especially those in Western Europe and the Global South who are facing racism, sexism, and homophobia. So, there is a risk of ignoring the fact that queer people of colour can help fight against social divisions and differences in health between the Global North and South. This is a very important thing to think about right now. Recent data (Platt, 2021; NCBI, 2020) show that AIDS and COVID hurt black people the most around the world. In the meantime, queer people of colour face persistent prejudice across the globe due to their sexual orientation, race, and in some cases, gender identity and religion (Stonewall, 2019). My research vision is to significantly contribute to an emerging movement of scholars, labelled the critical medical humanities. These researchers try to shed light on understudied social hierarchies in medical humanities and fix this geopolitical gap by bringing in views from outside the West. In particular, my FLF study shows the unexplored importance of AIDS campaigns that have been going on in the Global South since the 1980s for relevant group action in Western Europe. In demonstrating the underexamined importance of various queer activists of colour, migrants and postmigrants, in connecting aids campaigners in Western Europe and the Global South, my proposed research diversifies research on protest cultures but also on sexuality and race. The results of this study will enable me to make health campaigns in the UK more inclusive, which will help them reach more people from black and queer communities. The FLF will also let me work with South Africa's creative economy to make a documentary about AIDS that will feature local queer activists and help South Africa's queer groups deal with social prejudice. My long-term goal is for the FLF to lead to a model study of health activism in general, including efforts to fight major diseases like AIDS, COVID, and HPV. This study will show how campaigners in the Global South and between the Global South and the Global North are connected, while taking into account their geopolitical limits. The FLF will allow me to develop such research and impact through fair partnerships with the Global South and NGOs involving people of colour.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-07

Dietary omega-3 fatty acids, vital for immune system function, heart health, and brain development, are essential as the human body cannot produce them. Fish and seafood, comprising over half of our consumed fish and now mostly farmed, are unique omega-3 sources. Historically, high omega-3 levels in farmed fish relied on marine ingredients—fishmeal and fish oil—derived paradoxically from fisheries nearing sustainability limits, rendering them finite. The expansion of fish farming, facilitated by diluting traditional marine ingredients with cost-effective alternatives like plant meals and vegetable oils lacking omega-3, resulted in a 50% reduction in omega-3 levels in farmed Atlantic salmon. Omega-3 is equally crucial for fish and human health. The shift to low marine feeds in fish farming correlates with increased inflammatory diseases in farmed fish, impacting both their health and welfare. Reduced omega-3 levels affect the immune response to various pathogens in farmed fish, including parasites, bacteria, and viruses. This dual impact prompted the fish farming community, especially in salmon production, to address the disparity between omega-3 supply and demand. Consequently, new omega-3-rich oils from marine microalgae and genetically-modified (GM) oilseed crops have emerged as alternative feed ingredients for farmed fish. While studies confirm their efficacy in elevating omega-3 content, their impact on fish health and potential environmental consequences have been overlooked. This project will specifically explore the health impacts of a GM-crop oil as a feed ingredient for farmed Atlantic salmon. The research will assess its influence on salmon response to specific diseases, elucidate biochemical and molecular mechanisms affecting fish health and membrane resilience, evaluate environmental impacts, and quantify the potential of these new dietary oils for UK salmon farming. The proposal, timely and highly relevant, addresses current needs through cutting-edge research to enhance the quality and efficiency of modern alternative feeds in fish farming. It aims to improve production and feed efficiency while sustaining fish health and enhancing the nutritional quality of farmed fish, contributing to greater sustainability and food security.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-06

Gill health is a priority area for salmon research with significantly increased UK salmon mortalities at sea being reported due to compromised gill performance. Up to 70% of mortalities reported between 2019-2022 have been attributed to gill health conditions with an upward trend reported where poor gill health is the most important driver for fish mortality in the UK. Fish mortalities across the UK salmon sector were 14.9 million in 2022 (Fish Health Inspectorate, Scotland). Environmental data indicates a warming of coastal water causing changes to the marine environment during the seawater production of salmon. As a result, gill health challenges have become a severe problem within the industry with increasing mortalities due to Amoebic gill Disease (AGD) and/or Complex Gill Disease (CGD) infections leading to impaired gas exchange, poor growth and severe morbidity and mortality being observed. Current health management treatment options are limited although efficacious when applied to non-compromised populations. Critically, poor health surveillance data availability impacts the efficacy of successive health management interventions throughout the seawater growth phase and significantly impedes the development of data-driven health surveillance management strategies resulting in limited capacity to improve the health and welfare of the farmed populations. Furthermore, changes to the production cycle of salmon by the recent incorporation of recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) based production in freshwater, that is independent to seasonal change, has led to off-season inputs into farming systems. This means that farmed fish can experience two full summer periods at sea leading to a doubling of exposure to pathogens therefore driving poorer seawater performance as observed in recent years across the industry. The gills represent the largest external surface of fish and are central to both gaseous exchange and are now also recognised as a site for pathogen entry and colonisation. The microbial communities colonising the gills collectively named as the gill microbiome are central to maintaining good gill health and are directly affected by aquaculture health management interventions. Previously, we validated a refined methodology for 16S-based amplicon sequencing using titration to normalise library construction that provides higher resolution than current methods and guarantees a statistically robust analytical methodology. This advance sets the standard for normalisation and comparison across 16S studies. Using this approach, we demonstrated that variation in gill microbiome reflects animal welfare in sea cages and appears related to health management intervention frequency. No other methods applied, including pathogen screening and immunological assessment were able to identify significant changes and therefore be related to observed increases in mortality and decreased welfare conditions. Using this method we have shown that the frequency of husbandry interventions including net cleaning, freshwater treatments and de-lousing procedures (thermolicer) directly impacts gill microbiome diversity and abundance.The main objective of this proposal is to capture critical longitudinal gill microbiome data and integrate all other data elements including pathogen screening and production and environmental data to develop an informed data-driven foundation for effective health and welfare management of salmon gill health.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-06

This project offers the first full-length study of Alberto Muenala's cinema. Muenala is an Ecuadorean-Kichwa director and a pioneer of Indigenous film in Latin America from its earliest years, and co-founder of Corporación Rupai, now a hub of young Kichwa media activism. Throughout his career, Muenala has been involved in and influenced a range of transnational Indigenous productions. The legacy of his film and community activism is thus profound, but unrecognised and largely undocumented, unlike other large Indigenous community film projects with similar trajectories. This project addresses that gap by providing the first full study of this history, whilst simultaneously exploring appropriate decolonial research methodologies for studying this work. It will thus record and preserve a history which is part of the living Kichwa (and world) cultural heritage, broaden knowledge of Latin American Indigenous cinema for a general audience and provide a space for critical reflection on Indigenous film production. The project will also disseminate research findings and raise awareness about the importance of Indigenous film for world cultural heritage by organising public engagement events in the form of film showcases and workshops, via a multilingual website and through collaboration with members of Rupai on the planning stages of a documentary on this film history.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-06

Throughout the commercial Atlantic salmon production cycle in open cage systems, aeration is necessary during some periods when fish may be compromised to ensure health and welfare and promote good performance. Usually, diesel compressors are used for aeration, which are inefficient and have poor environmental credentials. Their use is limited to short-term critical periods due to their expensive operating costs. This project will field-test a prototype electric-powered aeration unit (Pneuma), which is designed to be a low-cost, environmentally sustainable alternative to traditional diesel compressors. Due to the reduced operating costs, the system can be used for longer periods to promote optimal fish performance throughout the production cycle and opens the possibility of being powered by renewable energy sources. In this project, the performance and efficiency of the Pneuma system will be compared with diesel aeration in commercial salmon net pens, and a full life-cycle assessment will be performed. The impact of the Pneuma system on fish health, welfare and performance will be assessed over 12 months of a commercial salmon production cycle. Results will determine the environmental credentials and operational advantages in salmon aquaculture compared to diesel-powered aeration. If successful, it is envisaged that electric-powered aeration will rapidly replace diesel compressors to contribute to improving the sustainability of the Scottish Seafood sector. Once the system has been proven in commercial conditions for salmon aquaculture in this project, its application in other aquaculture systems where dissolved oxygen is a limiting factor, such as Asian shrimp and African tilapia, will be explored through the partnership developed in this project between University of Stirling and Garrett Brothers. This project relates directly to the funding call scope "Environmental sustainability and climate change, including water quality, biodiversity, and climate adaptation of farmed species" and "Improving the health of farmed animals in a changing climate".

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-06

Synergy-Plague is a multi-disciplinary project to bring our knowledge and understanding of plague, past and present, to new heights. Focussing on the environmental, biological, and societal aspects of plague outbreaks in Eurasia between circa 1300 and 1900 CE, it will address four main questions: (1) Why/how did plague re-emerge in 14th century Central Asia? (2) Why/how did plague re-occur and spread in Eurasia after the Black Death? (3) Why/how did clinical and demographic patterns of plague infection differ across space and time? (4) Why/how did plague disappear from Europe and the Middle East in the 18th and 19th centuries? Our project is based on the hypothesis that plague waves and clinical differences resulted from unique alignments of multiple events: environmental (climatic and soil-chemical), biological (from individual to ecosystem) and societal (demographic, socio-economic and political). Four PIs from the natural sciences and humanities, together with their team members, will jointly study how plague re-emerged in 14th century Central Asia and radiated repeatedly from Eurasian wildlife reservoirs in the following centuries, only to disappear in the 18th -19th centuries. We will develop and analyse new dendrochronological and (paleo-)soil data, textual documentary evidence, and epidemiological models. To understand how plague reached and spread in human populations, paleo-environmental and historical data together with relevant experimental work will be combined with statistical and mathematical modelling. To appreciate why clinical signs and mortality rates varied in space and time, historical evidence will be examined together with new entomological data and ancient DNA (aDNA) of historical plague strains (from humans and anthropophilic rodents). Synergy-Plague will revolutionise our understanding of plague and contribute to our ongoing struggle with epidemic diseases, present and future