Re:action Spring 2018

Spring 2018 | Issue 08 Research and Enterprise Newsletter

Digging into our digital culture: What is Media Archaeology all about?

FEATURE: European funding for two unique research projects

FEATURE: Leaving nobody out: The Centre for Research in Inclusion

FEATURE: Raise a glass to research...into wine 1

Introduction

WELCOME TO RE:ACTION This edition of Re:action focuses on Research and Enterprise activities in humanities, social sciences and the arts. Perhaps more than any previous edition of this publication that has appeared during my time as Vice-President, this one emphasises the benefits we derive from being a broad-based, research-intensive University. The diversity of the topics covered alone is impressive, but the extent to which they allow us, and wider society, to explore and understand what it is to be human, civilised and part of many communities has very deep significance.

Many of the activities featured also couple with research elsewhere in the University, for instance: ethics of drones, philosophy of pregnancy, wine production and climate change and the use of digital technologies in the arts. The synergies between research across the University, and beyond, works to mutual benefit, strengthening all the strands of research involved.

It is too early to feature the outcomes of research activities supported by the Global Challenges Research Fund, but in many of the projects submitted for funding under this scheme, it is very clear that the humanities, arts and social sciences play a particularly strong role.

In these activities, which need to have a strong research core but also to deliver a positive impact to people and society in developing countries, with apologies to a certain beer’s advertising slogan, it is clear that these disciplines allow us to reach parts that other disciplines cannot reach.

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As a final comment, I am delighted to see that Simon Keay has been further recognised for his work on Portus. This archaeology project, understanding the fabric and influence of the port of ancient Rome, has been massively influential. Simon has been the key leader of this work, and has achieved worldwide recognition for his role. He has also found time to be a very effective Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty of Humanities.

Thank you Simon.

As ever, all feedback on Re:action is very much appreciated. Please enjoy the stories and information it contains.

Professor Mark Spearing Vice-President (Research & Enterprise)

PLEASE SEND US YOUR FEEDBACK We are keen to receive feedback about Re:action. If you have any ideas, comments or suggestions, please send them to

reaction@southampton.ac.uk

Research & Innovation Services, visit: www.southampton.ac.uk/ris

IN THIS ISSUE

04 FEATURE:

Digging into our digital culture A spotlight on Media Archaeology

06 FEATURE:

Making an impact on European Research Professor Jo Sofaer’s leading role for Humanities across Europe.

08 FEATURE:

European funding for pioneering research Two very different research projects have won Horizon 2020 funding.

10 FEATURE:

Leaving nobody out The Centre for Research in Inclusion has a fresh approach to education research methods.

12 FEATURE:

Raise a glass to unique research Discovering how wine plays a role in the politics of Brexit.

14 FEATURE:

Rethinking pregnancy and motherhood Southampton is fast becoming a hub for research into the philosophy of pregnancy and early motherhood.

16 INFOGRAPHIC

Pure celebrates first birthday Fast facts about the University’s research information system as it turns one year old.

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News in brief Including SETsquared’s global success, mathematical modelling to treat tropical disease, digital humanities tackles 19th century opera, the origins of wind-blown sand dunes, Prof Simon Keay’s prestigious appointment, and ORC technology blasts off.

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Media Highlights

24 FUNDING NEWS

The latest funding grants to be awarded

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Feature

Transmediale 2018 featured the exhibition A Becoming Resemblance by Chelsea Manning and Heather Dewey-Hagborg.

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For more information please visit: southampton.ac.uk/amt

DIGGING INTO OUR DIGITAL CULTURE

There is more to Archaeology than meets the eye.

More often associated with the physical excavation of artefacts and sites, archaeology can also be used to delve into the history of media and technology.

Media Archaeology is all about investigating the digital culture through design and art, asking questions about obsolescence, military technologies, art, and scientific apparatuses.

The Archaeologies of Media and Technology (AMT) research group, based at Winchester School of Art (WSA), is an internationally recognised leader in this area and a key partner to Transmediale, a world leading festival that looks at the connections between art, culture and technology.

Transmediale attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year, including activists, artists, academics and curators from around the world.

During this year’s festival, in February in Berlin, AMT was a key partner, involved in panel discussions on cyberwar and the cultural impact of artificial intelligence, and leading a workshop on media cultures of aerial vision and emerging visual technologies such as machine learning.

Last year was the 30th anniversary of Transmediale. In celebration, AMT created something very special.

Dr Jussi Parikka, Professor in Technological Culture and Aesthetics and joint Director of AMT with Professor Ryan Bishop, explained: “We produced the first Transmediale reader that gathered world-leading media and art theorists and many exciting artists in one book. The book focused on the postdigital

culture – a term that describes many institutional contexts and material practices of digitality in art and politics, while taking account of how the earlier optimism about internet culture has changed to an awareness of the dark sides, such as surveillance.

“This theme was visible again this year, with an emphasis on the forms of racism, right-wing extremism and biases that form a major part of current debates in digital activism and critical arts.”

‘Media Archaeology’ is a key term for AMT because it is an international field of research where issues in new media and digital culture are addressed through their long histories and often through surprising, experimental practices.

“Earlier optimism about internet culture has changed to an awareness of the dark sides” The group engages in theoretical work with humanities methods and has carried out research that has touched on the media histories of the Cold War, on environmental humanities through the challenges of electronic waste, practices of art-sciencetechnology interaction, changing forms of cultural institutions such as libraries, art and archival practices, and work that demonstrates how the modern media culture of computers and visual technologies emerges over a cultural history of hundreds of years.

Another key project recently started by AMT is a collaboration with Central Saint Martins/ University of the Arts London entitled Archaeology of Fashion Film.

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the research is the first to investigate the hidden history of fashion film, going back to the beginnings of cinema. It asks what legacy this new history may have for the rapidly changing field of fashion communications today.

Emphasising the transformative effects of film on fashion, the project will forge a new understanding of film as a ‘fashion medium’ and as a ‘fashion object’. It will make a major contribution to scholarly studies of the history of fashion, of film, and of fashion film, and will change how contemporary fashion filmmakers and other media practitioners understand the history of their discipline and the media cultural context for their own creative and commercial work.

A common theme for all the research groups based within Winchester School of Art is a belief that practice and theory are in close interaction and support each other.

WSA research stems from this symbiosis and produces books and exhibitions, institutional collaborations and new ways of engaging with the wider public concerning changes in digital culture.

It’s not just about media as entertainment.

It’s about how it entangles with wider social issues in surveillance, the military and other contexts.

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MAKING AN IMPACT ON EUROPEAN RESEARCH

Vivienne Saunders. Terracotta and Smoke.

Height 280mm x Diameter 250mm Contemporary craft inspired by Bronze Age objects created during the HERA-funded CinBA Project (http://cinba.net/exhibition/) 6

Bronze Age Lur c.1000 BC. Image courtesy of National Museum of Denmark

For further information, visit: www.heranet.info

Professor of Archaeology, Jo Sofaer

Professor Tony Whyton

Professor of Archaeology, Jo Sofaer, has been appointed as the first Knowledge Exchange and Impact Fellow for Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA). This prestigious and high-profile post involves working with 24 Humanities Research Councils across Europe and engaging in advocacy for the Humanities at the highest levels.

The newly created fellowship role, which Jo is sharing with Tony Whyton, Professor of Jazz Studies at Birmingham City University, aims to create and drive forward a flagship impact network for Humanities research across Europe.

By bringing together their vast experience in working with the HERA joint research network since 2010, and their knowledge of European research projects, Jo and Tony have identified three key elements they feel are important to promote during the Fellowship; advocacy, leadership and legacy.

Jo explains: “Our role will encompass advocacy for the Humanities at the highest level including the European Commission, national governments and policy makers. It will also include advocacy for the HERA Joint Research Programme as a world leader in the delivery of knowledge exchange (KE) and impact, developing its mission going forward.

“HERA’s unique transnational structure offers the potential to capitalise on research excellence, extensive networks, and critical mass in delivering novel, thematic, Humanities-based contributions to society.

We will enhance HERA’s already strong academic reputation, creating a significant step change in the external recognition of HERA, by promoting key messages about the value and impact of the Humanities, and HERA KE activities, to a range of international stakeholders.

“We aim to build a coherent, compelling narrative about why Humanities matter by demonstrating the role of the Humanities in modern Europe and actively addressing questions that lead to the development of solutions that improve social, cultural and economic outcomes.

“At the end of our Fellowship, we hope our legacy will be to have added value by creating vital resources to enable projects to enhance and document KE and impact activities, and share good practice.”

Jo and Tony will use their role to ensure that activities engage, and are relevant to, stakeholders within different national and disciplinary contexts across Europe.

Inspiring researchers by developing events and activities that meet their needs, they will take an active interest in nurturing the work of Early Career Researchers who will be the Humanities leaders of the future.

“We will provide academic leadership by developing synergies across the programme and working with projects to maximise research impact within and beyond the duration of their grant, enriching research outcomes.

“We are planning to develop a sustainable infrastructure for excellence, facilitating full exploitation of opportunities in current and future projects, thereby placing HERA at the vanguard of KE activities.

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EUROPEAN FUNDING FOR PIONEERING RESEARCH EXAMINING THE ETHICS OF DRONE VIOLENCE

Armed RAF Reaper drone. Photo courtesy of Sgt Corinne Buxton RAF/MOD

Through his four-year research project, Dronethics, Professor Christian Enemark will address some of the most contentious issues around the use of armed drones for warfare and other violent purposes.

Controlled by an operator sometimes thousands of miles away, armed drones have dramatically changed the way violence is wielded in international affairs – and huge investment in the technology will see it grow and develop further. Drones controlled

by Artificial Intelligence (AI), for example, are on the horizon.

Drones are, however, posing major political challenges and raising ethical questions.

A €1.36m ERC grant over the next four years will enable Christian, Professor of International Relations, to tackle ethical questions and make recommendations to policy makers.

Looking beyond ‘Just War’ ethics, which informs the law of armed conflict, the project will develop frameworks for the ethical judgement of drone violence conceptualised as law enforcement, interpersonal violence or devolved (to AI) violence.

When drones are seen to be used for law enforcement, criminal justice ethics and the appropriate use of police force is 8

called into question. Rather than the law of armed conflict, as applies in war, Human Rights law applies.

Christian explained: “In the UK government, as well as in the EU and the US, there is a huge disagreement over whether these drone strikes are an exercise in criminal justice or an exercise in war. If you disagree on that, you disagree on the category of law that applies.”

Interpersonal violence through drones addresses the issue of one person harming another.

“We are trying to avoid the possibility of impunity. If violence is significantly removed from the control of a human being.”

“I’m interested in the experience of the operators of armed drones and how they think about their own violence,” said Christian “Are they proud of the fact they are defending their country, or are they feeling uneasy, worried, or guilty, given that historically when you kill in war you do so in a situation where you place yourself at risk? Drone operators are physically not at risk, but they are possibly emotionally at risk.”

He will also be looking at the ethics of virtue, which includes consideration of how feeling good comes from doing good, with the aim of developing a governance framework focused on the avoidance of moral injury.

AI is expected to play a big role in controlling armed drones in the future, which will lead to devolved violence.

“There is huge technological and military operational pressure to reduce the level of human control over these machines,” explained Christian. “The drone that can do things the quickest is going to survive against slower machines or a slower human operator.

“The idea that you can hand over a lot of control over the action of the aircraft to a programmed machine is highly attractive. But with handing down control, you potentially hand down the responsibility.”

The project will examine AI ethics. “We need to know how to respond if something goes wrong – and things always go wrong eventually,” added Christian. “We are trying to avoid the possibility of impunity. If violence is significantly removed from the control of a human being we cannot fairly blame the human being. The family of whoever has been killed will really struggle to find a sense of justice if no one at all can be blamed.”

For further information on EU funding: soton-eu-office@soton.ac.uk

Two exciting and very different research projects have won grants of over €1m each from the European Research Council’s Horizon 2020 programme, which backs research projects to bring breakthroughs, discoveries and world-firsts to fruition.

RETRACING OUR ANCESTORS’ FIRST OCEAN VOYAGES

Questions that have perplexed archaeologists about how and why our ancestors first arrived in Australasia at least 60,000 years ago are being investigated by Dr Helen Farr.

Through this project, Helen wants to get to the bottom of why, after six million years of evolution, our human ancestors took to the sea at this point in history.

“For the last 10 years I’ve been looking into the global colonisation by our ancestors, and how seafaring played a role in that,” said Helen, Lecturer in Archaeology.

“If boats from tens of thousands of years ago haven’t been preserved, how do we know that seafaring happened?”

“If boats from tens of thousands of years ago haven’t been preserved, how do we know that seafaring happened? One of the earliest signs is the archaeological evidence of anatomically modern humans in Australasia. That’s the first undisputed evidence that our ancestors must have used some sort of water transport as they moved Out of Africa and colonised the globe.

What’s exciting is that depending on sea-level, this could have potentially involved crossing around 100 kilometres of water, so what does this mean to our understanding of skills and technology of Homo sapiens sapiens and the story of the peopling of our planet?”

Her project, ACROSS – Australasian Colonisation Research: Origins of Seafaring to Sahul, has been awarded a €1.13m ERC Starter Grant over five years.

Her work is interdisciplinary. She will work closely with colleagues at the National Oceanography Centre to try to understand sea-levels from 60,000 years ago, the palaeolandscape and what the marine environment was like – for example, were there strong tides and currents?

questioning whether it’s simply human nature to want to travel over the horizon or whether the first seafarers were pushed to find new territory or resources.

In addition to the marine environmental lines of investigation, Helen will be working with the archaeogenetics laboratory at the University of Huddersfield and the Wellcome Sanger Institute for genomics and genetics research near Cambridge.

“We have access to archives of genetic samples that provide another line of investigation into this story,” she added. “We’re going to be looking at the whole genome rather than just the mitochondrial DNA. Hopefully this will tell us quite a lot about the timing of colonisation and routing through the region, and that will lead to new questions about where we should be looking for archaeology.”

This will help Helen to better understand the seafaring technology and skills that would have been necessary, as well as to consider intentionality, risk and our ancestors’ desire to travel.

She aims to discover how important it was for these people to cross into these new lands,

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Feature

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For further information, visit: www.southampton.ac.uk/education/research/centres

LEAVING NOBODY OUT Feeling included from start to finish is the main objective of a research centre based at Southampton Education School.

The Centre for Research in Inclusion (CRI) carries out internationallyrecognised research with a focus on working in collaboration with community partners from the outset, and develops methods to change their lives.

CRI is headed by Melanie Nind, Professor in Education and Director of Graduate School for the Faculty of Social, Human and Mathematical Sciences. Author of the 2014 book What is Inclusive Research?

(Bloomsbury Academic), Melanie has worked with inclusive researchers to explore the nature of quality in inclusive research, and sees the ethos of inclusion as being at the heart of the CRI’s work.

“We work in a very connected way with our stakeholders – the people to whom our research is intended to make a difference,” explained Sarah Parsons, Professor of Autism and Inclusion and Director of Research at Southampton Education School.

“Rather than a focus on knowledge transfer, we co-construct knowledge with stakeholders right from the start. We work in an inclusive way and that has real benefits – for us as researchers, for the University and its connection with the local and wider community, and for the people with whom we are working.”

CRI, which was set up in 2015, is currently running a series of research projects, including the following.

ACoRNS The aim of ACoRNS, the Autism Community Research Network @ Southampton, is to improve the lives of children and young people with autism.

Sarah, who leads ACoRNS, said: “The nursery to primary school transition for children with autism is a period about which we know very little. The children we work with are labelled

with deficits – maybe they find it difficult to socialise, or difficult to speak. What we lose by focusing on that, while it’s clearly important, is the fact that they are children first and they have strengths and likes and friends, just like any other child.”

ACoRNS, which was established in November 2016, is currently developing a series of holistic digital stories about children and how their nursery is helping them prepare for school.

“It’s an example of how we work in partnership right from the start with a view to influence practice directly,” added Sarah.

ACoRNS is a collaboration between Education and Psychology (Dr Hanna Kovshoff), and local schools that are interested in developing, researching, understanding and sharing good practice educational provision for children with autism.

SPIRIT SPIRIT, the Southampton Platform for Inclusive Research and Ideas Together, brings together researchers from the University and local people with learning disabilities.

The project, led by Melanie and Andrew Power, Associate Professor in Human Geography, is working with local advocacy services to identify important issues affecting people with learning disabilities. Together they explore existing research and identify gaps that exist, such as the decline of support services including college provision, lunch clubs and day centres.

Working with community partners in Scotland, SPIRIT will play a key role in a new study about how people with learning disabilities and their allies are reclaiming social care. The study will examine in detail the initiatives to self-build and transform day services in the UK.

the wider development and shared learning of schemes across the UK and beyond.”

Re_HaRe EU Erasmus+ project Re_HaRe (Reaching the ‘Hard to Reach’) develops strategies to include all children in lessons, particularly those seen as hard to reach such as migrants, refugees and disabled students.

It’s achieving this through teacher professional development with an emphasis on listening to students’ views.

The project, launched by Associate Professor Kiki Messiou last year, is working with schools and universities in – Austria, Denmark, England, Portugal and Spain. In each country, a university is collaborating with a primary school. The plan is for this to grow to 30 schools overall.

The intended outcomes of the project include a guide, a DVD, a manual for training children as researchers, case studies, guidance documents for monitoring the impact on teachers and students, and publications for academics and practitioners that will report the findings internationally.

Kiki said: “Our work with Wordsworth Primary School in Southampton, our partner school, has led to much interest amongst schoolchildren and teachers. Children have been trained as researchers and are collecting and analysing their classmates’ views. These will facilitate dialogues with their teachers about how to develop more inclusive practices in lessons. Monitoring the process so far has been inspiring.”

Melanie explained: “A key outcome of the research will be an online resource to support

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Feature

Burgundy vineyards. Photo courtesy of Megan Mallen.

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For further information, visit: www.southampton.ac.uk/ml

RAISE A GLASS TO UNIQUE RESEARCH Can wine really play a role in the politics of Brexit?

A unique research project claims that it can. And not only that – it offers a new anthropological insight into a global industry and its methods of production and consumption.

She argues that Brexit poses a potential threat to the British wine industry, as it could lose the protected status it has recently acquired from the European Union, which assures consumers they are buying a quality product.

Marion Demossier, Professor of French and European Studies, has spent 30 years working closely with a community of top class wine producers in France, following their work in great detail to understand its intricacies and quirks. She is now a world-leading authority on the social anthropology of wine.

Thirty years of research

Marion is now launching an online forum for wine growers around the world to engage and share their experiences about today’s changing environment and the challenges around climate change and sustainability that it poses for wine production.

Called ‘World Wine Stories’, the Facebook forum forms part of Marion’s latest area of research – Translating and Crafting ‘Terroir’ Stories in the Age of Climate Change.

Explaining the concept of ‘terroir’, Marion said: “It is the sense that quality and taste is attached to a specific place. It’s more humanity driven than scientific. It’s not about the stones and the earth, it’s about the wine grower and what he does – whether he uses pesticides, for example.”

Alongside the World Wine Stories forum, the project will seek to understand how British wine producers, as relative newcomers to the scene, engage with the concept of ‘terroir’. She has previously worked extensively with wine makers in France, Italy, Spain and North America, but this will be the first time Marion has worked with British wine growers – and the first significant academic study of British wine production.

“Terroir underpins both the legal and cultural world of European viticulture, an issue of great political and economic significance against the backdrop of Brexit,” explained Marion.

The concept of terroir has formed the backbone of much of Marion’s research since the late 1980s.

Since that time, she has focused on the Côte D’Or region of Burgundy – a 60km strip of land on the hills encompassing about 25 villages and 1,000 wine producers, internationally renowned for its Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

“It was very taboo to study it, as an anthropologist,” she said. “There was lots of secrecy because there are bottles of wine worth €8-10,000, even more. I wanted to do the opposite to what the majority of anthropologists were doing, and focus on the elite – the people driving the market.

“I have been working on the same fieldwork for 30 years, following the same people. Wine consumption and culture has changed so much in that time, not just in France but globally.” In 2008, she was invited to join the scientific committee supporting the application for World Heritage status that Burgundy obtained in 2015.

Marion joined the University of Southampton from the University of Bath in 2012. “When I came to Southampton I decided it was time for me to get back to the fieldwork and reexamine exactly what was happening with the people I’d worked with in the ‘90s,” she said.

Marion explained: “I try to demonstrate how global the wine industry has become – the most successful people are global players. In the book I unpick the Burgundy story. But it’s not about me supporting the wine industry – I am trying to look at it anthropologically and challenge the myths around it.

“Burgundy wine is a very global product worth huge amounts of money, and there are Burgundy wine lovers around the world.

Some of the bottles have a number and are instantly recognisable, and the growers can even watch where their bottle is and when it will be drunk.”

In the 30 years that Marion has been learning and discovering more about the anthropology of wine, the subject has attracted growing interest from anthropologists from around the world. She currently has a number of PhD students at Southampton.

“Every time there is a PhD in the field of anthropology and wine anywhere in the world, I am asked to be an external examiner,” she said.

As a pioneer in the field, how was her unusual interest sparked in the first place?

She recalls: “My grandfather was a professional wine merchant, so from the age of about four I was taken to the vineyards when he was working, and I was given tiny tastes.”

The irony is, however, that: “These days I don’t even drink wine! I like to taste it, but I don’t drink it.”

As a result of this re-examination, her fourth monograph, Burgundy: A Global Anthropology of Place and Taste, will be published in April by Berghahn. It explores the professional, social and cultural world of Burgundy wines, the role of terroir, and its journey to China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

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RE-THINKING PREGNANCY & MOTHERHOOD

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For more information, visit: southampton.ac.uk/philosophy

When does a foetus become its own self? Is a mother-to-be an individual or two, or more, people? Where is the line between doing and allowing harm to an unborn baby, and does it need to be re-drawn? And are these questions that should concern women only, or should we all care?

The philosophy of pregnancy and early motherhood raises huge dilemmas that, until now, have largely been ignored.

Elselijn Kingma and Fiona Woollard, both Associate Professors of Philosophy, are bringing these questions to the fore through a series of research projects and events.

As a result, Southampton is fast becoming a hub for the topic and the first Philosophy of Pregnancy and Early Motherhood conference will be held on 21 and 22 June at the University.

BUMP, or Better Understanding the Metaphysics of Pregnancy, is Elselijn’s current focus, which she launched in 2016.

“Pregnancy is a really interesting state,” she said. “You are one person, one human, one organism, but there is another organism intimately located within you. Therefore, it’s not clear where pregnant women fit in terms of being individuals. It’s an interesting question, and not one that has received any previous philosophical attention.”

As part of BUMP, Elselijn has recently had a paper accepted for publication in MIND, a leading journal in philosophy. The paper is called Were You A Part of Your Mother?.

“The claim I make is that the foetus is part of the maternal organism and not just contained within it,” she explained. “The foetus isn’t exactly like your kidney or another organ that is a part of you, but it is still a part of you. After birth it will go off and be its own organism, but until that point it is still part of the mother.

People disregard that this thing can only exist as part of the maternal organism.

“I hope, once this paper comes out, people might respond with other arguments – it’s about getting the debate started.”

Overlooking pregnancy – or just accepting it and not asking questions – is something Elselijn and Fiona want to address.

Elselijn added: “You don’t need to be pregnant to realise that pregnancy is a weird state. We move from sperm and egg to human. I want to get a handle on what the significance is of this happening in organisms, as opposed to in a glass bottle on your desk.”

Whilst Elselijn’s main focus is metaphysics, Fiona’s specialism is ethics and epistemology.

Most of our ethical concepts are built around the individual, so thinking about pregnancy, birth and early motherhood challenges that,” explained Fiona.

Elselijn and Fiona are working together on a paper arguing that the difference between doing and allowing harm doesn’t apply easily to pregnancy.

“It’s not clear where pregnant women fit in terms of being individuals.”

Fiona said: “Pregnant women who make less than optimal choices when it comes to their foetus’ wellbeing are often treated as if they are doing harm, rather than merely allowing harm or failing to benefit. This matters because we treat ‘doing harm’ much more seriously.

“But the difference between doing and allowing harm relies on the idea that there is a normal state of non-interference. You can just leave someone alone. There’s no state of ‘non-interference’ in pregnancy. A pregnant woman can’t just leave her foetus alone.”

Fiona has recently published a paper called Motherhood and Mistakes about Defeasible Duties to Benefit. In it, she identifies mistakes we make when we think about the behaviour of mothers and pregnant women, and how this can impact on their wellbeing.

Outlining the paper, she said: “A big problem is that every time women fail to do something that could benefit their children, they have to justify it. It leaves women feeling guilty and like they are constantly failing.”

She has explored the topic of infant feeding under this umbrella.

“The mistakes we make about infant feeding are bad for everyone,” said Fiona. “People think that if we say there are benefits to breastfeeding anyone who doesn’t breastfeed has to justify themselves. That’s bad for people who don’t breastfeed. But if we say ‘ok, there aren’t any benefits’, that’s bad for women who are breastfeeding, especially women who are putting a lot of effort into it – it makes their behaviour seem irrational.”

Another area that interests Fiona is pregnancy as a transformative experience – an experience you need to have had to gain a full knowledge about it.

She argues that pregnancy is an epistemically transformative experience. “Literature can really help, and dialogue with epistemic humility can help, but I don’t think you can fully grasp what it’s like to be pregnant,” she explained. “That’s relevant for applied ethics – this knowledge you can gain is important, for example, for debates about abortion. You need to know what you are asking of someone if you are going to ask them to remain pregnant against their will. If you have not experienced pregnancy, there is a real danger you will underestimate that.”

Elselijn argues that these issues should not only concern women. “It’s very easy for people to treat pregnancy as something only for women,” she concluded. “In some ways it is, but all of us begin as pregnancies, so understanding that process should concern us all.”

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Fast Facts

PURE CELEBRATES ST 1 BIRTHDAY The University’s Research Information System, Pure, recently celebrated its first birthday and what a successful year it’s been.

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For more information, visit: southampton.ac.uk/pure

Launched in February 2017, Pure has been used by the research community to deposit research outputs, datasets, activities, prizes and impact records. Taking synchronised data from the finance, human resources and student systems, Pure links together information that spans the research lifecycle, helping to showcase our achievements and support our preparations for REF 2021.

Key successes for Pure and the team behind it over the last 12 months include:

RESEARCH OUTPUTS

598

6,539

10,000

Journal Articles

Research outputs deposited and validated in Pure

Conference Papers

654

530

Doctoral Theses

Book Chapters

ACTIVITIES/PRIZES/ IMPACT

1,990

277

Activites

Prizes

46

Impact

329

325

284

140

Conference Invited Talks

Conference Committee Chair/Members

Public Lecture/Debate/ Seminar/Workshop

Editorship/Editorial Board Appointment

PURE DROP-INS

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Drop-in sessions held at Avenue, Boldrewood and Highfield Campuses, the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton General Hospital and Winchester School of Art.

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News in brief

NEWS IN BRIEF

GET SET FOR SUCCESS The SETsquared Partnership has again been ranked as the World’s Top Business Incubator managed by a University.

It won the title at the UBI Global World Incubation Summit last month and it means SETsquared has retained its world-leading position since 2015.

SETsquared is an enterprise collaboration between the universities of Southampton, Bath, Bristol, Exeter and Surrey.

Greg Clark, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, said: “The SETsquared Partnership has not only helped

£218m

INVESTMENT RAISED IN 2017

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nurture and grow British technology businesses, but it has also contributed nearly £4 billion to the UK economy which is an incredible achievement. Being recognised as one of the world’s leading business incubators is fantastic news and testament to the hard work and dedication of the team at SETsquared and the universities they work with.”

SETsquared was assessed alongside 1,370 programmes globally, from which 259 from 53 countries were benchmarked in detail.

It achieved the top place ranking alongside The DMZ, Ryerson University, Toronto.

883

Participants in SETsquared Programmes

in 2017

381

COMPANIES

CURRENTLY Supported

Research & Innovation Services, visit: www.southampton.ac.uk/ris

DIGITAL HUMANITIES AND 19TH CENTURY OPERA Dr Candida Mantica has won a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship, worth £183,454, for her new project, ‘Towards a Digital Critical Edition of The Works of Giuseppe Verdi’.

The project uses Giuseppe Verdi’s French version of Macbeth (1865) as a case study.

The project will employ digital tools (Edirom) designed at the University of Paderborn to develop:

The two-year project will pave the way to a digital edition of critical editions in the series The Works of Giuseppe Verdi, and will include secondments to the University of Paderborn in Germany and Casa Ricordi in Milan (Italy).

1) an applied model of digital critical edition; 2) an interactive system of fruition of the score; and 3) an applied model of digital critical edition of preparatory materials (sketches and drafts).

Under the supervision of Professor Francesco Izzo, Head of Music and General Editor of The Works of Giuseppe Verdi (University of Chicago Press and Casa Ricordi), Candida will address the practical limitations of the traditional printed book format of a major music edition by combining its rigorous criteria with the possibilities offered by digital humanities.

Critical editions of 19th century Italian opera have been appearing in print for over 40 years, offering the basis for productions in major European theatres. The Works of Giuseppe Verdi published its first volume in 1983, and aims to make all of Verdi’s works available in authoritative critical editions based on the composer’s autograph manuscripts and other primary source materials.

Verdi is one of the key figures in 19th century opera and his works occupy a prominent position in today’s repertoire worldwide.

Candida earned her PhD in Music at Southampton in 2013, and has since held postdoctoral posts at Frankfurt, Germany, and Maynooth, Ireland. Her edition of Gaetano Donizetti’s L’ange de Nisida will receive its world premiere at the Royal Opera House this summer.

Statue of Verdi

SEEKING BETTER CURES THROUGH MATHEMATICAL MODELLING Senior Lecturer in Immunopathogenesis at the University of Surrey, are working to understand exactly how the infection grows.

Rachel’s research has found that, once a person is infected with the bacteria, particular cells in the skin die much faster than others.

This is due to a diffusible exotoxin that is secreted by the bacteria called mycolactone, which causes blood vessels to break down and skin to die due to lack of oxygen.

A young girl recovering from a Buruli ulcer

Buruli ulcer is a devastating skin infection most common in rural regions of West Africa that can lead to disfigurement or limb loss – and for which there is currently no prevention or rapid cure.

Research at Southampton and Surrey is using mathematical modelling of host-pathogen interactions in the disease to better understand it, with the ultimate aim of improving the treatment and prevention options.

Buruli ulcer is caused by a bacteria called Mycobacterium ulcerans, an opportunistic pathogen that is found in the environment.

The transmission route is as yet unknown, but it is thought the bacteria may get into the

skin following a cut or an insect bite when the victim is immersed in water.

The infection can be cured following long-term treatment with high doses of antibiotics, but patients with serious ulcers may still require surgery to cut large areas of flesh away. Even small ulcers may take up to a year to heal fully.

Since the disease mainly affects children in tropical areas and treatment requires hospital stays, there is also a large socioeconomic impact on patients and their families.

Rebecca Hoyle, Professor of Applied Mathematics, Ben Macarthur, Professor of Mathematics in the Life Sciences, Fatumah Atuhaire, postgraduate research student in mathematical biology, and Rachel Simmonds,

The group is now using mathematical models to look into how the densities of skin cells respond to the presence of the bacteria and mycolactone. By exploring the interplay between different cell types, possible new avenues of treatment will be revealed.

Fatumah said: “This research works as an interface between mathematics and biology.

I am interested in using the simplicity of mathematics to explain wound lesions of Buruli ulcer. I am optimistic that the results of this work will be key in the improvement of Buruli ulcer treatment.”

The project is funded by the University of Southampton in connection with our partnership with the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences.

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News in brief

UNCOVERING THE MYSTERY OF SAND DUNES The origin of wind-blown sand dunes remains one of the enduring questions puzzling geomorphologists.

Known as aeolian dunes, they occupy 10% of the Earth’s surface in deserts and coastal regions. The shape, movement and patterns of fully grown dunes has been studied extensively, but their origin is still a mystery.

Dr Jo Nield, Associate Professor in Aeolian Geomorphology, is part of a team of five investigators who have been awarded £799,000 to try to answer the question of how these impressive dunes originate.

The project is called The Origin of Aeolian Dunes (TOAD) and funding has been jointly awarded by the Natural Environment Research Council and the National Science Foundation.

Studying sand dunes in action

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Identifying how the dunes form is central to understanding them as major geological units, including how they respond to climatic drivers, environmental change and societal impact.

The difficulty up until now was that it was impossible to measure the necessary variables at the ultra-high spatial and temporal resolutions required to detect small variations in surface conditions and wind-blown sand transport. TOAD will combine fieldwork, physical and numerical modelling with recent technological advances that now make these challenges surmountable.

Jo said: “I am really excited to undertake the project with a superb international team of investigators and collaborators. We now have

the technology to try and answer questions about dune initiation that have eluded the discipline for decades. The project is something I’ve passionately wanted to address since a visit to a beach in Wales, back in 2008.”

Joining Jo as project investigators are Professor Giles Wiggs (Oxford), Dr Matthew Baddock (Loughborough), Professor Jim Best (Illinois, US) and Professor Ken Christensen (Notre Dame, US). The project also involves 10 partner institutions including the Royal Geographical Society, Gobabeb Research and Training Centre in the UNESCO world heritage Namib National Park, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado, University of Texas, Jet Propulsion Lab -California, Desert Research Institute – Reno, and Shell International.

For further information, visit: www.southampton.ac.uk/ris

SIMON KEAY ELECTED TO PRESTIGIOUS COMMITTEE Professor Simon Keay FBA has been appointed to the Scientific Committee for the Parco Archeologico di Ostia Antica (the Ostia Antica Archeological Park in Italy) for a period of five years.

Simon, Professor of Archaeology, was chosen by the Ministero dei Beni e delle Attivita Culturali e del Turismo (Ministry for Cultural and Environmental Heritage and Tourism).

The committee was formally constituted by the Ministero in December and will advise on the scientific and outreach programme of the newly-formed park, which incorporates the major Roman archaeological sites of Ostia, Portus and the Isola Sacra.

The park covers an area of about 130 hectares, which makes it one of the largest archaeological parks in Europe. The sites that make up the park currently receive well over 330,000 visitors per year.

Simon is director of the Portus Project, which has involved ongoing extensive survey and excavation at Portus and on the Isola Sacra

from 1997 to the present day. He is also director of the ongoing ERC Advanced Grant Roman Mediterranean Ports (Portuslimen) project, which involves field, laboratory and archive research of 32 ports across the Mediterranean, and is due to end in 2019.

“It is an honour and a privilege to have been selected for this role, and I very much look forward to working with my Italian colleagues in further developing the scientific and outreach potential of these truly remarkable archaeological sites.”

Professor Simon Keay

ORC TECHNOLOGY BLASTS OFF 5D optical storage technology developed in Southampton has been used to send a Solar Library into space aboard the new rocket, the Falcon Heavy.

Archs are the vision of the Arch Mission Foundation, which wants to permanently preserve and disseminate human knowledge across time and space for the benefit of future generations.

The technology was developed by Professor Peter Kazansky and his team at the University’s Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC).

Peter said: “This is major step forward for humankind and I am delighted that the ORC is part of this mission. It is visionary projects like this that help us push forward with research and development into 5D data storage with even greater data capacity.”

The Solar Library is the first Arch library and contains the Foundation Trilogy of science fiction books by Elon Musk’s favourite author, Isaac Asimov. Musk is CEO of SpaceX, which owns the Tesla Roadster aboard Falcon Heavy.

The 5D optical storage allows unprecedented data capacity, thermal stability up to 1,000 degrees Celsius and a virtually unlimited lifetime at room temperature.

Falcon Heavy

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Feature

MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS 1. Southampton Professor Alistair Pike co-authored a study by a team of archaeologists who found new evidence to show that Neanderthals – not modern humans – were the first artists on Earth.

Cave paintings in Spain were dated as 65,000 years old, which is tens of thousands of years before modern humans arrived.

The discovery was reported by the BBC, The Guardian, the Daily Mail, the Independent, Reuters and the New York Times, amongst others.

2. Astronomers confirmed the discovery of the most distant supernova ever detected – a cosmic explosion that happened 10.5 billion years ago. Light from the explosion has taken all that time to reach the Earth. The lead author of the study was Dr Mathew Smith and co-author was Professor Mark Sullivan. The news was reported by the Mirror, USA Today, Astronomy Magazine and Newsweek.

In a cave in western Spain, Neanderthals stenciled their hands by blowing red paint over them 1

A supernova is the explosion of a huge star at the end of its lifecycle 2

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3. A campaign to raise £25 million for the University’s new Centre for Cancer Immunology reached its target. The fundraising campaign for the four-storey building, based at Southampton General Hospital, started in 2015. It will house 50 research staff and a specialist clinical trials unit. The news was reported by the BBC, the Daily Echo and the Jersey Evening Post.

4. Southampton was one of five regions chosen to develop drone technology in the UK. Alongside London, Preston, Bradford and the West Midlands, Southampton was selected by Nesta to take part in the Flying High Challenge this year. The project, which will see the University teaming up with the city council, is designed to explore the public attitudes, environmental impact, logistics and safety of drones operating in urban environments. The Daily Echo and Commercial Drone Professional were amongst those to report the news.

5. New research revealed that rheumatoid arthritis drugs could play a role in reducing the risk of developing dementia.

Researchers from the University of Southampton and Oxford University found that the risk of dementia in people taking anti-rheumatic drugs, particularly methotrexate, reduced by 1.6% (as opposed to 0.5% in those not taking the drugs) after five years, and by 1.5% (versus 0.3%) after 15 years. The news was reported by The Telegraph, The Times, the Mirror, The Sun and AOL, amongst others.

Teams began researching new cancer treatments at the centre this month (March) 3

Drones could potentially be used to provide public services 4

Taking arthritis drugs could reduce the risk of dementia 5

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News

FUNDING NEWS FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND THE ENVIRONMENT Dr Ivo Peters; Aeronautics, Astronautics and Computational Engineering Fingers and fractures – morphologies of failure modes in shear-jamming suspensions Royal Society; £13,000 over 24 months Dr Ivo Peters; Aeronautics, Astronautics and Computational Engineering Fingers and fractures – morphologies of failure modes in shear-jamming suspensions Royal Society; £13,000 over 24 months

Prof Bharathram Ganapathisubramani; Aeronautics, Astronautics and Computational Engineering Effect of Separation and Stall on Aerofoil Noise EPSRC; £642,583 over 36 months

Dr Mohammad Kashani; Civil, Maritime and Environmental Engineering and Science SPINE: Resilience Based Design of Biologically Inspired Columns for Next-Generation Accelerated Bridge Construction EPSRC; £242,455 over 24 months Dr Yongqiang Liu; Civil, Maritime and Environmental Engineering and Science ADnet BBSRC; £15,000 over 4 months Dr Sonia Heaven; Civil, Maritime and Environmental Engineering and Science Pilot-scale trial of insitu Biomethanisation BBSRC; £50,000 over 4 months

Dr Denis Kramer; Mechanical Engineering Electrochemical Route to Energy Storage, Energy Conversion and Fuel Production British Council; £29,430 over 12 months Prof Tomas Polcar; Mechanical Engineering Renaissance of alloys: nanocrystalline bimetals EPSRC; £223,099 over 24 months Dr Helen Cullington; FEE Enterprise Telemedicine for adults with cochlear implants in the UK: Empowering patients to manage their own hearing healthcare Health Foundation; £499,974 over 30 months

FACULTY OF HEALTH SCIENCES

Prof William Powrie; Civil, Maritime and Environmental Engineering and Science IN2TRACK European Commission; £44,848 over 13 months

Prof Maria Stokes; Health Sciences Arthritis Research UK Centre for Sport, Exercise and Osteoarthritis Arthritis Research UK; £201,847 over 60 months

Prof William Powrie; Civil, Maritime and Environmental Engineering and Science UK Rail Research Innovation Network (HEFCE Capital Equipment Grant) HEFCE; £910,000 over 24 months

Prof Miranda Fader; Health Sciences TRIUMPH - TReatment to Improve Urinary symptoms in Men in Primary Healthcare National Institute of Health Research; £133,039 over 36 months

Dr Yue Zhang; Civil, Maritime and Environmental Engineering and Science POC PDRA BBSRC; £43,769 over 6 months

Prof Claire Foster; Health Sciences Prostate Cancer Outcomes Global Initiative to Compare and Reduce Variation (PRO-CRV) Movember Foundation; £329,007 over 29 months

Prof Paul Kemp; Civil, Maritime and Environmental Engineering and Science Investigation of Electrical Fields on Behavioral Response and Guidance of Outmigrating Eels Electric Power Research Institute; £180,000 over 3 months

Prof David Thompson; Institute of Sound and Vibration Research Acoustic requirements for rail shields DB Systemtechnik; £19,796 over 4 months

Prof Daniel Bader; Health Sciences Assessing a penile compressive device with patients, FEA and MRI modelling EPSRC; £32,000 over 6 months

Prof Stephen Elliott; Institute of Sound and Vibration Research EPSRC Sheffield Programme Grant Outline EPSRC; £542,444 over 60 months

Dr Sally Brown; Civil, Maritime and Environmental Engineering and Science Collaborative methodologies and mapping of National Trust coastal change sites Natural Environment Research Council; £28,831 over 6 months

Dr Giacomo Squicciarini; Institute of Sound and Vibration Research Vibration Condition Monitoring Project at the ISIS Synchrotron Science And Technology Facilities Council; £9,999 over 10 months

Prof Anne Rogers; Health Sciences The Project About Loneliness and Social networks (PALS) study National Institute of Health Research; £847,477 over 36 months

Dr Joseph Banks; Civil, Maritime and Environmental Engineering and Science Extension to the Framework Agreement with the English Institute of Sport supporting research into Great British Olympic Sports UK Sport; £46,777 over 9 months

Prof Simon Spearing; Mechanical Engineering Enhancing the take up of training and CPD for PER EPSRC; £46,344 over 12 months

Prof James Scanlan; Aeronautics, Astronautics and Computational Engineering CASCADE EPSRC Programme Grant EPSRC, Industry & other; £6.8m over 60 months Prof Stephen Turnock; Civil, Maritime and Environmental Engineering and Science EIS Framework Continuation UK Sport; £14,203 over 3 months Prof Jonathan Preston; Civil, Maritime and Environmental Engineering and Science Crossrail Revenue Model Review Transport for London; £45,782 over 6 months

Dr Blair Thornton; Civil, Maritime and Environmental Engineering and Science RamaCam – In situ holographic imaging and chemical spectroscopy for long term scalable analysis of marine particles in deep-sea environments Natural Environment Research Council & the Japanese Science and Technology Agency

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Dr Adrian Nightingale; Mechanical Engineering Droplet microfluidic based sensors for high resolution chemical sensing on autonomous underwater vehicles Natural Environment Research Council; £327,828 over 42 months Dr Alexander Dickinson; Mechanical Engineering A Step Change in LMIC Prosthetics Provision through Computer Aided Design, Actimetry and Database Technologies EPSRC and NIHR; £909,511 over 36 months

Dr Anne-Sophie Darlington, Dr Samantha Sodergren; Health Sciences, and Prof Colin Johnson; Cancer Sciences An International Field Study to test the Reliability and Validity of the EORTC Anal Cancer Module and the EORTC QLQ-C30 for assessing Health Related Quality of Life in patients with anal cancer European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Group; £129,566 over 24 months

FACULTY OF HUMANITIES Prof Alistair Pike; Archaeology Protohistoric to Medieval pastoralism in the Western Alps AHRC; £142,285 over 36 months Prof Joanna Sofaer; Archaeology HERA Knowledge Exchange and Impact Fellowship: Humanities in the European Research Area European Research Council; €249,975 (plus €200,000 for HERA activities) over 29 months

For more information, visit: www.southampton.ac.uk/research

Prof Peter Clarke; History Clergy and Criminal Violence in Later Medieval England and Wales Gerda Henkel Stiftung; £32,383 over 12 months Prof Anne Curry; History The Portrayal of Battles in Medieval Chronicles Royal Society; £83,513 over 24 months Prof Mark Everist; Music Jupiter; Mozart in the 19th-Century Drawing Room AHRC; £78,300 over 12 months

FACULTY OF MEDICINE Dr Sara Waise; Cancer Sciences Heterogeneity in cancer-associated fibroblasts Pathological Society of Great Britain & Ireland; £9,587 over 12 months Dr Christopher Hanley; Cancer Sciences Reconstructing the lung cancer microenvironment in vitro: investigating the interplay between cancerassociated fibroblasts and T-lymphocytes British Lung Foundation; £25,000 over 24 months Prof Anneke Lucassen; Cancer Sciences Enhancing ethical preparedness in genomic medicine Wellcome Trust; £537,166 over 60 months Prof Gareth Griffiths; Cancer Sciences, Southampton Clinical Trials Unit User-focused research to identify the benefits of innovative digital recruitment and retention tools for more efficient conduct of randomised trials National Institute of Health Research; £74,689 Dr Marc Bullock; Cancer Sciences The role of p53 in exosomal microRNA export; implications for tumour/stroma crosstalk in colorectal cancer Cancer Research UK; £26,182 over 18 months Dr Anne-Sophie Darlington, Dr Samantha Sodergren; Health Sciences, and Prof Colin Johnson; Cancer Sciences An International Field Study to test the Reliability and Validity of the EORTC Anal Cancer Module and the EORTC QLQ-C30 for assessing Health Related Quality of Life in patients with anal cancer European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Group; £129,566 over 24 months

Prof Roxana -Octavia Carare; Clinical and Experimental Sciences Immunisation-neurodegenerative diseases United Neurosciences Ltd; £257,159 over 24 months

Dr Helena Lee; Clinical and Experimental Sciences Oral Levodopa treatment in Improving Visual development in infants and young children with Albinism the OLIVIA study MRC; £1,004,076 over 60 months Prof Philip Calder; Human Development and Health Egypt's Obesity Battle: Towards Accessible Treatment Strategies Newton International Fellowship; £62,935 over 24 months Prof Richard Holt; Human Development and Health OCTOPuS: Optimising Cardiac Surgery ouTcOmes in People with diabeteS National Institute of Health Research; £1,594,838 over 60 months

Prof Janis Baird; Human Development and Health Trial of Acute Femoral Fracture Fixation (TrAFFix), A feasibility study National Institute of Health Research; £10,823 over 18 months Prof Cyrus Cooper; Human Development and Health UK/India/Africa Network for Adolescent Nutrition MRC; £53,533 over 12 months Dr Kate Ward; Human Development and Health Establishment of the Sub-Saharan African MuSculOskeletal Network (SAMSON) The Academy of Medical Sciences; £23,950 over 12 months Dr Nicholas Evans; Human Development and Health Bubbles for bone: cavitating nanodroplets for drugging fracture repair EPSRC; £449,172 over 36 months Prof James S Wilkinson; Optoelectronics Research Centre, Prof Philip N Bartlett; Chemistry, Prof Robert C Read; Medicine, and Prof Michalis N Zervas; ORC Flexible Raman biosensing platform for low-cost health diagnostics EPSRC; £972,877 over 42 months Prof Paul Roderick; Primary Care and Population Sciences Ethnic differences in kidney function in childhood and the role of kidney size: the Born in Bradford Cohort Renal Study (BiB) Kidney Research UK; £180,000 over 36 months

Dr Janaka Arjuna Ratnayaka; Clinical and Experimental Sciences Amyloid beta proteins as biomarkers of AMD: Insights into common disease mechanisms in the senescent retina and brain Fight for Sight; £14,991 over 11 months

Dr Simon Fraser; Primary Care and Population Sciences Understanding treatment burden and enhancing capacity for people with chronic kidney disease British Renal Society; £39,076 over 18 months

Dr Marta Polak; Clinical and Experimental Sciences In silico deconvolution of blood immune status to direct anti-malarial vaccination and treatment Royal Society; £93,673 over 12 months

Dr Miriam Santer; Primary Care and Population Sciences Spironolactone for Adult Female Acne (SAFA): multicentre parallel-arm randomised controlled trial testing the clinical and cost-effectiveness of spironolactone versus lymecycline for moderate or

severe persistent acne in adult women National Institute of Health Research; £1,507,367 over 66 months

Dr Adam Geraghty; Primary Care and Population Sciences Supporting self-management of low back pain with an internet intervention in primary care: A full randomised controlled trial and cost effectiveness analysis National Institute of Health Research; £986,951 over 43 months Prof Nuala McGrath; Primary Care and Population Sciences & Social Statistics and Demography Maximising combination HIV prevention, uptake and retention by young women National Institutes of Health – USA; £41,365 over 60 months Dr Guiqing Yao; Primary Care and Population Sciences TACIT award via Bournemouth - Developing a sustainable research programme to prevent falls and promote physical activity among older people with dementia National Institute of Health Research; £19,977 over 24 months Dr Merlin Willcox; Primary Care and Population Sciences Family Planning: Fact or Fiction?

MRC; £10,696 over 18 months Dr Andrew Cook; Wessex Institute A Risk-adjusted and Anatomically Stratified Cohort Comparison Study of Open Surgery, Endovascular Techniques and Medical Management for Juxtarenal Aortic Aneurysms: The UK COMplex AneurySm Study (UK-COMPASS) National Institute for Health Research, £1,143,645.63 over 66 months

FACULTY OF NATURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE Dr Salah Elias; Biological Sciences Uncovering the Molecular Mechanisms of Asymmetric Cell Divisions in Mammalian Adult Epithelia Wellcome Trust; £100,000 over 24 months Prof Jeremy Webb; Biological Sciences BBSRC/Innovate Biofilms IKC BBSRC; £4,104,770 over 60 months Prof Keith Jones; Biological Sciences Understanding Meiotic Drive: How Mendel's Law is cheated in oocytes Leverhulme Trust; £171,337 over 36 months Dr Yihua Wang; Biological Sciences How does autophagy regulate the development of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis?

AAIR Charity; £10,000 over 24 months Dr Jane Catford; Biological Sciences Quantifying the responses and effects of plants in a warmer world Royal Society; £15,000 over 12 months

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News Dr Orly Razgour and Ms Evie Morris; Biological Sciences Investigating how agricultural and urban expansion affects the diet, microbiota and conservation of desert bats Bat Conservation International; £2,564 over 18 months Dr Marcin Przewloka; Biological Sciences Novel Role of a Protein Phosphatase in Chromosome Segregation Wellcome Trust; £100,000 over 24 months Prof Brian Hayden; Chemistry The JUICED Hub (Joint University Industry Consortium for Energy (Materials) and Devices Hub) - ISCF Wave 1 EPSRC; £405,666 over 42 months Prof Philip Bartlett; Chemistry A highly versatile selective approach for lithium production Royal Society; £196,079 over 36 months Prof Jonathan Essex; Chemistry Ying-Chih Chiang Newton International Fellowship Royal Society; £99,000 over 24 months Prof Andrew Hector; Chemistry Feasibility research into composite carbon electrodes for sodium-ion batteries Innovate UK ISCF Faraday Battery Challenge; £123,066 over 12 months Dr Peter Wells; Chemistry Metal Nanoparticle - MOF Templates; Tailored Routes to Controlled Nanocomposites for Catalysis EPSRC; £93,351 over 12 months Dr Peter Wells; Chemistry START: Synchrotron Techniques for African Research and Technology Science and Technology Facilities Council; £167,008 over 38 months Prof Sumeet Mahajan; Chemistry Engineering Novel Imaging Technologies for Reproductive Health: Transforming IVF outcomes EPSRC; £244,593 over 24 months Prof Syma Khalid; Chemistry Combining quantum and classical methods to study bacterial membrane enzymes Leverhulme Trust; £126,931 over 36 months

Dr Seung Lee; Chemistry Development of hyper-synthetic glycosynthase for high value glycosides BBSRC; £19,954 over 3 months Dr Matthias Baud; Chemistry Identification and Development of FGE Stabilizing Molecules: Towards a Therapy for Multiple Sulfatase Deficiency MSD Action Foundation; £50,388 over 24 months Prof James S Wilkinson; Optoelectronics Research Centre, Prof Philip N Bartlett; Chemistry, Prof Robert C Read; Medicine, and Prof Michalis N Zervas; ORC Flexible Raman biosensing platform for low-cost health diagnostics EPSRC; £972,877 over 42 months Dr Jonathan Copley; Ocean and Earth Science Colonisation of hydrothermal vents by complex life: a natural experiment in macroevolution Natural Environment Research Council; £19,731 over 36 months Prof Paul Wilson; Ocean and Earth Science Understanding the response of aridity in the Greater Middle East to CO2-driven global warmth Royal Society; £99,997 over 12 months

Dr Xu Fang; Electronics and Computer Science Plasmonic electrodes for electrokinetic and plasmonic hybrid sensing Royal Society; £15,000 over 12 months Dr Long Tran-Thanh; Electronics and Computer Science Repeated Pollution Network Games Royal Society; £2,750 over 3 months Prof Elena Simperl; Electronics and Computer Science They Buy For You European Commission; £257,156 over 36 months Dr Corin Gawith; Optoelectronics Research Centre Scalable Nonlinear Optical Waveguides for Quantum Atom Traps (SNOWQAT) EPSRC; £405,863 over 36 months

Dr Chuang Xuan and Prof Paul Wilson; Ocean and Earth ScienceTransforming our understanding of the geodynamo: A new global synthesis and model of millenial-scale geomagnetic variability for late Pleistocene Natural Environment Research Council; £350,206 over 36 months

Dr Corin Gawith; Optoelectronics Research Centre Nonlinear Optical Materials by Ultra-Precision Machining Royal Academy of Engineering; £175,687 over 60 months

FACULTY OF PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING Prof Lajos Hanzo; Electronics and Computer Science Telecommunication networks for rural areas in developing countries: The Internet of empowerment and wealth-creation Royal Society; £225,000 over 36 months Prof George Chen; Electronics and Computer Science Power Cable Ageing Status Evaluation and Lifetime Estimation e-Grid Shaanxi Electric Power Research Institute; £162,378 over 24 months

Dr Russell Minns; Chemistry Photoelectron interferometry as a structural and dynamical probe EPSRC; £310,055 over 36 months

Dr Stuart Boden; Electronics and Computer Science Black Silicon Photovoltaics EPSRC; £439,330 over 36 months

Prof Graeme Day; Chemistry A Supramolecular Gel Phase Crystallisation Strategy EPSRC; £279,757 over 36 months

Dr Sarvapali Ramchurn; Electronics and Computer Science REACH: Responsible Human Agent Collectives AXA Research Fund; £217,555 over 36 months

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Prof Stephen Beeby; Electronics and Computer Science An Energy Harvesting And Insole Sensors For Smart Footwear Using Novel Lead-Free Piezoelectric Composite Royal Academy of Engineering; £7,371 over 24 months

Dr Thomas Gernon; Ocean and Earth Science Environmental tipping points during supercontinent breakup Natural Environment Research Council; £40,365 over 24 months

Dr Russell Minns; Chemistry Transient electronic absorption studies of the effect of hydrogen bonding interactions on excited state dynamics Royal Society; £91,542 over 48 months

Dr Seung Lee; Chemistry Development of hyper-activity glycosynthase BBSRC; £15,994 over 2 months

Prof Stephen Beeby; Electronics and Computer Science EnABLES: European Infrastructure Powering the Internet of Things European Commission; £227,157 over 48 months

Prof Jayanta Sahu; Optoelectronics Research Centre ACTPHAST4.0: ACceleraTing PHotonics innovAtion for SME’s: a one STop-shop-incubator European Commission; €274,140 over 48 months Dr Senthil Ganapathy; Optoelectronics Research Centre Fabrication of tantala waveguides for on-chip nanoscopy University of Tromso; £10,549 over 12 months Prof Francesco Poletti; Optoelectronics Research Centre Laser Assisted Drilling Saudi Aramco; £602,710 over 12 months Dr Nikitas Papasimakis, Dr Vassilis Apostolopoulos and Dr Sakellaris Mailis; Optoelectronics Research Centre Spatially resolved measurements of the THz conductivity of graphene on lithium niobate Durham University; £3,800 over 6 months Dr Radan Slavik; Optoelectronics Research Centre Thermally-insensitive Hollow Core Optical Fibres Royal Academy of Engineering; £188,962 over 60 months

For more information, visit: www.southampton.ac.uk/research

Ms Natalie Wheeler; Optoelectronics Research Centre Hazardous Gas Detection for the Nuclear Industry with Fibre Enhance Raman Detection System Innovate UK; £166,249 over 24 months Prof David Thomson; Optoelectronics Research Centre Functional Slot Waveguides for Low Energy Photonics Royal Society; £97,117 over 48 months Prof Graham Reed; Optoelectronics Research Centre PICTURE: High Performance and High Yield Heterogeneous III-V/Si Photonic Integrated Circuits using a Thin and Uniform Bonding Layer European Commission; £469,333 over 36 months Prof James S Wilkinson; Optoelectronics Research Centre, Prof Philip N Bartlett; Chemistry, Prof Robert C Read; Medicine, and Prof Michalis N Zervas; ORC Flexible Raman biosensing platform for low-cost health diagnostics EPSRC; £972,877 over 42 months Dr Simone De Liberato; Physics and Astronomy Localised phonon polaritons: a platform for midinfrared nonlinear photonics Royal Society; £91,992 over 48 months Dr Luca Sapienza; Physics and Astronomy Investigating the coherence of light emitted by biomolecules: towards reverse-engineering photosynthesis Royal Society; £15,000 over 12 months Dr Luca Sapienza; Physics and Astronomy TeraDot: Terahertz excitations of coupled quantum dots Royal Society; £11,960 over 24 months Dr Robert Fear; Physics and Astronomy Magnetospheric Physics at Southampton Science And Technology Facilities Council; £291,678 over 36 months Dr Poshak Gandhi; Physics and Astronomy Development of a Parallel Multi-Telescope Observation Tool for Multiwavelength Astrophysics Commonwealth Scholarship Commission; £44,271 over 24 months Dr Andrew O'Bannon; Physics and Astronomy Universal Transport from Holography and Boundaries Royal Society; £85,092 over 48 months Prof Ian McHardy; Physics and Astronomy A new seed-photon based X-ray spectral unification scheme for AGN and black hole X-ray binaries Royal Society; £99,000 over 24 months Prof Christian Knigge and Astronomy Group; Physics and Astronomy Astrophysics at Southampton Science And Technology Facilities Council; £1,097,527 over 36 months

Dr Matthew Himsworth; Physics and Astronomy PLAIN-GG: Phase Locked Atomic INterferometers for Gravity Gradiometry EPSRC; £246,391 over 24 months

Prof Pasquale Di Bari; Physics and Astronomy Understanding the origin of ordinary and dark matter with models of neutrino masses and mixing Royal Society; £99,000 over 24 months Jade Reidy; Physics and Astronomy Field campaign to observe polar cap aurora from Svalbard Royal Astronomical Society; £655 awarded in January 2018

FACULTY OF SOCIAL, HUMAN AND MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES

Prof Nils Andersson; Mathematical Sciences General Relativistic Astrophysics Science And Technology Facilities Council; £922,850 over 36 months Dr Adam Pound; Mathematical Sciences Accurate waveforms from extreme-mass-ratio inspirals into nonrotating black holes Royal Society; £100,822 over 48 months Prof Marika Taylor; Mathematical Sciences International Exchanges 2017 Royal Society; £12,000 over 24 months Prof Marika Taylor; Mathematical Sciences String Physics of Black Hole Microstates Royal Society; £103,841 over 45 months Dr Wynn Ho; Mathematical Sciences Beyond 50 years since discovery: Pulsar science with FAST Royal Society International Exchanges; £2,100 over 3 months

Dr Marije Schaafsma; Geography and Environment Developing capacity to support the integration of environmental data into multidimensional poverty indicators for improved poverty measurement and alleviationESPA Impact Activity Fund; £9,993 over 4 months

Prof Jadunandan Dash; Geography and Environment Ground Based Observations for Validation of Copernicus Global Land Products (GBOV-GL) via ACRI-ST European Research Council; £72,581 over 12 months

Prof Justin Sheffield; Geography and Environment GCRF – Building Research Capacity for sustainable water and food security in drylands of sub-saharan Africa RCUK; £5,481,343 over 48 months

Dr Gloria Langat; Social Sciences Newton Institutional link grant: Health and wellbeing of older persons in Kenya – Tackling the data gaps and needs British Council; £11,056 over 12 months

Prof Sarah Stevenage; Psychology Human-Like Computing for Biometric Analysis EPSRC; £145,234 over 18 months

Dr Anita Lavorgna; Social Sciences FloraGuard: Tackling the Illegal Trade in Plant Trafficking ESRC; £300,456 over 30 months

Prof Nicholas Donnelly; Psychology Improving Crowd Resilience Defence & Security Accelerator; £74,630 over 6 months Dr Jana Kreppner; Psychology Solent NHS Trust Research Capability Funding 2017/18 National Institute of Health Research; £16,896 over 6 months

Prof Sarah Parsons; Southampton Education School The voices and experiences of children with autism, and their families, in their transitions from nursery to primary school.

The Froebel Trust; £35,188 over 9 months

Dr Jana Kreppner; Psychology Waterloo Foundation ADHD & Co-Occurring Disorders The Waterloo Foundation; £9,758 over 20 months Dr Ben Ainsworth; Psychology Reducing Worry in Asthma Patients (REWRAP): Can non-pharmacological interventions improve asthma outcomes by reducing worrying thoughts?

AAIR; £6,272 over 16 months Dr Hedwig Eisenbarth; Psychology TAR Intervention Study The Waterloo Foundation; £7,320 over 20 months Dr Samuele Cortese; Psychology Solent NHS Trust Research Capability Funding 2017/18 National Institute of Health Research; £31,397 over 6 months

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