Re:action Summer 2021

Summer 2021 | Issue 18 Research and Enterprise Magazine

What’s on the horizon?

As the UK joins forces with Horizon Europe, we look at our European funding successes and future opportunities BEATING BURNOUT Hospitals are trialling a programme to improve nurses’ working lives

FROM 5G TO 6G Exploring the potential for future wireless communications

CAPTURING CARBON Will carbon capture and offshore storage help our climate crisis?

YOUTH CULTURE Designing a study to capture the essence of growing up

Introduction

WELCOME TO RE:ACTION Since our April edition of Re:action much has changed. Unfortunately, we are still battling COVID-19, but the future does look brighter, as the UK’s vaccine programme rolls on, and is increasingly supplying doses for the rest of the world. This builds on fantastic work by colleagues, including here at Southampton, providing a great illustration of the importance of strong fundamental research, as well as mechanisms for enterprise and knowledge exchange, including running highly effective clinical trials. We have also received a very positive outcome in the first running of the Knowledge Exchange Framework by Research England, which by various measures, recognises Southampton as the most effective university for knowledge exchange in the country.

One of the other very positive developments since April is that we are now clear that the UK will be an associate member country to the new European Union Framework Programme, Horizon Europe. This edition of Re:action showcases our research activities in partnership with European institutions. Over the past decade we have benefitted enormously from European

funding and particularly the strength of the collaborations that it has allowed. You will see great examples of how this has resulted in research of the highest quality and impact in the articles in this edition. The diversity of activities is fantastic and inspiring.

We are all aware that Brexit has weakened many existing partnerships, so the welcome news of our association should be the trigger for many of us to reinvigorate existing links and to seek new opportunities, including through European Research Council funding.

If you have not previously considered applying for EU funding, I highly recommend the first two articles in this edition, which explain the key elements of the programme and lessons learned from the previous framework programme. Good luck!

I very much hope that you enjoy the articles in this edition. As always, comments and feedback are very welcome.

Best wishes

Professor Mark Spearing Vice-President (Research and Enterprise)

PLEASE SEND US YOUR FEEDBACK We are keen to receive your feedback about Re:action. If you have any ideas, comments or suggestions, please send them to reaction@southampton.ac.uk Re:action is created by Lucy Collie and Louise Payne, Research and Innovation Services

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

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FEATURE

IN THIS ISSUE 8

What’s on the horizon?

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A magnet for success

Enter the DRAGON

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18

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The underwater impact

The carbon conundrum

Beyond the horizon

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Introducing 6G: The future of wireless communications

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26

Seeing the invisible

Twinning for youth

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30

A material world

IT innovation success

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Research award highlights

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WHAT’S ON THE HORIZON? The year 2021 brought with it the dawn of the UK’s new relationship with Europe, and for researchers that meant the commencement of Horizon Europe.

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For further information, visit: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/programmes/horizon

The Horizon Europe framework programme is the European Commission’s (EC’s) main mechanism for funding research and innovation. The seven-year programme will run from 2021 to 2027, offering grants through investigator-led and challenge-driven calls. It has a budget of €95.5 billion, which is almost €20 billion more than its predecessor.

With a focus on tackling challenges such as climate change, helping to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and boosting competitiveness and growth, the programme is keen to achieve some big goals.

“Following our extraordinary success with the Horizon 2020 programme, the University of Southampton is excited and already engaging fully with Horizon Europe and all the opportunities it will bring for our researchers,” explained Emma Winnell, newly appointed EU Research Funding Manager in Research and Innovation Services.

“Horizon Europe is an evolved Horizon 2020, rather than a different programme

completely, which sets us in good stead with all our previous EU funding knowledge,” Emma added.

How it works As part of the UK-EU trade agreement, the UK has formally associated to Horizon Europe.

This association will give UK researchers, scientists, and businesses access to funding under the programme on equivalent terms to organisations in EU countries.

Emma explained the importance of formal association: “Association means that the UK will be able to participate in collaborative calls and monobeneficiary schemes such as European Research Council grants and Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellowships.

“Previously when working with the Horizon 2020 programme, we were very successful in these funding calls and some fantastic research projects were delivered, hence why we are so pleased to be engaging fully with Horizon Europe.”

Phil Holliday, European Advisor at the UK Research Office (UKRO) in Brussels, with his team, supports the UK’s involvement in Horizon Europe. He said: “Horizon Europe brings exciting new opportunities and new ways of working as researchers and innovators unite across Europe. It is a huge opportunity for the UK to renew and expand its research and innovation connections in the EU and beyond, and to benefit from funding, cross-border networks, supply chains for new products and access to global talent.

“Our ambition at UKRO is that UK researchers and innovators participate in Horizon Europe to the maximum extent, and that collaboration across Europe flourishes and grows. This will benefit not only researchers and innovators, but also the whole country, by helping to build a thriving, inclusive research and innovation system that tackles the challenges facing our world today.”

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HOW CAN YOU AS A RESEARCHER PREPARE FOR PARTICIPATION IN HORIZON EUROPE? • Familiarise yourself with the information and resources available on the European Funding SharePoint site. This includes dedicated pages on each part of Horizon Europe including the Work Programmes and Work Programme summaries, events, briefing notes, National Contact Point details etc.

• Contact your colleagues in Europe to confirm that the UK has associated to Horizon Europe and that you would be interested to joining or forming consortia.

• Sign up to upcoming online events to find out more about Horizon Europe. As well as the events being run within the University, UKRO will be running lots of webinars over the coming months covering many aspects of Horizon Europe.

• If you need to build or grow your network in Europe, you may be interested in European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) actions.

• UKRO maintains a factsheet on the UK’s participation in EU-funded programmes that you can share with colleagues across Europe.

The pillars The programme is structured into three pillars.

Pillar 1: Excellent Science supports frontier research projects designed and driven by researchers through European Research Council (ERC) and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and invests in world-class research infrastructures.

Pillar 2: Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness supports research into societal challenges and reinforces technological and industrial capacities. The six Cluster Work Programmes contain targeted collaborative call topics with expected impacts or ‘destinations’ that need to be addressed by funded projects. The work programmes are:

“The structure won’t look unfamiliar to anyone who engaged with Horizon 2020,” explained Emma. “There are some other elements to the programme which are new.

These include the European Innovation Council which will provide support for breakthrough innovations of a disruptive nature and with scale-up potential that may be too risky for private investors. There are the five new missions mentioned above to achieve bold, inspirational and measurable goals within a set timeframe. There is an open science policy which dictates mandatory open access to publications and open science principles are applied throughout the programme. And lastly there is a new approach to partnerships which is objectivedriven with more ambitious partnerships with industry in support of EU policy objectives.”

Horizon Europe also sees the introduction of five ‘missions’, which aim to address the greatest challenges facing society with clear, time bound and measurable objectives. The five missions are: cancer; adaption to climate change including societal transformation; healthy oceans, seas, coastal and inland waters; climate-neutral and smart cities; and soil health and food.

Looking ahead Emma and her team are running a series of events promoting Horizon Europe opportunities. Emma said: “Our programme of training and events aims to help anyone on their Horizon Europe funding journey – from the Beginner’s Guide to Horizon Europe session, which offers an overview of the framework programme for the completely uninitiated, to scheme-specific sessions such as Meet the ERC Advanced Grant Fellow which give insights, hints and tips from prior awardees at Southampton. We will also be running a series of Faculty-focused events which will provide an opportunity to gain a more discipline-specific take on the funding opportunities available.”

Pillar 3: Innovative Europe focuses on stimulating and supporting market-creating breakthrough innovations.

If you have any questions about Horizon Europe, please contact funding@soton.ac.uk

• Health • Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society • Civil Security for Society • Digital, Industry and Space • Climate, Energy and Mobility • Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment

YOUR EU FUNDING TEAM

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Emma Winnell Research Funding Manager

Jo Lancaster Research Funding Officer

Emma provides expert research funding advice, project manages the development and submission of large strategically important bids and develops strategies that enhance our access to, and success in, Horizon Europe funding.

Jo provides expert advice and information on Horizon Europe calls, with a particular focus on supporting applicants to the monobeneficiary schemes – the ERC grants and Marie Skłodowska Curie postdoctoral fellowships.

For further information, visit: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/programmes/horizon

Overview of key opportunities Pillar 1

Scheme

Deadline dates

European Research Council

Advanced Grant

31 August 2021 (confirmed)

Starting Grant

13 January 2022 (tentative)

Consolidator Grant

17 March 2022 (tentative)

Synergy Grant

10 November 2021 (tentative)

Proof of Concept

15 February 2022, 19 May 2022, 29 September 2022 (tentative; for ERC award holders only)

Postdoctoral Fellowships

12 October 2021

Doctoral Networks

16 November 2021

Pillar 2

Cluster

Deadline dates

Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness

Cluster 1: Health

Multiple deadlines, beginning 21 September 2021

Cluster 2: Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society

Multiple deadlines, beginning 7 October 2021

Cluster 3: Civil Security for Society

Multiple deadlines, beginning 21 October 2021 Multiple deadlines, beginning 23 September 2021

Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions

Cluster 4: Digital, Industry and Space Cluster 5: Climate, Energy and Mobility

Multiple deadlines, beginning 14 September 2021

Cluster 6: Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment

Multiple deadlines, beginning 6 October 2021

Pillar 3

Scheme

Deadline dates

European Innovation Council

Pathfinder Challenges

27 October 2021

Accelerator (Open and Challenges)

Any time (short applications).

Full applications by 6 October 2021

Transition (Open and Challenges)

22 September 2021

Scheme

Deadline dates

Pillar Widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area

Multiple deadlines, beginning 23 September 2021

KEY FUNDING INSTRUMENTS ERC grants and Marie SkłodowskaCurie fellowships are awards for the most promising individual researchers with ground-breaking, novel research ideas to be hosted at universities in Europe.

Research and Innovation Action (RIA) and Innovation Actions (IA) call topics in pillars 2 and 3 are collaborative and usually require at least three different parties from three different EU Member States or Associated Countries in order to address the research problems across Europe.

Coordination and Support Actions (CSA) fund actions that support research. They usually only require a minimum of one party from one EU Member State or Associated Country.

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Horizon 2020 was the biggest EU research and innovation programme to date. Over 75 billion worth of worth of funding was invested over the programme’s seven years, from 2014 to 2020.

BEYOND THE HORIZON UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON STATISTICS

200

200 awarded H2020 projects

1265

Those 200 projects include 1265 participants from 57 countries

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€127.6 M Total value of funding: €127.6 million

€3.6 M Value of largest single award to the University of Southampton: €3.6 million

Our collaborative links formed through Horizon 2020

Horizon 2020 was the biggest EU research and innovation programme to date. A total of €80 billion worth of funding was invested over the programme’s seven years, from 2014 to 2020.

The programme was set up as a means to drive economic growth and create jobs, with a focus on excellent science, industrial leadership and tackling societal challenges.

The goal was to ensure Europe produced world-class science, removed barriers to innovation, and made it easier for the public and private sectors to work together to deliver innovation.

Horizon 2020 funded, and continues to fund, research collaborations between industry, academia and government agencies across Europe and associated countries to address major challenges agreed by the member countries. The scale of the projects, which are often funded to the value of several million Euros, allows multiple partners to work together to develop new designs.

At Southampton, 200 research projects – some still ongoing – were funded by Horizon 2020.

Here, some of our Horizon 2020 bid winners offer their insights and experiences, and share tips for those considering applying for Horizon Europe funding.

For further information, visit: ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020

John Holloway Professor of Allergy and Respiratory Genetics, and Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Medicine

“Over many years I have participated in several EU-funded projects, including most recently the Ageing Lungs in European Cohorts (ALEC) study. Like all the EU projects I have been part of, the ALEC study brought together research groups from across Europe with a range of expertise to address a large scale research project.

“In ALEC, we sought to improve our understanding of risk factors for low lung function, respiratory disability and the development of chronic obstructive lung disease by using information held within existing cohort studies from across Europe.

“The benefits of participating in these large-scale Horizon projects go far beyond the direct funding for the project in question. Through ALEC, I was introduced to researchers who now are now not only key collaborators but firm friends and with whom I have secured additional bilateral research funding, from the Norwegian Research Council, and co-supervise several PhD students.

“My key advice would be to start early, read the draft work programme and identify the relevant call or calls, and reach out to potential partners you know in Europe to start to form the team. You don’t need to fill every gap in skills or expertise straight away – as you bring people in they will have their own networks they can tap into to help build the perfect team to address the research question.

“I have also learnt that the consortia that are pulled together in haste prompted by an impending deadline for a stage one outline application are unlikely to succeed.”

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Awards in all five faculties

Jon Bull Professor of Geophysics, and Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences

“Participation in EU- funded projects, including STEMM-CCS and ECO2, has allowed my research group to participate in largerscale interdisciplinary science projects than that possible based solely from UK funding sources. The STEMM-CCS (Strategies for Environmental Monitoring of Marine Carbon Capture and Storage) and ECO2 (Sub-seabed CO2 Storage: Analysis of Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Data) projects both brought together research teams from across Europe to tackle monitoring, measurement and verification issues associated with marine carbon capture and storage.

“ An added benefit of EU projects is the training and networking opportunities available to Early Career Researchers.”

Jon Bull Professor of Geophysics

“As well as achieving excellent science outcomes, an added benefit of EU projects is the training and networking opportunities available to Early Career Researchers.

“In terms of tips for getting funding, the key thing is to forge contacts with key groups in Europe. There are often briefing sessions for different call, and these can be very good networking opportunities.”

13TH

Ranked 13th in the UK by total value of awards

6 – 84

Duration of awards: 6 to 84 months

Robert Wood Professor of Surface Engineering and Tribology, and Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences

“For the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Horizon 2020 funding is our second most important research income stream, providing 13 per cent of research funding. It is a major funding source for the Early Career Researcher community and an excellent way to grow our global reputation and reach.

“My experience of being a partner in Horizon 2020 projects, including the WINDTRUST and ATOS projects, is the valuable opportunity to work closely with university groups, companies and their European supply chain to design next-generation wind turbines and hybrid aero engine bearings. WINDTRUST looked at the technical and economic feasibility of innovative and more reliable solutions for multi-megawatt wind turbines, in order to improve the competitiveness of wind energy technologies. The project focused the rotor, power electronics, and the control and communication system. ATOS – Advanced Transmission and Oil System Concepts – looked at advanced transmission and oil systems for next-generation aero engines.

“These collaborations, led by major players – Siemens Gamesa and Rolls-Royce – created lasting collaborations with a wind turbine blade company and a global bearing company.

In one case, it allowed the hiring of a postdoctoral student who is now a professor and head of nCATS (the national Centre for Advanced Tribology), and a very successful partnership with the Schaeffler Group. In another, the postdoctoral student is now pursuing an academic career in Portsmouth.

“These projects have also spawned several undergraduate projects, new test facilities, publications at major international conferences and inspired further funding proposals.

“My tips on writing proposals would be to meet frequently with the potential partners.

Typically, partners are introduced by contact made through conferences or industry open days, rather than by searching CORDIS. Use their experience of bidding, and also seek advice from RIS and look at previous successful bids from Southampton.”

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A MAGNET FOR SUCCESS As the NHS tentatively starts to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals across England are taking part in a much-needed Europe-wide project to improve nurses’ working environments and reduce stress levels.

The Magnet4Europe study, funded by a €4 million grant from the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme, will implement the principles of the Magnet programme, a US accreditation scheme that recognises excellence in nursing.

The project is a collaboration between some of the world’s leading universities and is being led by Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium and the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

and the delivery of safer patient care, in turn improving recruitment and retention. Among the key pillars of Magnet are transformational leadership, shared governance and staff empowerment, exemplary professional practice within nursing, strong interdisciplinary relationships and a focus on innovation.

Magnet4Europe will test the feasibility and sustainability of the Magnet Model® for organisational redesign in the context of healthcare in Europe.

“Burnout, anxiety, sleep disorders, and depression are far too common among healthcare workers. Patient safety depends on vigilance, quick thinking, and attention to detail by health professionals; this is made more difficult by stressful work settings,” explained Jane Ball, Professor of Nursing Workforce Policy and Principal Investigator on the study at Southampton. “Nurses in the UK have one of the highest levels of burnout in any country in Europe, it’s high time we took a long hard look at how we organise the delivery of healthcare in the NHS, and find ways of reducing stress and improving staff wellbeing.”

professional burnout and safer patient care.

There are currently 502 Magnet-recognised hospitals in eight countries, with most located in the US. Very few hospitals in Europe have ever achieved Magnet recognition: notable examples are Nottingham City Hospital and the Antwerp University Hospital.

“Over 60 hospitals in the six European countries of Belgium, Norway, England, Germany, Ireland, and Sweden are being supported by one-to-one twinning with an experienced Magnet-recognised US hospital and an annual learning collaborative to redesign their ways of working, staffing and systems,” explained Jane. “Magnet4Europe uses a mixed method design to determine individual and collective health outcomes and cost effectiveness; it will examine whether redesigning clinical work environments can improve staff health and wellbeing.”

How it works Studies have shown that Magnet-recognised hospitals in the US have lower health

Magnet is based on research showing that creating positive work environments for nurses leads to happier and healthier staff

The COVID effect The study began in January 2020 and researchers were initially concerned that

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Professor Jane Ball

For further information, visit: www.magnet4europe.eu

trusts’ interest in taking part may have faded, in light of the immense challenges posed by the pandemic.

In fact the opposite was true, with organisations keen to explore new ways to support staff.

“We’ve been blown away by trusts’ enthusiasm and interest,” said Jane. “Many say they wanted to take part because of COVID-19. The study provides a real collaboration between each European hospital and its US based ‘twin’; they are able to share ideas and inspiration and I think that’s been a major draw for participating hospitals following such a tough year.”

Building blocks Magnet4Europe is a follow up to the landmark RN4Cast study, which involved many of the same academics and was also funded by the EU. In what became the biggest nursing workforce study of its kind, RN4Cast involved 500 hospitals across 12 European countries, and was carried out between 2009 and 2011.

Jane explained: “The RN4Cast study was believed to have been one of the first to find links between the quality of the practice environment and not only patient mortality and satisfaction, but also nurse outcomes.

“It found high levels of nurse burnout, intention to quit and dissatisfaction with their job in England. This finding, with the benefit of hindsight, should have been the writing on

the wall for the nurse staffing crisis we are now facing.”

Measuring impact One of the key ways the project research team will measure the impact of any changes made is through surveys of front-line nursing and medical staff, repeated at different points during the study.

Jane believes this feedback is crucial: “The ideal from my point of view is that the research will help us to understand, not ‘should everybody do Magnet?’, but more ‘When you’re going on a journey of quality improvement and when your goal is improved nursing care and to improve nurse staffing wellbeing, which are the really critically important bits? Which are the bits that are worth putting most energy and effort into, which are the bits which are really going to pay off in terms of achieving that big goal?’.”

The effect the intervention and its outcomes have on staff other than nurses will also be key in tracing impact. Magnet has elements relating how staff work and interact together, so as things improve for nurses, that should in turn improve aspects for doctors and other staff.

Jane concluded: “The study is only 18 months in but already it’s been hugely rewarding to be part of it – just to see the enthusiasm and commitment of NHS colleagues to trial a new way of doing things, which we hope will make things better for staff, and ultimately for patients too.”

MAGNET4EUROPE PROJECT OBJECTIVES • To implement an evidence-based and stakeholder co-created intervention (Magnet4Europe) to achieve better clinical work environments as a strategy to improve worker mental health and wellbeing.

• To evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention on mental health and wellbeing of health professionals.

• To evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention on productivity and patient outcomes.

• To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the Magnet4Europe intervention, balancing intervention costs, productivity gains from improved mental health and wellbeing, and improved patient outcomes.

• To identify barriers and enablers for the successful implementation of the Magnet4Europe model of organistional intervention in hospitals.

• To foster stakeholder buy-in for spreading and scaling to a larger set of hospitals, other health care settings, and the wider health sector throughout Europe.

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ENTER THE DRAGON When COVID-19 hit in late 2019, a worldwide fight to beat it began. A team of Southampton biomedics is taking on the challenge to diagnose it quicker and treat it better – with some promising early successes.

The ability to rapidly diagnose and effectively treat COVID-19 has proved elusive and challenging. Symptoms are inconsistent – or non-existent – and traditional treatment methods for similar flu-like conditions have proved to be unreliable.

The DRAGON project is on its way to solving these challenges. DRAGON – ‘rapid and secure AI imaging-based diagnosis, stratification, follow-up, and preparedness for coronavirus pandemics’ – is a €11.5 million EU-funded international consortium for COVID-19 advanced diagnostics.

The consortium is collecting samples from COVID-19 patients across Europe, then applying artificial intelligence and bioinformatic techniques to create a system to inform medical decisions about patient care.

A team of Southampton-based experts in molecular phenotyping – from both the University and spin-out company TopMD Precision Medicine – is playing a crucial role in DRAGON. Molecular phenotyping uses the quantitative measurement of thousands of

biomolecules, such as genes and proteins, to measure biological pathway activity and, therefore, better understand diseases and improve diagnostic and treatment approaches.

Diana Baralle, Professor of Genomic Medicine and Consultant in Clinical Genetics, Ratko Djukanovic, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Southampton Centre for Biomedical Research, Tom Wilkinson, Professor of Respiratory Medicine, Yihua Wang, Lecturer in Biological Sciences, James Schofield, Co-founder of TopMD, and Paul Skipp, Professor of Proteomics and Co-founder of TopMD, are leading the University’s role in the project.

The three-year DRAGON project has now been underway for one year. Diana said: “The first year has been about collecting samples from COVID-19 patients and preparing the analysis pipelines. It was a big piece of work to make sure we got samples from across Europe in the second wave of the pandemic that we had at the end of 2020.”

“ Understanding how the virus is attacking the cells and entering the cells is becoming clearer and work like this will let us know where we can interfere and stop the pathway.”

Diana Barelle Professor of Genomic Medicine and Consultant in Clinical Genetics

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

Pilot work Pilot work, which has been funded by the National Institute of Health Research and is not formally part of the DRAGON project but will greatly assist the progress of the project, has been underway in recent months.

This work involved examining samples taken from COVID-19 patients in Southampton during the first wave of the pandemic.

The samples were collected by Dr Tristan Clark, Associate Professor and Honorary Consultant in Infectious Diseases.

Diana said: “Tristan collected RNA [ribonucleic acid, which is present in all cells] samples and we sequenced those in the patients, then compared the sequencing results with the clinical features. We wanted to find out if the sequencing results were different in those that died with COVID-19 compared to those that survived.”

RNA sequencing measures gene expression. Through sequencing, scientists can study the differences in gene expression between normal and infected cells, or between cells from patients that survived or died with COVID-19.

Diana added: “We also compared the COVID samples with samples collected from flu patients, so we could see what inflammation

TopMD Global pathway may, comparing influenza and COVID-19. The spikes are all the differences.

DRAGON is being led by Radiomics, a spin-out company from Maastricht University, which uses artificial intelligence to develop medical products and services in partnership with 21 SMEs, academic research institutions, biotech and pharma partners, patient-centred organisations and professional societies in the UK, Belgium, China, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

and immunology pathways were being activated specifically by COVID. If you know the pathways, you can determine which treatment options might work and how the virus is causing disease.”

The large volume of clinical data available to the team highlighted the genes that were being activated in patients that were the worst-affected by COVID-19.

“We saw, for example, that certain infection pathways were being activated in COVID-19 that are not activated in flu,” said Diana.

European samples The DRAGON team has now collected samples from COVID-19 patients across Europe. ‘Omics’ studies, which encompass genomics and epigenomics, and RNA sequencing tests will be conducted on these 800-plus samples.

“The team in Southampton is leading on this work for DRAGON,” said Diana. “We’re working with the University of Liverpool, who will do the sequencing, and we’ll do the analysis of the sequencing including neural networks machine learning to understand the mass of data we are generating.

“Understanding how the virus is attacking the cells and entering the cells is becoming clearer and work like this will let us know where we can interfere and stop the pathway.”

The University of Southampton was awarded funding worth €248,523 and TopMD was awarded €880,000 for their roles in DRAGON. The project is funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking, which receives support from Horizon 2020 and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations.

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We’re all familiar with the term ‘5G’, the wireless network which promises us increased capacity, huge connectivity and exciting applications. You may not have heard of 6G, a future information network which has the ambitious objective of integrating satellites, planes, drones and even underwater nodes with the terrestrial, ground-based 5G network to offer truly global wireless communications – anywhere and anytime.

INTRODUCING 6G: THE FUTURE OF WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS

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For further information, visit: www-mobile.ecs.soton.ac.uk/res/int/quantum

Professor Lajos Hanzo, in the School of Electronics and Computer Science, is working with a team to pioneer the enabling techniques of the 6G network, funded by a European Research Council (ERC) grant of €2.5 million.

“5G wireless systems are still ground-based, so they have the same coverage limitations as other terrestrial networks,” Lajos explained. “Space-communication networks are complementary to terrestrial networks, as they provide vast communication coverage for people and vehicles at sea, as well as in remote rural areas and in the air.”

The challenge As demand for wireless connectivity increases, the radically new concept of integrating terrestrial networks with space networks is constantly evolving. Creating this space air-ground integrated network (SAGIN) is critically important for the socalled vertical industries such as logistics, mining, agriculture, fisheries and defence.

However, there are several significant technological challenges which must be overcome to create this SAGIN system.

“SAGIN is expected to be at the core of 6G communication systems, and how to build a high-capacity yet low-cost system is of

Professor Lajos Hanzo

The solution Lajos and his team are proposing a novel architecture for realising a high-capacity, low-cost SAGIN by exploiting the existing civil airliner network for breaking these bottlenecks at a low cost.

significant importance in developing 6G globally,” said Lajos. “One of the bottlenecks is the limited bandwidth available for highrate aerial backbones, this backbone being the high-speed communications link. Another challenge is that the efficiency of direct air-to-ground communications between airborne and ground-based network elements is limited, since the ‘footprint’ of these air-toground beams on the ground is large, which severely splits down the throughput available for a single user in areas of high user density.

Lajos explained: “The civil airliner network covers a large area of the global land and sea surface and has sufficient plane density to form a major contributor of a dynamic airborne network. The mm-wave (millimetre wave is the band of radio spectrum between 30 and 300 GHz that can be used for high-speed wireless communications) links needed for a SAGIN potentially provide very high bandwidth both for the backbone and for access to SAGIN services.

“Aerial backbones rely on high-throughput wireless links to connect the major nodes in the SAGIN. They play a pivotal role by handling the aggregation and distribution of various data flows, such as voice, video, Internet and other data sources. Because the airborne network is an indispensable intermediate layer between space-borne and ground-based networks, flexible high-rate and all-weather aerial backbones constitute the most critical infrastructural elements in building the airborne network.”

“Under this new SAGIN architecture, using mm-wave links in the airborne network, as well as between the airborne and ground-based networks, will significantly increase the overall system capacity,” added Lajos. “Using mm-wave hybrid antenna arrays will strike a balance between performance and cost, plus using civil airliners as the relay nodes for the airborne network will substantially reduce the cost of building a dedicated SAGIN infrastructure.”

“ Space-communication networks are complementary to terrestrial networks, as they provide vast communication coverage for people and vehicles at sea, as well as in remote rural areas and in the air.”

Professor Lajos Hanzo School of Electronics and Computer Science 15

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The future According to FlightAware, the world’s largest flight-tracking data company, there are on average tens of thousands of planes carrying more than 1.2 million people in the sky at any given time. These planes cover most of the land and sea globally, and hence can provide networking services supported by the SAGIN with vast coverage both day and night. In addition, because these airborne platforms are only about 10 kilometres above the ground, the coverage area of a signal beam can be well controlled using mm-wave hybrid antenna arrays to support high user density at a much lower delay than the satellites.

An example scenario for the proposed SAGIN is passengers in a plane who can make phone calls and access the Internet using their mobile phones as if they were at home or at their workplace, enjoying a better user experience and faster download speeds than when using the in-flight Wi-Fi services currently available. Other examples include mining, smart farming, shipping and tracking in sparsely populated remote areas.

Lajos is excited at the prospect: “The proposed integration of spaceborne and airborne networks, along with ground-based networks, is capable of improving the global communication coverage which is the main objective of 6G networks.”

Rural and remote areas have been missing out on the wealth-creation benefits of broadband for many years, due to the lack of connectivity.

The main obstacle for rural broadband deployment has been the high cost of groundbased infrastructure. The proposed SAGIN provides a solution with its vast coverage at low cost, bringing smart mining, farming and precision-agriculture technologies to rural and remote farms to finally complete the missing link in global connectivity.

Above: SAGIN above relies on a multi-hop wireless network formed by diverse communicating nodes, including satellites, passenger aircraft, various unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), ships and terrestrial nodes. The system is capable of exchanging information using multi-hop, multilayer communications links. More explicitly,

the top layer is constituted by Geo-stationary satellites, followed by Medium- and Low-earth orbit satellites, passenger planes at about 10 km altitude and UAV at a maximum altitude of 120m. Hence SAGIN extends the wireless coverage to oceanic and remote rural areas by establishing an ad-hoc network.

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For supply-chain tracking and shipping applications, low-cost and vast global connectivity will enable detailed tracking of containers at sea and livestock in rural and remote areas, closely monitoring their shipping and roaming conditions respectively.

Naturally, due to the mobility of passenger planes, a dynamic airborne network can provide only a best effort rather than qualityguaranteed enhancement of existing high-rate services. Therefore, there is a trade-off between cost and quality of services. Again, to provide more reliable service, a limited number of dedicated aerial nodes such as tethered airships and so-called high-altitude platforms could be deployed to supplement the scheduled civil airliners.

For further information, visit: www-mobile.ecs.soton.ac.uk/res/int/quantum

“ The proposed integration of spaceborne and airborne networks, along with ground-based networks, is capable of improving the global communication coverage which is the main objective of 6G networks.”

Professor Lajos Hanzo School of Electronics and Computer Science

Building blocks This project is based on Lajos’ second ERC grant. The first was carried out between 2013 and 2018 under the Beam-Me-Up project, in which he and his team expanded the horizon of classic Radio-Frequency (RF) systems to the previously rarely used 30 – 60 GHz mmwave spectral bands and to optical wireless frequency bands based on both visible light and on free-space optical links, paving the way for this SAGIN concept.

Light-Emitting Diode (LED) based downlink transmitters using state-of-the-art LED-bulbs.

These solutions may be expected to find their way into next-generations Beam-Me-Up-style tele-presence systems. The final piece in this challenging jigsaw puzzle is to conceive highsecurity quantum-domain solutions as part of the QuantCom ERC project for ultimately replacing the above-mentioned links of the SAGIN one by one in this cutting-edge multihop network, as QuantCom evolves.

They aimed to overcome the predicament that as the carrier frequency is increased, its wavelength is reduced and hence rain-drops, vegetation and other factors weaken the signal more severely. BeamMe-Up conceived sophisticated, high-gain beamforming solutions for counteracting this increased reduction. For indoor optical wireless communications, Beam-Me-Up designed sophisticated solutions relying on

Since research is a collaborative endeavour, in closing Lajos expressed his sincere gratitude to the entire Beam-Me-Up and QuantCom teams for their visionary contributions and for their dedication to the project, including but not limited to Drs Dimitrios Alanis, Panagiotis Botsinis, Zunaira Babar, Daryus Chandra, Jingjing Cui, Dong Liu, Tiep Hoang, Soon-Xin Ng, Chao Xu and Jiankang Zhang.

Above: A snapshot of the network at 15:00 UTC on the 29th June 2018. The position of each satellite, plane, ship and GS are marked on the projected 2D map. Different colours are used to distinguish the ships that can be successfully connected to the destination, which is in this example at the Port of Southampton, UK. In this example the ships are distinguished solely relying on the planes for

connecting with the Port of Southampton from those cannot (with legend “Ship with AC” and “Ship without AC”, respectively). It can be observed that not all the ships can be covered by purely relying on their connection with planes – a large fraction of them have to connect via LEO satellites.

An example scenario for the proposed SAGIN is passengers in a plane who can make phone calls and access the Internet using their mobile phones as if they were at home or at their workplace, enjoying a better user experience and faster download speeds than when using the in-flight Wi-Fi services currently available.

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THE UNDERWATER

IMPACT The onus on shipping companies to reduce sulphur emissions has historically been lax. Cheap – but sulphurrich – fuel, and a conundrum over whose responsibility falls where when vessels enter international territory, has made emissions-monitoring tricky. But last year new global limits on ships’ emissions in and around ports were introduced to tackle air pollution.

A team of Southampton researchers is part of a Europe-wide project to assess whether measures being taken by shipping companies to cut air pollution are working – both above and below water.

The €8 million EMERGE (Evaluation, Control and Mitigation of the Environmental Impacts of Shipping Emissions) project is evaluating the effects of potential emission reduction solutions for shipping in Europe.

As part of EMERGE, the team of environmental experts from Southampton, in partnership with a team from the University of Hertfordshire, is taking a close look at so-called ‘scrubber technology’.

This is a method many cruise ships, tankers and larger marine vessels use to remove pollutants from the gases passing from their engines up exhaust funnels and into the air.

However, the scrubber water from the exhaust system – which contains some of 18

the contaminants that would have been emitted into the air – is usually released into the sea. There is a big question mark over the impact this is having on delicate marine ecosystems. The Southampton researchers are recruiting a small team of sea urchins and mussels to find out.

Ian Williams, Professor of Applied Environmental Science, and Malcolm Hudson, Associate Professor in Environmental Sciences, are leading Southampton’s involvement, working with Research Fellow Lina Zapata Restrepo, data scientist and spatial analyst Patrick Osborne, and a small team of Master’s students.

Ian said: “It’s not widely known among the public that aviation and shipping emissions have historically been routinely excluded from all kinds of databases that capture emissions. This is because any emissions that occur outside national borders are deemed to have occurred in

international territory and nobody wants to take responsibility. The reality is that the total emissions we produce globally are hugely underestimated.”

Large vessels use bunker fuel. “This is the gloopy, heavily-contaminated black sludge that is left when everything else – propane, butane, diesel, gasoline, even bitumen – has been taken out of the crude oil,” explained Ian. “Bunker fuel is full of sulphur and heavy metals, but it’s used for good reasons – it’s an effective use of material that would otherwise be waste, and it’s cheap.”

Pollution problem Sulphur emissions at sea is one of the last remaining sulphur pollution problems to be tackled.

Ian said: “Sulphur dioxide from fossil fuels on land was a terrible problem in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, but we have addressed that by removing the sulphur from fuel. In the ‘70s, electricity generation from fossil fuels was legislated against, then in the ‘80s and ‘90s cars were addressed by removing lead from petrol and fitting catalytic converters.

It’s taken 30 more years to address shipping, partly because of the lack of alternatives. The last remaining area where sulphur emissions are a problem is out at sea.”

This is now being forced to change. From 1 January 2020, a new limit was imposed regarding sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions close to port areas, known as Sulphur Emission Control Areas. The new global upper limit on the sulphur content of ships’ fuel has been reduced from 3.5 per cent to 0.5 per cent.

“The legislation has focused on sulphur dioxide emissions because they are harmful

For further information, visit: www.emerge-h2020.eu

to human health and they contribute to acid rain,” explained Malcolm. “Ships have been ordered to reduce their sulphur emissions and they have two ways of doing this – they can either use much more expensive fuel, which most can’t afford to do, or they can put in scrubber technology.”

Scrubber technology diverts pollution into the sea, instead of into the air.

Ian said: “Effectively, one problem has been solved, but it has potentially created another – pumping the sulphur dioxide into the sea water rather than the air. The theory is that the ocean is big enough to handle it, and it sings to the old adage ‘the solution to pollution is dilution’.”

“In open water, that’s perhaps true,” added Malcolm. “But in a harbour that’s enclosed you are potentially going to get a build-up of contaminants.”

Malcolm Hudson

“ We’re focusing on sea urchins and mussels because they are widespread and are important parts of the ecosystem, but they are also sensitive to pollution.”

Malcolm Hudson Associate Professor in Environmental Sciences

Sea urchins and mussels The team will be assessing the impacts of the scrubber emissions on marine life in the Solent, using the experimental aquarium at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC).

Sea urchins and mussels will be used to find out the potential implications on the marine ecosystem.

Malcolm explained: “We’re focusing on sea urchins and mussels because they are widespread and are important parts of the ecosystem, but they are also sensitive to pollution. Mussels are filter-feeders – they feed on plankton and other microscopic sea creatures, filtering the water. Sea urchins are grazers and help control algae.

“We’ll be looking to find out whether exposure to concentrations of sulphur they

could encounter from the discharges from ships reduces their reproductive capacity or is harmful to their lifespan. That will give us a good insight into the potential wider impact of sulphur pollution on the ecosystem.”

The toxicological trials on the marine animals will start this summer. Specimens of sea urchins have been collected from the south west, where they are prevalent. Mussels will be collected from the dockside adjacent to NOC. Alongside this work, Ranjeet Sokhi, Professor of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Hertfordshire, is leading a team of researchers who will be modelling the air pollution. “The intention and the hope is that the introduction of the scrubber technology will reduce emissions from ships and that will improve the air quality for the population of Southampton,” said Malcolm.

The big picture The studies in Southampton are running in parallel to studies in ecologically vulnerable locations across Europe, including The Venice Lagoon, Piraeus and the Eastern Mediterranean, the Aveiro Region of Portugal, and the Oresund Strait between Sweden and Denmark.

Ian concluded: “We genuinely do not know if the scrubbers are having a beneficial effect.

The water quality in and around marinas is worse than in the Solent itself, and that pollution is from recreational vessels and not liners. But whatever our research establishes, we’ll be providing an early warning of what might happen.”

EMERGE is a four-year project, which started in February 2020 and is funded by Horizon 2020.

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THE CARBON CONUNDRUM It’s becoming a race against time to deal with the billions of metric tonnes of carbon dioxide we produce around the world every year – and, in doing so, curtail temperature increases that cause severe environmental damage.

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For further information, visit: www.stemm-ccs.eu

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1, 2, 3 & 4 The Gavia autonomous underwater vehicle is deployed

Capturing and storing CO₂, then locking it away offshore, is one climate change mitigation strategy that will become big business in the coming years. But can we give the public confidence that this method is safe and will make a significant contribution to reducing carbon emissions?

A team of researchers in Southampton played a key role in a major European project to determine the viability of safely and securely storing carbon offshore. This is one method that will soon be employed to meet global CO₂ reduction requirements.

The STEMM-CCS (Strategies for Environmental Monitoring of Marine Carbon Capture and Storage) project was funded by Horizon 2020 and drew on expertise from 14 institutions across Europe. The project ran from 2016 to 2020.

The University of Southampton was awarded £2.4 million for its involvement in STEMMCCS. Jon Bull, Professor of Geophysics and Associate Dean (Research) for the Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences, and Rachael James, Professor of Geochemistry, led a team of more than 20 researchers from Southampton, including a large contingent of Early Career Researchers.

Jon said: “Our main role in the project was the development of the concept, and contributions to sensing and verification methods. We conducted acoustics experiments as well as chemical sensing.”

Southampton researchers developed the concept for STEMM-CCS, alongside the National Oceanography Centre (NOC).

Jon, Professor Douglas Connelly, Associate Director for Research at NOC, and Professor Matthew Mowlem, Head of the Ocean Technology and Engineering Group at NOC, led on the initial concept and proposal.

Jon explained: “One of the biggest things to happen in the next 20 years will be the largescale roll-out of carbon capture and storage under the seabed, several hundred metres down. A key issue is public confidence in CCS, so it is important to be able to give certainty that in the unlikely event stored CO₂ escapes, it can be detected.

“STEMM-CCS was focused on demonstrating that technologies exist which can monitor, measure and verify the source of any CO₂ escaping across the seabed.”

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Bubble monitoring The passive acoustics experiments, led by the Southampton team, involved monitoring bubbles from a controlled release of CO₂ at the seabed. The experiments were conducted in the exclusion zone around the Goldeneye platform, in the North Sea. An autonomous underwater vehicle, named Gavia, surveyed the seabed and sub-seabed before and during the experiment.

“We put large tanks of pressurised CO₂ on the seabed, about 120 metres below the water surface,” explained Jon. “Then we drilled a hole to release the CO₂ about three metres beneath the seabed, and then monitored where we could see the CO₂, quantified it, and checked it was the CO₂ we had injected and not natural CO₂.

“When you release CO₂ in the sub-surface, some will emerge as bubbles, some will dissolve, and some will stay trapped below the seabed. We determined the relative amount that came out as opposed to that trapped beneath the surface.

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“There were lots of different ways we monitored it. One was to listen to the bubbles that came out of the seabed – we used hydrophones to detect the sound of the bubbles, and from that we could determine the quantity of CO₂ that was bubbling out.”

Chemical detection Injected CO₂ that dissolved into the sediment pore waters and in the water overlying the seabed was detected using different sensors, including a pH sensor, as well as highly precise analysis of inorganic carbon compounds in seawater samples. However, as CO₂ is produced naturally in the marine environment, it was important to verify that the chemical changes observed were caused by the injected CO₂.

Rachael said: “We labelled the injected CO₂ with tiny quantities of non-toxic chemicals.

Analyses on board the ship showed that water with high CO₂ also contained the chemical labels, confirming that we sampled the injected CO₂. If you are operating a CCS

site, this is really important because you don’t want to be held responsible for somebody else’s leak!

“This was the first time that these chemical labels had been used in the marine environment, and they worked really well.”

Meeting EU requirements Through these experiments, the team was able to prove it is possible to detect small CO₂ leakages from sub-surface reservoirs – making carbon capture and storage a viable solution to help meet EU targets to tackle climate change.

The EU’s CCS Directive lays down requirements for CO₂ storage, including the requirement to be able to detect, quantify and verify where any escaped CO₂ has come from.

“What we demonstrated is that we can detect and quantify and verify the CO₂ coming out in the way that’s required by the governmental directive,” said Jon. “That gives confidence in carbon capture and storage.”

For further information, visit: www.stemm-ccs.eu

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The monitoring techniques tested by STEMMCCS will enable large energy companies to plan their monitoring strategies for CCS. “These monitoring techniques need to be deployed over the lifetime of an offshore CCS site, at a depth of between 50 metres and 200 metres,” explained Jon. “The issue is the lifespan of these sites, as each site will be injected with CO₂ for about 20 to 30 years.

Sites will need to be constantly monitored to ensure CO₂ remains captured. We have shown the technology to work, but the long-term operation of this in a cost-effective manner is the issue we are now working on.”

In support of this, the team is now looking at the possibility of using autonomous underwater vehicles to collect chemical and acoustic data.

“ One of the biggest things to happen in the next 20 years will be the large-scale rollout of carbon capture and storage under the seabed, several hundred metres down. A key issue is public confidence in CCS, so it is important to be able to give certainty that in the unlikely event stored CO₂ escapes, it can be detected.”

Jon Bull Professor of Geophysics and Associate Dean (Research) for the Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences

1 The hydrophone wall on the seabed 2 Collecting gas samples 3 CO₂ tank being lowered into the water 4 Some of the project team aboard the James Cook

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SEEING THE INVISIBLE Being able to see deep inside an object with chemical selectivity would have implications across a wide spectrum of applications. The ability to detect cancer could be such a ground-breaking step forward.

A Southampton research project to advance the capabilities of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is on the road to major breakthroughs that will have the potential to influence everything from fundamental physics to physical medicine.

The project is called Functionalised Magnetic Resonance Beacons for Enhanced Spectroscopy and Imaging, or FunMagResBeacons for short.

Malcolm Levitt, Professor of Physical Chemistry, is leading the six-year project. He explained: “This project is about some new frontier advances in NMR which can enhance the signal strength, or the brightness of the signals, for NMR and MRI by very large factors – up to 100,000 times. We’re using a phenomenon called hyperpolarisation, which is being developed fairly intensively around the world, including by us in Southampton.

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“This project is specifically about developing chemical agents and techniques involving applying pulses of magnetic fields and so on, in order that these bright signals appear in the presence for example of a molecule you would like to detect.”

Detecting enzymes The ability to detect certain types of cancer is just one potential outcome of the project. To do that, the advances being made will be able to detect a particular enzyme.

Malcolm said: “The cancer cells are attached to a matrix of tissue in the body and they produce a certain enzyme which allows the cells to cut away from the tissue and then float away in the bloodstream and metastasize. That’s how cancer manages to infect other parts of the body.

“We would like to find a way to detect this enzyme as that would enable the possibility

“ This project is specifically about developing chemical agents and techniques involving applying pulses of magnetic fields and so on, in order that these bright signals appear in the presence for example of a molecule you would like to detect.”

Malcolm Levitt Professor of Physical Chemistry

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

Inside the University’s NMR lab

of localising the cancer and prevent it from breaking away into other parts of the body.

One of the aims of this project is to find a way of imaging the locations when this enzyme is found by using these very bright NMR or MRI signals.”

Cancer is just one example of the potential influence this research project could have.

Another example could be detecting changes in acidity, as the potential is there to develop agents which appear bright in regions of high acidity.

technique, we had to develop a much deeper understanding of some of the phenomena we are trying to exploit. We found some unexpected issues which are very interesting from the perspective of our research field, and we found that some of the standard knowledge in the field proved to not be correct. Since we are exploring the hyperpolarised states, which are unusual, we came upon some phenomena which we did not expect and it has taken time to resolve this.”

Halfway point The FunMagResBeacons team is halfway through the six-year, €2.76 million project. It’s being funded by an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council, and is the second Advanced Grant Malcolm has won.

The research team, which also includes Professor Lynda Brown, Postdoctoral Research Fellows Christian Bengs, Mohamed Sabba, Gamal Moustafa, Soumya Singha Roy, Jyrki Rantaharju and Laurynas Dagys, Graduate student Jamie Whipham, and Research Engineer Weidong Gong, is now focusing on optimising the hyperpolarised experiments.

He said: “To get to the point we’re at now where we can start to develop the

“We have enhanced NMR signals, so that part of the project has been proceeding well,” said

Malcolm. “We will make substantial progress before the end of the project. I don’t think we will be detecting cancer by the end, but we will be providing the tools to enable that to be done.”

The potential outcomes of the project would have exciting implications that could benefit us all.

“It’s a great thing to have this team working on a very ambitious and difficult project,” added Malcolm. “It’s a project that, if we do pull it off, would very fulfilling on a personal level and might have real world applications.

Despite my long career in the field, which has been successful on an academic level, I haven’t developed anything that directly benefits people, so it’s a real dream to do the good science and at the same time do something of benefit to the wider community.”

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TWINNING FOR YOUTH Longitudinal studies follow people over an extended period to collect data that shape our understanding of life trajectories. The collection and analysis of these data is a research specialism of academics based in Southampton’s ESRC National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) and Centre for Population Change (CPC).

Insights into the transition from youth to adulthood can lead to better support and outcomes for young adults. A new twinning programme between Southampton and three other European universities is working to shape the design of a study that will enable this understanding of young people in Estonia.

YouthLife is a three-year twinning project led by Tallinn University that will bring in the expertise of sociologists from the University of Southampton, the University of Bamberg in Germany, and the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute.

Together, they will shape the design of a new Estonian Longitudinal Study of Youth to better understand the critical transition from teen to adult.

The study will track young people’s education and employment trajectories, following them from school through to creating families, and monitoring their health behaviours.

It will bridge qualitative and quantitative approaches to life course research.

The Southampton research team comprises Ros Edwards, Professor of Sociology, Ann Berrington, Professor of Demography and Social Statistics, and Susie Weller, Senior Research Fellow.

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Ros explained: “It’s not a one-way project, that’s the exciting part. We’re all learning from each other. At Southampton, we have expertise in qualitative and quantitative longitudinal research methods, and how to design a longitudinal survey, as well as how to mix quantitative and qualitative together.

“Mine and Susie’s expertise is in the qualitative aspect – studying young people over time through a whole range of methods such as interviews and documents and visual methods, and how to analyse that data. Ann is an expert on life course research using quantitative longitudinal methods.”

Academics at Bamberg are world-renowned for their demographic methods, and the team in the Netherlands specialises in population and demographic trends.

Sharing expertise YouthLife, funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme, kicked off in 2020 with an online seminar series in which project partners shared elements of their work.

In 2022, the Southampton team will be delivering a qualitative longitudinal research package and a mixed methods workshop.

Ros said: “We will be sharing our expertise in interviewing in person and online, in creative

For further information, visit: www.ncrm.ac.uk

“ We’re getting a strong sense of how to deliver international training, and we’re strengthening our capabilities in terms of research methods and substantive knowledge in the field.”

Ros Edwards Professor of Sociology

methods, and in retrospective methods – looking back at various aspects of people’s past – and prospective methods where you are tracking people through time.

“We’ll also be sharing knowledge around analysis. We’ll be teaching the ‘breadth and depth’ method, which is a method of analysing large amounts of qualitative data that was developed here at the NCRM. We’ll also be teaching Visual Analysis, and the ‘I Poems’ analytic method. I Poems are very powerful in understanding someone’s sense of themselves and how they convey that to other people.

You can use them longitudinally to look at how someone’s sense of self shifts over time.”

The value of longitudinal Studies that follow people over extended periods of time are invaluable at enabling insights into various stages of people’s lives.

“We’re blessed in the UK with longitudinal studies, which are really rich with data,” said Ros. “Some of the studies here have been from birth through to older age. In the UK they have tended to be quantitative but they are starting to include more qualitative data.”

Ros and Susie worked on the first major qualitative longitudinal study in the UK. The Timescapes study, which ran from 2007, followed groups of people at different stages of life, from childhood to older age, for up to a decade. The study has produced insights into the dynamics of personal relationships and family life. By ‘walking alongside’ individuals and family groups as their lives unfolded, the research captured the intricacies of biographical and intergenerational processes.

The twinning project will have wider outcomes than just the major longitudinal study of Estonia’s youth.

Ros concluded: “The intention is that we will also conduct research and write publications together, and collaborate on new ideas and projects. We’re also getting a strong sense of how to deliver international training, and we’re strengthening our capabilities in terms of research methods and substantive knowledge in the field.”

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Advanced materials are needed in almost all aspects of our lives. Healthcare, energy generation, data storage, pollution control – they all require advanced materials. The current ‘trial and error’ method of discovering new materials is on the road to being revolutionised thanks to Southampton research.

A MATERIAL WORLD The process of discovering new materials can take years. It’s laborious, time-consuming and potentially limited by scientists’ existing knowledge and expectations. Plus it’s often a case of trial and error.

The ADAM project is stepping in to disrupt that. The €10 million research project is on its way to automating materials discovery, combining pioneering computational methods with automation and robotics to overcome many barriers to fast and uninhibited breakthroughs.

Graeme Day, Professor of Chemical Modelling, is leading the ADAM (Autonomous Discovery of Advanced Materials) project, which kicked off in 2020 and is funded for six years.

He’s working alongside Professor Andy Cooper from the University of Liverpool and Professor Kerstin Thurow from the University of Rostock in Germany.

The first members of the project team, which will reach 20 researchers at the three institutions, have been recruited over the first few months of the project. Computational chemistry modelling and machine learning expertise at Southampton will be combined 28

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

with expertise in the synthesis and characterisation of new materials at Liverpool and robotic and automation expertise at Rostock.

Summarising the project aims, Graeme said: “The idea is to automate as much of the materials discovery process as we can, freeing up more of the researcher’s time for coming up with new ideas, which can be handed over to the computational-robot system to explore. At Southampton we are developing computational methods that can propose molecules that look promising and predicting how they come together in the solid state. We’re working on the methodology to make things more general so they work on more types of molecules and will be able to find all kinds of new molecules that we might not have expected.

“Our partners in Liverpool and Rostock are looking at some of the initial challenges for how they are going to handle materials.

Robots have been used quite a bit with liquids, but handling solids comes with different challenges.”

Initial experiments to pass information from the computational models to the robots in the lab are due to get underway this summer.

Automating the process Using robots instead of scientists in the labs will bring many advantages.

The robotics experts on the project are developing the computational brain that will control the robots. The computational modelling will provide the data that will guide their decisions.

“A robot can do a lot of experiments for us, but it needs to be told what to do,” said Graeme. “Our expertise is in predicting what the properties of molecules will be, and the properties of the material those molecules will make. Once we discover promising candidates on the computer, we can create the instructions for robots to prioritise its experiments.”

Speeding up the materials discovery process is one huge step forward that ADAM is promising to make.

“By automating the process of discovering new materials, we will be able to do things much faster,” said Graeme. “A robot can work through the day and night, repeating the same experiments over and over on different molecules, or performing a series of experiments to create a material and characterise its properties. In terms of numbers of experiments, it can achieve in a matter of weeks what a student could achieve through an entire PhD. “We’re also looking at speeding up the computational side of things, so that we can ask the computers to investigate different types of molecules without having people set up each calculation manually.”

As well as saving time – potentially years – there is also the possibility the robots will discover materials that humans would not, or could not.

Graeme explained: “The prospect of finding things that maybe we would not have found

as scientists is probably the most exciting part.

Thinking as a chemist, we develop a good intuition about how to build a molecule that would give us the properties we want. We then make the molecule and test its properties. We want to look at a different way of doing things, where we feed ideas into a computer and let the system explore more widely.

“The computer programs and robots won’t have the same constraints that we might have as scientists in terms of thinking or biases – consciously or subconsciously. They will be open to finding things that are completely new, and materials that could have properties that we might never have discovered.”

The bigger picture The hope is that the results of the ADAM project will ultimately enable research in many areas of materials discovery.

Part of the work will look at separating molecules in porous materials, which can be very energy-intensive. The team will also look for new materials for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, as a source of hydrogen as a clean fuel.

“A lot of the work we’re looking at has potential environmental impacts, such as gas storage and hydrogen production,” said Graeme.

“They are very relevant applications right now.

Twenty years ago, we thought that predicting how molecules crystallise using computational methodology couldn’t be done. Now, it can and that is the key idea underpinning ADAM. I’m really excited about the impossible being made possible by this project.”

ADAM is funded by a €10 million Synergy Grant from the European Research Council, with €3.5 million coming to Southampton.

Photography credit: The Leverhulme Research Centre for Functional Materials Design at the University of Liverpool

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Formed in 1991, and part of the Electronic and Computer Science School, the IT Innovation Centre (ITINN) is an applied research centre specialising in the advancement of innovative information technologies and their deployment in industry and commerce. It has a rich history of winning EU funding, working collaboratively across Europe and establishing consortia that work to help solve the big societal challenges that we face in the world today.

IT INNOVATION

SUCCESS We spoke to Dr Stefano Modafferi, Professor Michael Boniface, Dr Stephen Phillips and Dr Steve Taylor from ITINN and asked them to give us the lowdown on their EU successes.

Why do you think IT Innovation has been so successful with EU funding?

It is a combination of factors. The most important point, and something we are proud of, is our collaborative approach that aims to help multiple stakeholders work together to address important societal challenges. This is supported by a large network nurtured by active involvement in European research and innovation communities, e.g. the Big Data Value Association (BDVA), the Future Internet Research and Experimentation (FIRE) initiative, the Future Internet Public-Private Partnership

(FI-PPP) and the Networked European Software and Services Initiative(NESSI).

we’ve helped the EU formulate through strategic research agendas and community engagement.

And importantly we have a track record of being able to deliver results: the IT Innovation Centre is a well-known player in the EC programs having participated for almost 30 years. Examples of successful projects originated from our community engagement are FLAME, BigMedilytics and DataPitch.

The starting point can be research ideas, ongoing partnerships or looking at the work programme for inspiration, often brainstorming with colleagues. A good idea must have a few characteristics: i) fit the call (and not the other way around); ii) have the right level of vision (disruptiveness versus ready to market – a.k.a. Technology Readiness Level (TRL)); complement and additive to other ideas, ideally from other partners, so contributing to a larger proposition. The integration of research objectives into a larger proposition is an essential part of EU funding.

Vision, completeness (with respect to the call objectives), and an eye to the impact (always

In your experience, what are the key steps to successfully securing EU funding?

There is no one way to write a successful proposal but, in the end, you must bring together a ground-breaking idea with worldleading European partners to address work programme priorities. Often priorities that

FLAME (Facility for Large-scale Adaptive Media Experimentation – Jan 2017 – Sep 2020 – H2020) delivered a platform providing high quality, interactive and personalised media experiences to end users by means of an innovative software-defined network using advanced media services and innovative content distribution systems managed through a control plane providing design time specification and run time monitoring and control.

BigMedilytics (Big Data for Medical Analytics – started Jan 2018 – H2020 Big Data PPP) is a 36 month project comprising 35 partners. It aims t0 transform Europe’s healthcare sector by using state-of-the-art Big Data technologies.

Specifically, it will lead to reducing costs of emergency care in hospitals and improving patient wellbeing with the delivery of advanced care services on prevention, diagnosis, treatment and home-care around Europe.

www.it-innovation.soton.ac.uk/projects/ flame

www.it-innovation.soton.ac.uk/projects/ bigmedilytics

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DataPitch (Jan 2017 – Dec 2019 – H2020) was a data innovation lab led by the University of which further accelerated the growth of the European digital economy. It helped businesses, from sector leaders to new startups, unlock the commercial value of data. www.it-innovation.soton.ac.uk/projects/ datapitch

For further information, visit: www.it-innovation.soton.ac.uk

highly considered by the EC reviewers) are the three key ingredients.

Once an idea is formed within the framework of a call, it is key to set up, or often join, a complementary and smart consortium that is credible for delivering what is promised.

Once the proposal has come together, it is important to have time at the end to review it as a whole and make it coherent.

In our experience, successful proposals need to be initiated at least six to 12 months from the call deadline, and for some larger strategic projects more than 12 months is needed.

We’ve had a few last-minute successes but usually time is needed to socialise ideas, get partner buy-in and write a high-quality bid.

What makes a successful consortium when working with EU collaborators?

As in any collaborative environment, there will always be leaders and followers. The key point is to involve people who can provide a needed contribution, often building on trusted relationships. Complementarity across partners is important, and each point required in the call should have a corresponding main contributor in the consortium. The consortium should be balanced and, again, the expected TRL is a good indicator of the type of partners.

For instance, a Future Emerging Technology (FET) or a Research and Innovation Action (RIA) call is most suited for academic driven consortium, while an Innovation Action (IA) call should be driven by industrial players or SMEs. It is often a good practice to have a leader and a core-group to drive a proposal. The same group, possibly with slightly modified roles, would also go on to lead the project. A good relationship among the players in the core group is key for a success in any phase.

How do you go about seeking partners and collaborators across the EU when putting in a bid?

We mainly rely on IT Innovation’s network of connections across Europe. Being part of communities is the best way for keep the network updated and get opportunities and invitations to join other consortia. IT Innovation has a strong culture of mutual support in both project proposals and working on projects – we regularly discuss ideas and bid opportunities at group level and we exchange feedback, ideas, and contacts with colleagues within the group.

This collective approach exploits the sum of different personal networks, still leaving freedom for personal initiative and recognition.

For you as researchers, does working within the IT Innovation Centre provide advantages when trying to secure a bid and/or find a collaborating organisation?

We encourage and support all IT Innovation staff regardless of their level, to identify and bid for proposals. This is a key activity for all the researchers and engineers in the group as it allows staff to pursue interests and secure funding for research that excites them and helps support career progression.

Regular supporting activities at group level are in place and senior people are always available to help more junior ones. The group supports the single researcher through a collaborative process. Within IT Innovation, helping a colleague to win a proposal is a valuable contribution. The experience gained from winning proposals, but also very importantly learning from unfunded proposals, should not be underestimated, and often we translate EU success into UK funding streams.

We have now a group of people able to deliver EC proposals, providing valuable

We have a track record of being able to deliver results: the IT Innovation Centre is a well-known player in the EC programs having participated for almost 30 years.

Examples of successful projects originated from our community engagement are FLAME, BigMedilytics, DataPitch.

contributions as per the required proposal role but also mentoring colleagues. EFPF is an example where our strategic community engagement in NESSI led to IT Innovation team participation in a major smart manufacturing project, bringing together our expertise in cyber security systems, interoperability and SME engagement through open calls.

What advice/tips do you have for any researchers wanting to secure EU funding?

There are three main points for a successful proposal: collaboration, collaboration, and collaboration. There is a lot less chance of success for a solo proposal.

On a more practical level we also suggest the following: • Try to be involved in EC communities relevant for your research area.

• Look at the call text, think what you can contribute and identify gaps. Be very visionary or very market oriented, according to the call nature but sometimes you will need to balance both.

• Talk to colleagues and share your seed idea. Write it down on one page along with a conceptual picture. There is a small risk that someone steals it, but far more likely you will find it sparks interesting and complimentary ideas, discussion and engagement.

• Credit where it is due – ask for and give proper attribution to colleagues collaborating with you.

• Be generous. If your contribution is peripheral for a given call, accept it and be a good team player.

• Institutional and personal reputation is very important. Deliver what is promised when working on a project, be enthusiastic and reliable, becoming a reliable partner and growing your network.

European Connected Factory Platform for Agile Manufacturing (EFPF – started Jan 2019 – H2020) is a federated smart factory ecosystem and a digital platform that interlinks different stakeholders of the digital manufacturing domain. The EFPF platform enables users to utilise innovative functionalities, experiment with disruptive approaches and develop custom solutions to maximise connectivity, interoperability and efficiency across the supply chains. www.it-innovation.soton.ac.uk/projects/efpf 31

Research award highlights

RESEARCH AWARD HIGHLIGHTS FACULTY OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND LIFE SCIENCES Dr Chigozie Utazi; School of Geography & Environmental Science Modelling approach to produce national-level coverage estimates World Health Organization; £60,695 over 6 months

Prof Peter Griffiths; School of Health Sciences Safer and more efficient vital signs monitoring to identify the deteriorating patient: An observational study towards deriving evidence-based protocols for patient surveillance on the general hospital ward (project extension) National Institute of Health Research; £6,845 over 6 months

Mr Christopher Hill; GeoData, School of Geography & Environmental Science Natural England, Floodplain Wetland Mosaic Natural England, DFSSD; £41,183 over 5 months

Prof Andrew Tatem; School of Geography & Environmental Science Construction of a geospatial health and development indicator atlas for India to support CIFF planning Children’s Investment Fund Foundation; £195,754 over 12 months

Dr Julia Branson; GeoData, School of Geography & Environmental Science GIS and Data Support for Plant Health Operations Forestry Commission England; £500,000 over 4 years

Dr Robert Ewing; School of Biological Sciences Towards a new therapy against childhood brain cancer: How does the Zika virus kill aggressive brain tumour cells?

Childrens Cancer and Leukaemia Group; £34,766 over 36 months

Dr David Wright; School of Health Sciences Communities Against Cancer: Qualitative Evaluation NHS England; £50,000 over 25 months Prof Craig Hutton; School of Geography & Environmental Science Integrated Strategies for Flood Risk Management in the ASEAN Region Under Climate Uncertainty: A needs analysis British Council; £9,990 over 12 months Dr Nicholas Maguire; School of Psychology Assessment of drug and alcohol intervention needs for people who are homeless Public Health England; £22,187 over 5 months Dr Samantha Cockings; School of Geography & Environmental Science with Prof David Martin and Andrew Harfoot Geospatial Research in support of Census collection and outputs Office For National Statistics; £70,731 over 18 months Prof Catherine Bowen; School of Health Sciences Nurse & Allied Health Professional Internship Programme Versus Arthritis: £19,375 extension, Oct 2021 – Sep 2022 Prof Bill Keevil; School of Biological Sciences Survival of SARS-CoV-2 on food surfaces and food packaging materials Food Standards Agency; £172,195 over 15 months Dr Clive Trueman; School of Ocean and Earth Science Processing of Spurdog and porbeagle stable isotope data and preparation of manuscripts for publication CEFAS; £16,000 over 6 months Dr Werenfrid Wimmer; School of Ocean and Earth Science FRM4SST phase 2 European Space Agency; £63,444 over 24 months Dr Ivan Haigh; School of Ocean and Earth Science UPSURGE Fellowship Natural Environment Research Council; £157,349 over 36 months Dr Katherine Bradbury; School of Psychology (PI Elizabeth Murray at UCL) Recovery from Covid 19 National Institute of Health Research; £757,961.19 over 24 months

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

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES Prof Philippa Reed; School of Engineering Damage assessment of three-dimensional five-direction braided ceramic matrix composites based on in-situ XCT and numerical simulation Royal Society; £7,200 over 24 months Prof Phillip Joseph; School of Engineering Surface treatments for next generation of quiet aerofoils EPSRC; £494,246 over 36 months Dr Jen Muggleton; Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, School of Engineering RAINDROP: TRansforming Acoustic SensINg for leak detection in trunk mains and water DistRibutiOn Pipelines EPSRC; £702,767 over 36 months

Prof Mark Sullivan; School of Physics and Astronomy LSST:UK Phase B Science And Technology Facilities Council; £230,556 over 24 months Prof Simone De Liberato; School of Physics and Astronomy 6 months costed extension of the University Research Fellowship of Simone De Liberato Royal Society; £26,776 over 6 months Prof Simone De Liberato; School of Physics and Astronomy 6 months costed extension to the URF Enhancement award Royal Society; £9,846 over 6 months Prof Simone De Liberato; School of Physics and Astronomy 6 months costed extension to the URF Enhancement award Royal Society; £15,168 over 6 months

Dr Gary Wills; School of Electronics and Computer Science NLive: AI based P2P network for live learning support services to improve the quality and management of live capturing Innovate UK; £92,327 over 12 months

Prof Themis Prodromakis, Dr Firman Simanjuntak; School of Electronics and Computer Science H2020 MSCA IF MENESIS, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships European Commission; £163,795 over 24 months

Prof Janice Barton; School of Engineering with Dr Chris Holmes and Dr Adam Sobey EPSRC – Future Composite Manufactuing Hub EPSRC; £12,010 over 12 months

Dr David Milne; School of Engineering PolyTrack: Rail Infrastructure operational efficiency through 5G vehicle dynamics data analytics WM5G; £34,151 over 12 months

Em Pro John Chaplin; School of Engineering Flexible Responsive Systems in Wave Energy EPSRC; £34,964 over 36 months

Dr Hansung Kim; School of Electronics and Computer Science Immersive Audio-Visual 3D Scene Reproduction Using a Single 360 Camera EPSRC; £267,460 over 30 months

Dr Steven Bell; School of Engineering A Bayesian Framework for Efficiently Steering Auditory Evoked Potential Measurements William Demant Foundation; £196,694 over 24 months

Dr Benjamin Cerfontaine; School of Engineering SharEd Anchor Multidirectional Load Envelopes with Strength Synthesis (SEAMLESS) Supergen ORE Hub – EPSRC; £99,853 over 12 months

Dr Zhengtong Xie; School of Engineering SPRINT: Portable clean room UK Space Agency; £5,000 over 2 months Dr Enrico Gerding; School of Electronics and Computer Science AISmartCorps: AI based smart assistance for enterprise workforces Innovate UK; £237,859 over 24 months Dr Senthil Ganapathy; Zepler Institute for Photonics and Nanoelectronics Mid-infrared frequency comb generation using integrated chalcogenide microring resonators for on-chip spectrometers Royal Society; £11,825 over 24 months Dr Christopher Holmes; Zepler Institute for Photonics and Nanoelectronics Digitisation of Epicyclic Gears using Optical Fibre Sensing Royal Society; £106,415 over 48 months Dr Tristan Rees-White; School of Engineering Initial Feasibility Study of Woodlanding Historic Landfills Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; £67,392 over 2 months Prof Graham Reed; Zepler Institute for Photonics and Nanoelectronics MISSION (Mid- Infrared Silicon Photonic Sensors for Healthcare and Environmental Monitoring) EPSRC; £5,757,814 over 60 months

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Research award highlights

FACULTY OF MEDICINE Prof Paul Little; Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education Associations between Research Activity & Patient Health Outcomes National Institute of Health Research; £19,919 over 24 months Prof Cyrus Cooper OBE, DL, FMedSci; Medicine: Human Development and Health MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Centre MRC; £8,500,003 over 60 months Prof Peter Johnson; Cancer Sciences Clinical Academic Training Programme Cancer Research UK; £255,999 over 36 months

Dr Sean Lim; Cancer Sciences PROSECO (A UK Multicentre Prospective Observational Study Evaluating COVID-19 Vaccine Immune Responses in Lymphoid Cancer) Blood Cancer UK; £138,603 over 18 months Prof Paul Elkington; Clinical and Experimental Sciences Investigating the role of B cells in immunity to tuberculosis through advanced cell culture modelling Medical Research Foundation; £15,000 over 12 months Dr James Ashton; Human Development and Health Organising and maintaining a UK-wide Paediatric IBD Research network (PAIRnetwork) to answer clinical research questions and enable rapid decision making Guts UK; £8,000 over 12 months

Prof Roxana-Octavia Carare; Clinical and Experimental Sciences Anti-Tau immunization in Alzheimer’s disease United Neurosciences Ltd; £185,161 over 24 months

Dr Rahul Bhome; Cancer Sciences Investigating heterocellular signalling in the micrometastatic stage of colorectal cancer recurrence in the liver Cancer Research UK; £32,223 over 24 months

Prof Hazel Everitt; Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education Practitioner’s Allowance Grant – SFB 2020-25 awardee Dr Sam Hodgson Royal College of General Practitioners; £1,100 over 8 months

Dr Laura Behan; Clinical and Experimental Sciences Parent Reported Quality of Life Measures for Young Children with Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia: QOL-PCD AAIR Charity; £7,701 over 12 months

Prof James Nicoll; Clinical and Experimental Sciences BRAIN UK extension British Neuropathological Society; £18,378 over 5 months

Dr Christine Jones; Clinical and Experimental Sciences MRC via Imperial – IMPRINT: IMunnising PRegnant women and INfants neTwork – Extension MRC; £10,466 over 18 months

Dr Simon Crabb; Cancer Sciences A multicentre randomised controlled trial (RCT) of a uro-oncology clinical nurse specialist (CNS) team delivered cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) intervention to reduce the impact of hot flush and night sweat (HFNS) symptoms in men with prostate cancer undergoing androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) National Institute of Health Research; £310,435 over 36 months Prof Ian Galea; Clinical and Experimental Sciences CoroNerve: neurological sequelae of COVID-19 Gilead Sciences Inc.; £99,135 over 9 months Dr Michelle Fernandes, Prof Caroline Fall, Prof Nicholas Harvey; MRC LEU, Human Development and Health Developmental origins of child development: Novel approaches to clinical risk prediction using an international metadataset MRC Post-doctoral Research Training Fellowship; £364,325 over 72 months Dr Claire Jackson; Clinical and Experimental Sciences Generation of PCD gene CRISPR Cas9 knock out cell lines AAIR Charity; £10,000 over 12 months Dr Ruihua Hou; Clinical and Experimental Sciences An investigation of asthma molecular pathologies linked to anxiety: a retrospective study of the European U-BIOPRED asthma cohort AAIR Charity; £9,600 over 6 months Prof Andrew Davies; Cancer Sciences An open, prospective Phase III clinical study to compare polatuzumab vedotin plus rituximab, ifosfamide, carboplatin and etoposide (PolaRICE) with rituximab, ifosfamide, carboplatin and etoposide (RICE) alone as salvage-therapy in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) at first progression or relapse GWT-TUD GmbH; £1,923,658 over 60 months

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Dr Matthew Loxham; Clinical and Experimental Sciences Cellular Homeostatis in Reponse to Elements Associated with Shipping Emissions BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship; £1,021,974 over 60 months Prof Gareth Griffiths; Cancer Sciences Niraparib Efficacy in Relapsed MesOthelioma (NERO). A Randomised Phase II trial of Niraparib versus active symptom control in Patients with Relapsed Malignant Mesothelioma British Lung Foundation; £499,716 over 48 months Dr Jay Amin; Clinical and Experimental Sciences Blood-brain barrier permeability in Alzheimer’s disease measured using dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging: a pilot study Alzheimer’s Research UK; £2,959 over 12 months Prof Joanne Lord; Wessex Institute Production of Technology Assessment Reviews (TARs) for the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) National Institute of Health Research; £5,121,379 over 60 months Dr Zoe Walters; Cancer Sciences Utilising sarcoma omic information to identify disease gene networks and associated novel therapies for patients Sarcoma UK; £248,398 over 36 months

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

FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Prof Melanie Nind; Southampton Education School Changing Research Practices II: Continuing Methods Responses and Research Strategy in Covid-19 Times ESRC; £27,072 over 6 months

This list encompasses a selection of awards logged with University of Southampton Finance from March to April 2021 that are not considered commercially sensitive.

Dr Philip Greulich; School of Mathematical Sciences (project led by University of Cambridge) OncoLive: Optogenetic control and measurement of oncogenic mutations and signalling in organoid cultures for the biophysical modelling of early oncogenesis Cancer Research UK; £7,996 over 30 months Dr John Boswell; School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences Weapons of the meek? Everyday acts of administrative resistance Leverhulme Trust; £59,911 over 12 months Dr Anita Lavorgna; School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences with Co I Pamela Ugwudike and Stuart Middleton ProTechThem: Building Awareness for Safer and Technology-Savvy Sharenting ESRC; £947,454 over 40 months Dr Robert Angell; Southampton Business School Impact of the pandemic on social interaction between older shoppers in rural retail settings: Resilience? Retreat? And what can retailers do about it?

University Newcastle Upon Tyne; £14,988 over 7 months Dr Jessica Smith; School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences Can MPs ‘have it all’? Voter perceptions of parliamentary parents and proxy voting British Academy; £4,170 over 7 months Dr Nicola Pensiero; Southampton Education School with Co-I Professor Tony Kelly and Dr Christian Bokhove Learning inequalities during the Covid-19 pandemic: a longitudinal analysis using the UK Understanding Society 2020 and 2021 data ESRC; £32,282 over 3 months

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Find out more: www.southampton.ac.uk/ris reaction@southampton.ac.uk +44 (0)23 8059 4694 Research and Innovation Services (RIS) facilitates academic collaborations, research funding bids, industrial interactions and knowledge exchange activities, including commercialisation and business acceleration. RIS also supports research ethics and integrity, research contracting and the REF.

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