Re:action Spring 2024

Meeting of minds

University of Southampton researchers are joining forces across disciplines to unlock world-changing innovations

HEALTHY FUTURES

Using cultural engagement to boost Southampton young people’s health and happiness

HUMANITARIAN NETWORK Medics and engineers working together to understand civilian blast injuries

WORKING FOR SUSTAINABILITY

New Sustainability and Resilience Institute launched

MAPPING THE SEABED Surveying and safeguarding sea grass meadows in Studland Bay

WELCOME TO RE:ACTION

The University of Southampton has an enviable track record for the strength of its interdisciplinary research activity. This was specifically commented upon in the feedback we received from the 2021 Research Excellence Framework Exercise and is one of the four pillars of our 2022 Research Strategic Plan.

It has never been more important to foster interdisciplinary approaches to our research. The global challenges we face, including those of public health, climate change, energy, food and water security and the responsible use of artificial intelligence, all need highly interdisciplinary solutions. These will span the physical and life sciences but must also reflect that people are key elements of the systems being affected and so social sciences, arts and humanities disciplines have important parts to play.

I have always found this university to be a particularly encouraging place in which to pursue interdisciplinary approaches, with a very collegial and entrepreneurial culture and low barriers between disciplines. I also believe that we are well served by the processes and structures we have put in place to foster interdisciplinary work, through our four strategic Interdisciplinary Research Institutes, which are described in this edition, and through the appointment of our Associate Vice-President Interdisciplinary Research, in the form of a job share between Professors Rebecca Hoyle and John Holloway, who provide excellent leadership in this area.

This edition of Re:action documents a wide range of interdisciplinary activities from across the University that all reflect our strength in working in this way. As with many previous forewords to Re:action, I wonder at the diversity of activities, ranging from Kai Yang’s Medical Research Council-funded project on smart textiles, which she hosts in the Winchester School of Art, work by Jane Hart and Kirk Martinez on using drones and sensors to measure glacial ice melt, through to the ‘Pathways to

Health’ project, led by Joanna Sofaer in the School of Humanities. It is also great to see our first two cohorts of Anniversary Fellows having a successful start to their time at Southampton, with many exploring interdisciplinary approaches to their research.

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

Best wishes

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

Professor Mark Spearing Vice-President (Research and Enterprise)

Re:action is created by Kate Williams and Sophie Lister, Research and Innovation Services

FOSTERING INTERDISCIPLINARY CONNECTIONS

“There is a recognition that the complex global challenges we face can only be addressed if we understand the interconnections between different disciplines,” said Professor Rebecca Hoyle, who shares the role of Associate Vice President Interdisciplinary Research with Professor John Holloway.

“At the same time, research funding bodies have realigned their funding mechanisms and are increasingly supporting multidisciplinary teams to enable and accelerate solutions.”

In June 2023 the UKRI launched Round 1 of a cross-research council pilot funding scheme which will make 36 awards of up to £1.2million for breakthrough interdisciplinary ideas that ‘transcend, combine or significantly span disciplines.’ Awards are intended to be ‘potentially transformative for the participating disciplines or lead to the creation of new disciplines.’ Round 2 opens in June 2024.

Interdisciplinary Research Programme

The University’s Interdisciplinary Research Programme, led by Rebecca and John, is designed to encourage and support collaboration between Southampton’s researchers and generate creative solutions to global challenges.

Twice-yearly ‘sandpit’ events – themed interactive workshops – encourage new research teams to form and bring forward pilot projects to tackle big research questions. Following the event, the newly formed teams can apply for small amounts of funding to develop their idea.

The next sandpit, with an Environmental and Social Justice theme, is scheduled for April 2024.

The Interdisciplinary research pump-priming fund offers grants of up to £10k to stimulate research from new interdisciplinary teams. The fund is offered for projects that are not supported through pumppriming from one of the University’s Interdisciplinary Research Institutes.

“Grants can help with activities like networking meetings, generation of preliminary data for future research, or capacity-building,” said John. “The fund is there to help lay the groundwork for future interdisciplinary work.”

Three funding rounds have so far supported 18 projects.

“Both the sandpits and the fund are intended to foster new connections and emerging ideas and support new teams to develop their ideas in readiness for larger interdisciplinary funding applications,” said Rebecca.

Regular surgeries allow researchers to discuss ideas with Rebecca and John. They also work with Faculties and Institutes to organise networking events and bespoke support for strategic interdisciplinary initiatives.

Rebecca and John can be contacted on avpir@soton.ac.uk

Professor Rebecca Hoyle

Professor John Holloway

QUESTIONING HUMANIST SYSTEMS CREATIVELY

Interdisciplinary research pump-priming funding enabled Dr Megen de Bruin Molé (Winchester School of Art) to run a series of workshops as part of the Creative Posthumanism project, which is establishing a network of thinkers and creatives who are grappling with the cross-disciplinary questions raised by posthumanism.

The field of critical posthumanism asks questions about the humanistic principles underpinning society’s systems: for example, the assumption within economics that we are rational actors, or the idea in ecology that the earth should be optimised for our habitation.

“Humanistic systems have shaped the world we live in today, but they have not been equally beneficial to everyone,” said Megan. The Creative Posthumanism project uses creative artistic expression to re-examine and re-imagine these systems.

Read more about the Creative Posthumanist project at https://frankenfiction.com/tag/creativeposthumanism/

CLIMATE CHANGE AND HEALTH IN RURAL GHANA

The Places and Inequalities sandpit (November 2023) resulted in a pilot study on the impact of climate change on the health of vulnerable populations in Ghana. Dr Michael Head (School of Cancer Sciences) and his team looked at local knowledge, attitudes and practices around the impact of climate change – including socio-economic disruptions like flooding and the increase in mosquito-driven diseases.

Community survey data were collected by trained local residents and the team conducted focus groups with leaders such as healthcare workers and tribal chiefs. Findings showed very high levels of food insecurity, and most participants reported how extreme weather had stopped them travelling to a health centre at least once in the previous 12 months. The aim is for community insights to be considered by decision-makers, including the Ghana Health Service, Ministry of Health and WHO country offices.

This pilot funding has resulted in a £303k award from the Medical Research Foundation for a three-year interventional study. The team is also co-hosting a Climate and Health Summit in Ghana in March 2024.

AGENTS OF CHANGE IN COASTAL COMMUNITIES

Facing poorer outcomes in health, education and employment, young people often leave the coastal communities where they grew up for better opportunities elsewhere. But if these communities are to be regenerated, they need these young people to stay and become the workers, voters, leaders and parents of tomorrow.

One of the projects emerging from the Places and Inequalities sandpit (September 2022) set out to develop ways of co-creating a new future for coastal communities alongside young people. Led by Professor Mary Barker, (Psychology), ‘Creating new futures for coastal communities involving young people as agents of change’ used participatory methods – including board game design – to engage young people in dialogue about their own and their communities’ futures.

ANNIVERSARY FELLOWSHIP SCHEME SECOND INTAKE

The flagship Anniversary Fellowship Scheme was launched in 2022 to mark the 70th anniversary of the granting of the University’s Royal Charter.

The aim of the programme is to attract and develop the highest-calibre individuals who have the potential and ambition to become the research leaders of the future, tackling adventurous and novel research challenges. Part of the University Strategy, the scheme is contributing to the University’s ambition for an inclusive and dynamic research environment, where research excellence and innovation thrive.

Since the scheme’s launch, twenty-two exceptional researchers from around the world, from many backgrounds, and with diverse career paths and circumstances, have been awarded Anniversary Fellowships. They have taken up positions across the University, where they are already making significant contributions to research.

The Anniversary Fellows benefit from three years of independent research funding, additional funding for research expenses and access to mentoring, career development and networking across the University and beyond. They are encouraged to build interdisciplinary research partnerships during their time in Southampton.

More information on the Anniversary Fellowship Scheme www.southampton.ac.uk/ campaigns/anniversary-fellowships

BUILDING FROM THE RUBBLE

At the International Blast Injury Research Network (IBRN), medics, engineers and other experts are working together across disciplines to address the humanitarian consequences of blast injury.

The images we see on the news reflect a shocking reality: that in modern warfare, civilians are all too often on the front line.

The use of explosive weapons in populated areas (EWIPA) has become the defining feature of 21st century armed conflict. Over the last decade, more than 90% of those killed or injured by explosive violence were civilians. From 2011-2021, some 238,892 civilians were reported killed or injured in populated areas.

Despite this, blast research had long focused on military, not civilian priorities. Three University of Southampton researchers are challenging this.

In 2018, Dr Jack Denny from the Faculty of Engineering, along with Dr Rebecca Glenny-Brown and Professor James Batchelor from the Faculty of Medicine, received a grant from the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) to investigate this disparity, and to develop a blast injury research network in collaboration with the University of Cape Town (UCT).

Right: The aftermath of the 2020 Beirut port explosion

“We looked at the last 20 years of public and philanthropic funding data for research into blast injuries, and approximately 80% of it was defence funding.”

Dr Rebecca Glenny-Brown

Building from the rubble

“Interdisciplinarity is about understanding each other’s languages – and something that’s unique about the IBRN is that we’ve invested a lot of time actually learning about each other’s disciplines.”

Professor James Batchelor

‘What about the civilians?’

“We looked at the last 20 years of public and philanthropic funding data for research into blast injuries, and approximately 80% of it was defence funding,” said Rebecca.

The review analysed over USD $900 million of funding invested into everything from clinical trials and public health studies to basic research looking at the blast- and bioengineering aspects of blast injury. Jack added:

“The studies were primarily interested in defence contexts concerning military personnel – effectively 18-30-year-old males – being injured by explosions. And we said, what about the civilians? Is this science translatable to civilians being harmed in current conflicts? We felt that this was a completely unrepresented area where we should start to shed some light.”

This research investment mapping work was so insightful that it was published by the British Medical Journal and presented to the US Department of Defence and the International Forum of Blast Injury Countermeasures (IFBIC).

The findings, alongside data from IBRN partner Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) showing that 90% of casualties from blasts in urban areas are civilians, further motivated the IBRN team to focus their research agenda on the unmet global challenges surrounding civilian blast injuries.

Inherently interdisciplinary

The complex problems in this field need to be tackled by experts from across disciplines. “Blast injury research is inherently interdisciplinary,” said Jack. “You’ve got blast physics and blast loading, and the effect of the urban landscape, which cause different injury mechanisms and severities. Then you’ve got the wide range of blast injury types and how to predict and characterize them from a clinical standpoint, the treatments and clinical management, and the long-term care requirements.”

The IBRN catalyses dialogue between the fields of Blast Engineering and Injury Modelling, Public Health, Epidemiology, Traumatology and Critical Care, Operational Research, and Clinical Informatics. For example, in the wake of the 2020 Beirut port explosion, the IBRN brought together expertise around location mapping, injury assessment and blast loading to look at the spatial factors affecting people’s injuries. The study’s findings will inform disaster management planning in the future.

“The long-term vision is bringing people together to look at these problems in a group rather than in isolation,” James said. “Interdisciplinarity is about understanding each other’s languages – and something that’s unique about the IBRN is that we’ve invested a lot of time actually learning about each other’s disciplines.”

Knowledge Exchange at the centre

The Network’s core team of academics support blast injury research at Southampton and other institutions including UCT, University of Sheffield, The American University of Beirut, and University of Washington. But the network’s partnerships go beyond academia.

“The impact of the IBRN is not solely about the research that we do,” explained Rebecca. “It’s about the people that we bring together – facilitating conversations between different sectors and bridging that gap.”

The Network’s first workshop with UCT in 2019 saw a gathering of representatives from different sides of the table. “The partners we invited were people who wouldn’t even admit to being in the same room: representatives from defence departments alongside NGOs, research charities, and humanitarian organisations like the Red Cross,” recalled James. “What the IBRN has done is sensitively create an environment where people who would never ordinarily sit down together can see the value of collaborating.”

This approach has paid dividends, generating insights through dialogue. “We have extremely positive feedback on our events’ multidisciplinary agenda, our unique approach to breaking down the barriers between disciplines and the interactive nature of sessions to define and prioritise research gaps,” said Jack.

Humanitarian need

The effectiveness of these dialogues, and of its research, have put the IBRN in a position to influence policymaking at the highest levels. EWIPA is a priority issue for the United Nations (UN), where Rebecca, James and Jack are often present to advise; in 2023, Jack was part of a panel presenting to the UN in New York about IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices). The network’s research is fed back to governments – they consulted on the Irish government’s recent Political Declaration to protect civilians from EWIPA – and to defence and NGO organisations, including the Red Cross and Action on Armed Violence (AOAV).

But even as the network grows and develops, its founding mission remains key. “The main focus of the IBRN is reducing civilian harm in low-income countries – so enterprise and other commercialisation are the icing on the cake,” said Rebecca. “Fundamentally we’re focused on a humanitarian need.”

Dr Jack Denny has received funding from the Global Partnership Award (GPA), allowing him to visit the UCT to undertake experimental work and develop partnerships. These partnerships and previous work helped Dr Denny secure a Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) –Research Development Fund award in 2022.

“The studies were primarily interested in defence contexts concerning military personnel –effectively 18-30-year-old males – being injured by explosions. And we said, what about the civilians? Is this science translatable to civilians being harmed in current conflicts? We felt that this was a completely unrepresented area where we should start to shed some light.”

Dr Jack Denny

Read more about the International Blast Injury Research Network: www.blastinjurynetwork.com

Left: Delegates get involved at an IBRN workshop

Above: Blast damage in an urban area

INSTITUTE FOR LIFE SCIENCES NURTURING INTERDISCIPLINARITY

“Most people now recognize that breaking down traditional boundaries between disciplines is highly productive,” said Professor Max Crispin, Director of the University’s Institute for Life Sciences (IfLS).

“So many breakthroughs come by taking expertise from different fields and applying them to develop novel and interdisciplinary research.”

Professor Max Crispin

“So many breakthroughs come by taking expertise from different fields and applying them to develop novel and interdisciplinary research.

“The IfLS shows what can be achieved through this strategic cross-faculty model that nurtures interdisciplinarity.”

Established in 2011, the IfLS connects researchers from across the University and beyond, stimulating interdisciplinary research, education and enterprise.

The Institute acts as a hub for networking and life science enterprise activities and offers seed funding for pilot projects. IfLS interdisciplinary PhD studentships have also proven to be an effective mechanism for building long-term collaborations across the University.

Max, who is professor of Glycobiology, took over as IfLS Director from founding Director Professor Peter JS Smith in Summer 2023. He is joined by Deputy Directors Hywel Morgan, Professor of Bioelectronics, and Mary Barker, Professor of Psychology & Behavioural Science, whose appointment is helping to develop the Institute’s reach into the social sciences.

Community

One of the IfLS’s great strengths is the breadth of its membership, with over 400

members representing all five faculties. There is also strong engagement with regional partners including University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, Health Innovation Wessex, and Wessex Health Partners.

“IfLS is an integral part of the University’s interdisciplinary culture and has contributed to numerous external funding awards and real-world impacts, through seed-funding and by nurturing collaborations that have matured, often over many years,” continued Max.

One such initiative with its roots in the IfLS is the flagship National Biofilms Innovation Centre (NBIC) (see opposite). Another interdisciplinary champion is Sumeet Mahajan, Professor of Molecular BioPhotonics and Imaging, whose work attracts major EPSRC funding (see page 14).

Although IfLS pilot funding awards are modest, they allow the Institute to “support genuinely high-risk, exploratory work which has the potential to be very disruptive,” explained Max.

Pointing to Dr Owen Rackham’s work in computational biology, where he is seeking to generate completely new cell types through modelling of gene expression networks (see page 16), Max said:

“What we want to see are those big leaps forward where suddenly new spaces are opened up.”

With an eye to developing the interdisciplinary researchers of the future, the IfLS offers up to four PhD studentships annually, along with two each through the South Coast Bioscience Doctoral Training Partnership and the Translational Biomedical Sciences Doctoral Partnership.

Regional and national influence

With its established network of partners and collaborators, the IfLS is a key contributor to the regional life sciences sector and works to influence national and international policy.

IfLS projects sponsored by Local Enterprise Partnerships and Health Innovation Wessex to better understand the region’s life sciences needs and capabilities resulted in FortisNet. This regional network connects and supports enterprise, academia, healthcare, and other stakeholders such as local government and charities, to collaborate on musculoskeletal health research and development.

Building on that success, My Age is one of eleven UK Ageing Networks funded by the BBSRC and the MRC to increase healthspan (the number of years lived in good health) and set the future direction of ageing research.

ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGES OF BIOFILMS

Biofilms are central to our most important global challenges – from antimicrobial resistance and food safety to water security. They exert significant global economic, societal, and environmental impacts, both beneficial and negative, estimated at $5 trillion per annum.

Biofilms are made of numerous living micro-organisms, such as bacteria or fungi, evolving and growing as a collective. Microbial biofilms and communities represent the largest biomass activity centre on the planet, with an estimated 96% of microbes on Earth found in biofilms.

The impacts of biofilms are diverse and often costly, disruptive, or dangerous. They cause dental plaque and ship biofouling; they clog water and sewage pipes; they are responsible for salmonella contamination and are implicated in as much as 80% of all microbial infections in humans.

But some biofilms can be harnessed for constructive purposes. They can clean wastewater in sewage treatment plants; filter water for drinking; help remove microplastics from the ocean; and even generate electricity from organic waste.

Nurtured through the IfLS’s biofilms research theme, Southampton hosts the largest grouping of biofilm academics in the UK. In 2017 this led to the establishment of the National Biofilms Innovation Centre (NBIC).

NBIC’s mission is to drive global leadership at the forefront of research, training and innovation in biofilm technologies, by addressing the grand challenges important to the UK’s future prosperity. Led by the University of Southampton, in partnership with Liverpool, Nottingham and Edinburgh Universities, NBIC includes 63 associate research institutions and more than 200 companies, driving the translation of biofilm research into impactful innovations for society.

NBIC is an Innovation Knowledge Centre (IKC) jointly funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Innovate UK.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm aggregates, credit NBIC

Southampton scientists are researching mechanisms to build and maintain muscle resilience – poor musculoskeletal health is a leading cause of early exit from the workforce and loss of independence in later life.

“There is a national push to support healthy ageing and improve health expectancy, and we are now well placed to be part of that,” explained Max.

In 2023 the MyAge network was invited by Sense About Science to present a policy briefing, ‘A lifelong approach to muscle resilience: implications for policy and practice’ to MPs and parliamentary staff. Meanwhile work to highlight the strength of the South’s life sciences sector resulted in, ‘Life Sciences in the central South’ report, a major policy paper published by the Southern Policy Centre in 2022.

Responding to the shift by funding councils towards supporting interdisciplinary regional networks, and contributing to the University’s Civic objectives, the IfLS also

played a key role in establishing Wessex Health Partners. This is a strategic regional partnership representing Integrated Care Boards, universities and NHS organisations, to accelerate better health and care through research, innovation and training.

Sharing success

IfLS also hosts the Royal Society Entrepreneur in Residence, currently Dr Kam Pooni, CEO of Glyconics and a specialist in medical technologies and medical device regulations. Kam’s expertise is helping researchers better understand the business environment.

Recent spin-out successes that have been supported by the IfLS include Curve Therapeutics (see below) and Renovos, a regenerative medicine company that is pioneering the nanoclay gel technology platform, RENOVITE® to address the unmet need for long term tissue regeneration.

Looking ahead, Max is determined to capture emerging opportunities for the IfLS.

“One of the first things I did as Director was to invite people from across the University to suggest new research themes. We have already introduced a new cross-cutting theme in global health, and we’re actively searching out opportunities with the revolution that is occurring with artificial intelligence.

“The University of Southampton is an exciting environment for interdisciplinary research and, as IfLS Director, I am delighted to help foster new research initiatives across the University and beyond.”

Read more about the Institute for Life Sciences (IfLS)

www.southampton.ac.uk/research/ institutes-centres/institute-for-lifesciences

“IfLS is an integral part of the University’s interdisciplinary culture and has contributed to numerous external funding awards and real-world impacts.”

Professor Max Crispin

MAJOR INVESTMENTS FOR IFLS MEMBER SPIN-OUT

In February 2024 Curve Therapeutics, a spin-out company led by IfLS member Professor Ali Tavassoli, announced the conclusion of a £40.5 million Series A financing led by Pfizer Ventures. The investment will turbocharge Curve’s pioneering Microcycle® drug discovery platform and progress a pipeline of assets addressing cancer targets into the clinic.

Following a deal worth US$1.7billion, Curve is also collaborating with multinational pharmaceutical company MSD. The two companies are using the drug discovery platform to generate and screen millions of molecules to discover

new medical treatments for currently ‘undruggable’ biological targets, including cancers.

Ali, a Professor of Chemical Biology, cites the University’s championing of interdisciplinary research – particularly support from Chemistry, IfLS, Research and Innovation Services and Future Worlds – as contributing to his success in commercialising his research.

Read more about Curve Therapeutics at www.curvetx.com

Professor Ali Tavassoli

HOW CORAL REEFS ARE HELPING TEENAGERS TO STRENGTHEN THEIR RESILIENCE

An IfLS-funded project has used data analysis techniques from coral reef science to better understand young people’s abilities to develop resilience.

The pilot project funding enabled IfLS members Professor Anne-Sophie Darlington (Health Sciences) and Professor Graham Roberts (Medicine) to collaborate with marine ecologist Professor Jasmin Godbold (Ocean and Earth Science) and Professor Peter Smith (Social Statistics).

“We knew lots of things support resilience –friendships, a good relationship with parents, having confidence, self-esteem, positive experiences at school – and we wanted to understand which ones are most important,” said Anne-Sophie.

“Ecologists do a lot of work exploring the resilience of ecosystems and Jasmin has an interest in understanding what makes marine organisms and ecosystems resilient to changes such as water temperature.

“We used similar statistical approaches to analyse data from young people to understand their resilience better, exploring tipping points that may turn beneficial influences into negative influences.”

The findings are being used to develop programmes to support young people in building their resilience and reducing mental health problems.

Professor Anne-Sophie Darlington

PARTNERING WITH INDUSTRY TO EXPLOIT IMAGING TECHNOLOGIES

The Transformative Imaging for Quantitative Biology (TIQBio) partnership between the University, global pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and biophotonics company M Squared Life is developing large-scale, high-resolution live 3D imaging tools to determine the efficacy of new drug candidates in treating various conditions.

“Currently we are targeting diseases such as lung fibrosis and lung cancer and diversifying into cardiovascular disease, although our technology could be used for a much wider range of applications.”

Professor Sumeet Mahajan

Professor Sumeet Mahajan, from Chemistry, is leading the University team that includes colleagues from the Optoelectronics Research Centre, Biological Sciences, Medicine and the Institute for Life Sciences (IfLS). Sumeet is IfLS Imaging theme lead and Head of Chemical Biology.

The five-year programme, which began in 2022, aims to provide the capability for rapid label-free imaging of live physiological human tissue models using novel technology combinations, targeting the field of new drug discovery at high throughput.

Southampton researchers are developing these new imaging tools and applying them across a broad range of healthcare applications with the aim of addressing the current limitations in available technology for 3D imaging of human model systems that will unlock the full potential of targeted drug discovery.

Sumeet said: “Traditional confocal microscopes focus light to a point and build an image by recording thousands of points across the area of interest. This means generating a single image is very slow and for a volume the process needs to be repeated, again and again.

“Lightsheet microscopes work differently by focusing light into a sheet and capturing the image in a single shot, which makes 3D imaging more than a hundred times faster than traditional methods. However, these methods require dyes to label or tag sites of interest that perturb the sample or require expensive non-human samples that are genetically modified.

“Pharma companies want to use physiologically relevant models such as organoids that resemble human tissues to carry out their pre-clinical drug testing but there are no imaging tools and technologies that can interrogate them, especially that are label-free.

“At Southampton, we have already developed label-free techniques in Raman spectroscopy and non-linear spectroscopy imaging with M Squared Life. This allows us to combine our techniques and new lasers to create novel lightsheet microscopy systems so that pharma companies such as AstraZeneca can carry out high throughput drug discovery on 3D physiological models.

“Currently we are targeting diseases such as lung fibrosis and lung cancer and diversifying into cardiovascular disease, although our technology could be used for a much wider range of applications.”

The new technology is generating widespread interest amongst researchers, including in Southampton, where the team is working with members of the SOCRATES network (a NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre network dedicated to advanced cell culture platforms for investigating diseases).

A recent award of £100,000 from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology will aid commercialisation of TIQBio technologies.

THE BACTERIA-EATING VIRUSES HELPING TO TACKLE A GLOBAL THREAT

Antibiotic resistant bacteria are spreading across the globe at an alarming rate, claiming a few hundred thousand lives a year. This number is expected to rise drastically by 2050 and the problem needs urgent action from government and society.

Interdisciplinary research funded by IfLS Higher Education Innovation Funds (HEIF) and Wessex Medical Research and led by Dr Franklin Nobrega, has been exploring how a phage-based strategy could play a part in tackling this global threat.

Franklin, who is Associate Professor in Microbiology, said: “We are using bacteriophages (viruses that attack bacteria) to reactivate antibiotics to clear bacterial infections.

“To kill bacteria, bacteriophages, (phages for short), attach to specific structures on the surface of the bacterial cell. To try to prevent this, bacteria often mutate these structures. Luckily for us, these surface structures are frequently involved in antibiotic resistance, and their mutation will make the bacteria lose their ability to resist antibiotics.

“By combining bacteriophages and antibiotics, we can create a broadly applicable, costeffective, and safe treatment against many kinds of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, giving new life to old antibiotics.”

The project involved biological scientists and clinicians, and colleagues from Winchester School of Art. The latter’s expertise in public engagement enabled the team to better understand public misgivings about virusbased treatments which were exacerbated by the Coronavirus pandemic, and to develop educational materials.

Together they developed the first Phage Therapy Experimental Medicine programme in the UK as part of the new NIHR Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) Infection Theme.

Building on this research, Franklin’s Microbial Interactions Lab is compiling a biobank of bacterial viruses available free to scientists to further phage research, and running citizen science projects to raise public awareness of AMR and antibiotic alternatives, in preparation for their more widespread introduction.

Significant obstacles to the use of phagebased therapies in clinics remain. They have never been licensed for therapeutic use in the UK, except as ‘compassionate’ treatments of last resort in isolated cases, and the pharmaceutical industry is yet to invest in their manufacture to UK standards, severely limiting their use in clinical trials.

January 2024 saw a notable step forward, however. Following a 2023 call for evidence, the UK Parliamentary Science, Innovation and Technology Committee published its first report on bacteriophages. It calls on the Government ‘to make a definitive and positive statement on the role of phages in the national approach to anti-microbial resistance, which is important in research funding decisions and for private investment in commercial phages.’

Franklin is now working on a Policy Brief, covering both phage-therapy development and the public engagement required to reduce reliance on antibiotics. He has recently secured Research England Participatory Research Funding to begin clinical trials.

This research has received funding from the University of Southampton Institute for Life Sciences, Wessex Medical Research and Bowel Research UK.

“By combining bacteriophages and antibiotics, we can create a broadly applicable, cost-effective, and safe treatment against many kinds of antibioticresistant bacterial infections, giving new life to old antibiotics.”

Dr Franklin Nobrega

You can read more about these interdisciplinary research projects in the IfLS Annual Report www.southampton.ac.uk/research/ institutes-centres/institute-for-lifesciences/annual-report

EXTENDING THE UNIVERSE OF CELL TYPES

Associate Professor of Systems Biology, Dr Owen Rackham’s field of research is so new that no one can agree on its name.

Variously known as ‘computational biology’, ‘biological generative AI’ and ‘computational stem cell biology’, “the name is evolving at the same rate as the field,” said Owen.

In its short existence, it has triggered an explosive growth in our understanding of stem cells and our ability to use them for disease modelling, regenerative medicine, and drug discovery. Potential applications include in immunotherapy and degenerative disease.

Owen, a world expert in the application of machinelearning in cell reprogramming and disease-gene association, joined the University of Southampton in 2020. He leads an interdisciplinary team working on combining artificial intelligence with highthroughput biology to identify key regulators that can control cell fate to find novel routes for cell conversion or targeted therapies.

He is also Theme Lead for Cell and Molecular Medicine at the Turing Institute, Adjunct Professor at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, and Cofounder of Mogrify Limited.

As well as opening up new therapies, Owen believes this field has the potential to change the process of scientific discovery from, as he puts it, “guided trial and error at the bench” to a new kind of “biological engineering”.

An unconventional approach

As a computer scientist by training, Owen’s route into biological research has been unconventional.

A Masters in ‘Nature inspired computing’, which focused on writing algorithms inspired by processes

that occur in nature, ignited his interest in both AI and Biology. A PhD in Computational Biology followed, despite, said Owen, “not having studied biology beyond GCSE.”

It was during his PhD that a Nobel prize-winning discovery by Shinya Yamanaka set him on the path to his current interdisciplinary work.

Our bodies are comprised of at least 400 different cell types, from neurons to heart, brain, and skin cells. These all begin life as embryonic stem cells, with the same genome. Embryonic stem cells are ‘pluripotent’ which means that they have the potential to develop into any cell type (except the amniotic sac and placenta). As the embryo develops, stem cells change into different cell types with distinct functions.

Yamanaka discovered that if you introduce just four regulatory genes or ‘transcription factors’ to any of these differentiated cells, they revert to this pluripotent state. This is called re-programming.

The discovery that it was possible to go from a differentiated cell back to an embryonic stem cell, suggested that any cell type could be converted into another cell type. This opened up a wide range of therapeutic possibilities.

Yamanaka’s methods required years of patient lab work trying out every combination until they found the four that worked. Owen, together with his PhD supervisor Professor Julian Gough, set out to streamline this process by creating an algorithm to predict what genes would need to be used in a cell type, depending on what properties you wanted it to have.

“The privilege of being on the computational side is the opportunity to work on a problem with people with different expertise and understandings, being exposed to new problems and new ways of thinking.”

Dr Owen Rackham

Extending the universe of cell types

Dr Owen Rackham

PhD students Disha Mehta (L) and Moi Nicholas (R)

Partnering with a clinical collaborator, Professor Jose Polo of Monash University, Australia, who was able to validate the algorithm, they “predicted how to turn fibroblasts from skin into three cell types that we’d never managed to make before, in just three months, where before it was taking three years to do one thing.”

That algorithm was published and spun out into a company, Mogrify, which is turning the technology into cell and gene therapies, addressing needs in ophthalmology, otology, metabolic and other areas of degenerative disease.

Fundamentally interdisciplinary

“My group is a computational-first group,” explained Owen. “Then we look for an expert in whatever our algorithm does to validate it.”

This agility allows Owen to apply these techniques to a wide range of fields.

“The computational infrastructure that I need for working on cancer is not very different to the computational infrastructure I need to work on ageing, which is not true for clinicians and biologists in cancer or ageing.”

“The privilege of being on the computational side is the opportunity to work on a problem with people with different expertise and understandings, being exposed to new problems and new ways of thinking.”

Owen is working with Professor Sean Lim, Professor of Haematology and

“The longer-term vision, is that we try to make new cell types that are as useful as they possibly can be for treating a disease.”

Dr Owen Rackham

Translational Immunology, University Hospital Southampton, who is attempting to develop new immunotherapeutic approaches to blood cancer.

When cancer occurs, the body’s immune system will try to attack it using T cells. Eventually the T cells become ‘Exhausted’ and can no longer attack the tumour in the same way. Owen, Sean and PhD student Disha Mehta, are using Owen’s technologies to convert the Exhausted T cells back into non-Exhausted T cells, enabling the patient’s immune system to continue to attack the tumour.

Extending the universe of cell types

Until now, scientists have been working on converting one cell type to another, based on the cell types that occur in the body. According to Owen, this is unnecessarily limiting.

“I think that it’s probably possible to make cell types that our bodies don’t use, but which can be facilitated by the genome that we have.

“For example, when T cells are attacking a tumour, they become ‘cytotoxic’, which means that they can kill the cell they are attacking. The spectrum of how cytotoxic a T cell in the body is might go from zero to 10. There is no reason why I can’t work out what a T cell with cytotoxicity 13 looks like, it’s just that our body never makes it.”

But attempting to create an entirely novel cell type is a whole new level of challenge.

“At the moment we can observe the thing that we’re trying to make,” explained Owen. “The hard part now is saying, if I want a cell that has characteristic X, Y and Z, what will that look like, even though I’ve never seen it?”

In a new project funded by a BBSRC Pioneer award, ‘Using AI to extend the universe of cell types’, Owen’s Southampton group is using generative AI to address this challenge.

“The longer-term vision,” said Owen, “is that we try to make new cell types that are as useful as they possibly can be for treating a disease.”

Dr Owen Rackham’s work has received funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the Medical Research Council and seed-funding from the Institute for Life Sciences at the University of Southampton.

(centre) with

TAKING A DATA-DRIVEN APPROACH TO REVERSING AGING

Our ageing society is placing an increasing burden on healthcare systems; however, many treatments target symptoms rather than underlying causes. Owen is working with Dr Nicole Prior (Biological Sciences) to combine her ground-breaking work on organoids with his computational techniques. They seek to understand the underlying molecular mechanisms that result in changes in how our organs function as we age, and look for ways to reverse them.

Organoids are a mass of cells grown from stem cells that resembles an organ, which give scientists an opportunity to view how organs form, providing new insights on human development and disease, and a way to see how drugs interact with these ‘mini-organs.’

“By making a micro-organ from a young donor, and one from an old donor, and using my methods to work out how to make the old micro-organ look more like the young micro-organ, we can provide a model for identifying and evaluating drugs that can reverse the effects of ageing,” explained Owen.

USING AI TO UNDERSTAND EARLY HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

In a project funded by the Institute for Life Sciences (IfLS), Owen is working with Dr Nicole Prior and Professor Paul Skipp (Biological Sciences), and Dr Franchesca Houghton (Medicine) to try to combine the use of organoids and AI to provide a way to study early development, that can be used to understand infertility and early developmental disorders.

“One of the powerful things about the generative approach,” said Owen, “is that it also gives us the possibility to work on parts of biology that may be difficult to do otherwise.”

Currently, the only way to study the blastocyst (the earliest stage of embryo development) is using examples donated from IVF clinics when patients have decided not to use them. The available supply is tiny and fraught with ethical implications and does not lend itself to ‘high throughput’ biology.

Building organoids from the cells of the placenta or the trophoblast (the outer layer of cells of the blastocyst) without the need to take them from a patient, could provide the solution, enabling large-scale screening for effective drug treatments which can then be used to train a generative AI model to make their predictions about how to treat patients.

3D rendering of multiple induced pluripotent stem cells

GIVING VOICE TO UNTOLD STORIES

“Time is elastic. Sometimes it can go so fast – other times it stops dead.”

These words probably feel familiar to anyone who experienced the frustrations of coronavirus lockdowns. But for the young person who spoke them, they describe an experience which most of us will find hard to imagine.

The pandemic had a profound impact on the already difficult process of seeking asylum in the UK as an unaccompanied migrant child or young person. As well as adding delays at every stage, lockdowns left these young people isolated and struggling with their mental health. What do their experiences tell us about long-term changes that are needed in the asylum system? ‘Lives on Hold: Our Stories Told (LOHST)’, an ESRCfunded project involving researchers from the University of Southampton, set out to discover more via an innovative research method.

From subjects to researchers Associate Professor in Governance and Policy Ingi lusmen and Professor of Developmental Psychology Jana Kreppner worked with an interdisciplinary team from Southampton, University College London, and University of Liverpool to hear and analyse young asylum seekers’ stories. They interviewed 70 young people aged 16-25 from 13 countries, capturing their experiences in the UK asylum system and the long-term legacies for their lives and well-being.

But the young people provided more than data. Partnering with refugee charity Shpresa Programme, which works with Albanian asylum seekers, the team trained and involved a group of 12 unaccompanied young asylum seekers as peer researchers.

“That was quite innovative, working directly with the key beneficiaries,” said Ingi. “They were not only the focus of our research, but they could also shift sides to become researchers themselves.”

Dr Ingi Iusmen

As well as interviewing their peers, the young peer researchers co-produced a short animated video and a documentary about these conversations, with one talented young person providing artwork; they also gave feedback on research briefings and chapters for an upcoming book about the project’s findings.

Participatory methodologies like this are increasingly being embraced in social science – and are particularly key for marginalised communities. They can help challenge stereotypes, build partnerships with stakeholders, interrogate power structures embedded in the research process, and allow the voices of those with lived experience to set the research agenda.

As a result of the project, the LOHST team proposed a trauma-informed framework for researchers working with vulnerable

communities, based around five core principles: working reflectively with those with lived experience; contextualising trauma; nurturing trust; showing care; and empowering those involved in and affected by the research.

Towards trauma-informed practice

The narratives which emerged from the LOHST interviews centred on trauma. Jana explained: “Coming from a country that might be riddled by war or violence, having gone through an incredibly traumatising and challenging journey – and then when you arrive in the place where you think you are safe, finally, you are still met with hostility. They experience uncertainty about their legal status in the country, they are anxious that they might be sent back – and so you’ve got an accumulation of stress.”

The researchers found that the young people’s traumatic experiences before and during their refugee journeys were compounded by their interactions with the UK asylum system, where professionals did not always respond with appropriate understanding or compassion. “That’s why we set out to review what sort of practice is in place in the asylum system in terms of being responsive and sensitive to trauma,” said Ingi.

This secondary project, funded by Research England Participatory Research Fund and further supported by Southampton researcher India Cook (via Public Policy Southampton), also involved young people seeking asylum as both researchers and participants.

Trauma-informed approaches have gained popularity across professional disciplines in the past decade. They entail an awareness of how trauma exposure can shape people’s lives and behavioural responses and set out guidance for supportive practice to better address the barriers trauma creates.

The study brought the young people together with stakeholders working in the asylum system, including charities, lawyers, social workers and clinicians. The participants shared lived experiences of the UK asylum process and co-produced new and improved recommendations for traumainformed practice in the asylum system.

These guidelines will be shared with the Home Office, refugee charities and other stakeholders working with asylum seekers who experienced psychological trauma.

‘This research is our voice’ Ingi and Jana are particularly proud of the way in which LOHST empowered its young peer researchers.

“We learned so much from them, but we hopefully provided an opportunity for them to develop professional skills that are helping them in their future paths,” said Jana. One young person, because of her engagement with the project, has since received funding for a PhD; another was employed as a research assistant on the secondary project.

The LOHST team are keen to effect longterm change on a wider scale. They seek to show the impact of the current system on young asylum seekers, including headlinegrabbing legislation such as the Nationality and Borders Act, the Illegal Migration Act, and the Rwanda bill. So far, they have given evidence to the Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights. They have also worked with Guardian journalist Amelia Gentleman to shine a light on the plight of young Albanian asylum seekers, who they say have been “particularly targeted, racialised and criminalised because their claims are perceived as being less deserving.”

They will share all their findings in an upcoming book, ‘Asylum as Violence’, which Ingi said is for an interdisciplinary readership. “We look at the legal, political and policy factors that make the whole asylum journey violent from a psychological point of view.”

According to the team, it is challenging to have a direct impact on policy in a political climate where the latest measures are aimed at making the asylum process more hostile. But, in the words of the young people who helped make the project happen: “This research is our voice … the change is coming from us. Our lives might be on hold, but we’re still changing the system for all the other young people coming up.”

“We learned so much from them, but we hopefully provided an opportunity for them to develop professional skills that are helping them in their future paths.”

Professor Jana Kreppner

You can find out more about the project and view the animation at livesonhold.org

SOUTHAMPTON INSTITUTE FOR ARTS AND HUMANITIES

PUTTING CULTURE AT THE HEART OF WORLD-CHANGING RESEARCH

“SIAH advocates for the critical and creative methods of the Arts and Humanities,” said Nicky Marsh, Professor of English and Director of the Southampton Institute for Arts and Humanities (SIAH).

“We celebrate these disciplines and explore what they bring to an understanding of contemporary challenges. We are interested in how culture changes our approach to the environment, to wellbeing, to data and AI.”

SIAH Co-Director and Professor of English, Stephanie Jones, agreed: “We work across subjects to support socially engaged, interdisciplinary work. We place culture at the heart of Southampton’s world-changing research.”

“The Arts and Humanities disciplines have intrinsic value, but I think it is also important to recognise that they do have tangible benefits for society,” said Joanna Sofaer, SIAH Co-Director and Professor of Archaeology.

Social good

What unites SIAH’s diverse research projects is an emphasis on “social good”: how culture contributes to economic prosperity, health, and societal benefit, explained Joanna.

Through actively engaging with policymakers and policy, such as the levelling up agenda, SIAH seeks to use the critical and creative resources of the Arts and Humanities to bring about change.

Nicky Marsh’s ‘And Towns’ series of placebased projects (see page 24) is exploring the role of culture in regeneration, and how to capture qualitative data, such as civic pride, as a metric of value and deploy it

in decision-making. Through partnerships with local councils the projects’ findings are informing policymaking.

With data as one of its research themes, SIAH is very interested in establishing “alternative metrics of value that are more subtle and complex, and in valuing qualitative data,” said Nicky.

Joanna’s work on the UKRI-funded ‘Pathways to Health’ project (see pages 30–31) collaborated with health, civic and cultural partners, and young people in Southampton to understand how and where young people experience culture, and how this can be used to shape provision that supports their health and wellbeing.

“SIAH has placed culture, and the critical and creative methods it brings, right in the centre of what the University of Southampton can do.”

Professor Nicky Marsh SIAH Director

Photo: RCM Agency/GO! Southampton

Tools for relatable research

Arts and Humanities research methodologies offer “a wide range of tools” that researchers outside the Faculty of Arts and Humanities can employ to make their research relatable to the public, argued Joanna. This is particularly useful in knowledge exchange which is fundamentally a two-way conversation.

“There is nothing that will develop a relationship better than an understanding of the world, and Arts and Humanities research is all about understanding of the world, about finding meaning,” she explained.

These research methods can provide the means to capture and engage with qualitative data and complexity. Both the And Towns project and Pathways to Health, used emoji-mapping to understand the subjective experience of place, while another SIAH project, ‘Creative Writing Against Coastal Waste’, used poetry to try to influence behaviour change and inform policy.

Supporting collaboration

SIAH also enables researchers to establish proof-of-concept and assemble multidisciplinary teams ready to respond to “the big thematic multi-funder calls coming from UKRI (UK Research & Innovation) that increasingly prioritise multi-disciplinarity and external partners,” explained Stephanie.

Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) allocations allow SIAH to seed-fund

“The Arts and Humanities disciplines have intrinsic value, but I think it is also important to recognise that they do have tangible benefits for society.”

Professor Joanna Sofaer

interdisciplinary research and work with the arts, heritage, and cultural sectors to share knowledge. The seed-funding provides opportunities to build relationships between disciplines across the Faculty of Arts and Humanities’ nine departments and multiple campuses. It also enables collaboration with researchers across the University in what Joanna calls “blue skies research”.

In addition, SIAH funding supports international collaborations such as Dr Ranka Primorac’s project, ‘Non-alignment and race in world history, literature and art’. Professor of African Literature Ranka is collaborating with colleagues from English and History at Southampton, and the University of Zagreb and Rijeka City Museum in Croatia. The project takes a fresh look at the cold-war Non-Aligned Movement

(a forum of 120-countries that are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc), and how it may be related to global discourses around race.

Making connections

Researchers from across the University can access SIAH’s “ready-made network”, which has emerged from partnerships with cultural and creative organisations ranging from galleries, libraries, archives and museums to local government and national bodies such as English Heritage and the National Trust.

A range of seminars and events support SIAH members with knowledge exchange and establishing interdisciplinary relationships. Meanwhile the Public Life series (see opposite) is positioning SIAH at the heart of international conversations about the meaning of Arts and Humanities.

“SIAH has allowed us to support and showcase the value and relevance of Arts and Humanities research,” said Nicky. “It has placed culture, and the critical and creative methods it brings, right in the centre of what the University of Southampton can do.”

Read more about SIAH: www.southampton.ac.uk/research/ institutes-centres/southamptoninstitute-for-arts-humanities

UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF CULTURE IN URBAN REGENERATION

Three Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded projects under the name ‘And Towns’ have been developing understandings of culture, towns, recovery, and pride. The research began in 2021 and brings together a multidisciplinary team led by SIAH Director Professor Nicky Marsh. Researchers are exploring how culture is being used to imagine social regeneration and the roles that alternative models of economic and social growth and measurements can play.

Working with Southampton City Council, Isle of Wight Council and Dorchester Town Council, the latest phase of the project, ‘Neighbouring Data’, aims to offer insights into how local authorities

can use qualitative data to inform their decision-making. This can complement the more dominant econometric approaches informing policy for culture, regeneration and local economies.

The project addresses key research challenges relating to the generation, connection, and visualisation of data about civic pride and place-attachment.

“The civic partners in the project are very keen to see how they can use qualitative data to understand what people think,” commented Nicky.

Read more about And Towns: www.andtowns.co.uk

MAKING THE CASE FOR DATA

“Data is becoming increasingly important to those who are making the case for the significance of culture and cultural activities,” said Daniel Ashton, Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries at Winchester School of Art.

Local and central government are recognising the economic and social contribution of the cultural and creative industries (CCI). However, recent reports from the Local Government Association (‘Creative Places’ 2020) and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (‘Better Data’ 2022) highlight the fragmented nature of CCI data and difficulties in accessing it.

Daniel, and research assistant Makanani Bell, addressed this problem in their SIAH-funded

project ‘Local government data analytics for culture and creativity’, and explored what CCI-related data councils do or could collect. The project recommended coordinating data gathering practices, creating bespoke data generation methods for CCI, and establishing networks to support local government.

Public Policy Southampton funding allowed Daniel to develop the research in a further project which examined how local authorities in England are aligning culture with place, health and the environment through cultural strategies. He is also feeding into the Southampton Data Observatory and the AHRC Neighbouring Data project, and supporting the development of Winchester City Council’s cultural strategy.

MEN, MOLLIES AND CROSS-DRESSING IN THE 18TH CENTURY

A SIAH grant has enabled Dr Julie Gammon and Professor Maria Hayward (History) to research the lived experience of ‘Mollies’ – men who dressed as women – in the 18th century.

Mollies often frequented ‘Molly houses’, meeting places for homosexual men and gender-nonconforming people, where they could socialise or meet possible romantic or sexual partners. They faced significant and often hostile contemporary commentary.

Julie, a historian of gender, sexuality and crime, and Maria, a historian of dress, are exploring what items of female clothing Mollies wore and where they acquired it. Through archival research and working with an expert seamstress and model they are examining how men wore female clothing, and what

SIAH: PUBLIC LIFE

The SIAH: Public Life series draws a range of leading international and UK intellectuals into conversation about what the ideal of the ‘public life’ can mean to Arts and Humanities researchers and disciplines in the twentyfirst century.

Speakers have included: Homi Bhabha, Harvard professor and important figure in contemporary postcolonial studies; Laleh Kalili, expert in the transnational politics of the Arab world; Richard Sennett, Chair of the UN Habitat Urban Initiatives Group, professor and world-leading urban sociologist; and Sharon H. Venne, indigenous activist and lawyer.

adaptations needed to be made. This allows them to build a picture of how Mollies engaged with female dress to project their identities.

“The SIAH grant was invaluable in establishing proof of concept and developing an application for an AHRC grant,” said Julie. “We plan to expand our time period and look beyond the figure of the Molly to include other men who cross-dressed, to situate the motives for crossdressing in a wider history of clothing, gender and sexuality in the 18th century.”

Read more about this project: www.southampton.ac.uk/research/ projects/no-disagreeable-figure-inpetticoats-men-mollies-cross-dressingin-england-c1690

“Attracting these international names places Southampton at the heart of the big ongoing international conversations about the meaning of Arts and Humanities,” said SIAH Co-Director Professor Stephanie Jones.

SIAH: Public Life series is available to watch here www.youtube.com/ playlist?list=PLSFgAkubVUL8 O37YgJaXdzaDsbQamV9XC

Professor Daniel Ashton

Dr Niki Miles (postdoctoral research assistant) dressing ‘Molly’ model, Michael Cornish, in a calico version of 18th century clothing

Professor Stephanie Jones

DEVELOPING APPROACHES FOR SITE-RESPONSIVE COMPOSITION

“In the world of music production, the acoustics of a space in which you present a musical idea is a prime consideration, but in live music we have this odd concept that we can perform music from anywhere on earth, from any period, in the same space.

“Historically, music evolved out of the context in which it existed, so the harpsichord is perfectly designed for an early eighteenthcentury European salon, while African drumming sounds great outdoors but very different in a room with walls,” said Dr Drew Crawford, University of Southampton Associate Professor of Music. “Live performance practices still largely ignore space as a compositional parameter.”

His project, ‘Developing approaches for site-responsive composition’, funded by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities Strategic Research Fund and the Southampton Institute for Arts and Humanities (SIAH), explores music’s relationship with the acoustic in the space in which it is performed.

“Composing in ways that exploit the acoustics of the physical space – its fundamental frequencies and reverberation times, for

example – offers novel aesthetic possibilities and models of working,” explained Drew, whose research draws on acoustics, affective aesthetics, and aural architecture, as well as theatre-, choreography- and studio-based creative practices. But it also raises further questions.

“When you’re working in a site-responsive way, if you want to exploit the acoustics of a given space, you might need the musicians to move around the room.”

This might mean that, rather than having a conductor indicating what to do, the musicians would have to give and receive different types of cues from other performers.

“My research is also asking ‘What new skills might they need when engaging in this kind of music-making practice?’.”

The project was designed as a ‘proof of concept’ ahead of a major Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) bid planned for 2024. Drew said:

“The SIAH funding enabled me to establish relationships with interdisciplinary colleagues with whom I will be making the AHRC bid, as well as bringing one of them, choreographer and movement expert Jonathan Burrows, in to assist with skills development.”

A process of knowledge exchange workshops with Plus Minus Ensemble, and Tim Hand (audio), has led to the creation of a new work for gallery spaces, ‘We’ll Find out When We Get There’. The SIAH funding is also allowing it to be premiered at the John Hansard Gallery in Southampton on 11th and 12th May 2024.

Alice Purton, cello, at the John Hansard Gallery in the initial 2021 workshop for We’ll find out when we get there. © Nathan Thomas

DEMOPLAY: UPGRADING THE EMPAVILLE GAME

More than 15,000 places around the world are now using Participatory Budgeting (PB) –a process in which a city, region or state allocates a proportion of the public budget and invites citizens to provide ideas for civic projects. The citizens then campaign for their ideas and a referendum is held.

Dr Paolo Spada, (Politics and International Relations) was involved in developing Participatory Budgeting schemes for Lisbon and Milan. His latest research project, ‘DEMOPlay’, is adapting a participatory budgeting role-playing game called Empaville, which is designed as a training tool, to focus on green issues in the UK.

Empaville was developed through two European Horizon 2020-funded projects: Empatia and Phoenix. The Phoenix project, an ongoing partnership of 16 organisations including Southampton, for which Paolo is

co-investigator, is funding the technological platform that supports the game. A grant from Southampton Institute for Arts and Humanities (SIAH) has enabled Paolo to work with colleagues including from Electronics and Computer Science and Winchester School of Art to optimize the game flow and the human interaction elements of the interface. He said:

“As well as localising Empaville to green issues in the UK, we have updated the rules, improved the game through working with a professional games designer, and built some research around the game.”

The game follows Participatory Budgeting principles but lasts two hours rather than months or years. Players are given character cards for the roles they are to play and divided into tables to compete to produce ideas addressing issues such as transportation, green spaces, recycling, and energy transition.

“The game is in three phases: ideation, campaigning, where they try to convince other players to back their ideas, and the third phase in which players vote,” explained Paolo.

The Southampton team is conducting research which aims to understand the capacity of the game to promote learning, and a sense of efficacy, and investigate how the role-playing affects participants’ ability to empathise.

“We are aiming to explore participatory decision-making and to equip the University with a tool to build students’ civic skills related to environmental issues,” said Paolo. The team is analysing data collected at several UK and international events and working with the University of Florence on a future Horizon 2020 bid.

Real-world participatory budgeting organisations have begun to take up the Southampton team’s DEMOPlay game adaptation. In Morocco, CESE, an institution which manages the relationship between Moroccan civil society and the state, will be deploying the game as part of their growing participatory governance programme, after Paolo trained facilitators. There are plans to translate it into Arabic and French.

In the UK, Shared Future, a charity that manages the UK participatory budgeting network, is being trained to start using DEMOPlay as a training and dissemination tool.

A team from CECE using DEMOPlay

SMART TEXTILES SET TO CHANGE LIVES

An electronic glove that enables movement in the paralysed hands of stroke survivors – supporting their rehabilitation – has been developed by Professor Kai Yang and an interdisciplinary team at the University of Southampton.

The glove has electrodes printed on the sleeve that make contact with the skin. These send electronic impulses to stimulate the nerves and muscles to produce an artificial movement. This enables stroke survivors to achieve movement in their weak side, helping them to regain muscle strength and function.

Kai is Professor of E-textiles in Healthcare, based at Winchester School of Art. Her research focuses on electronic textile materials and manufacturing, wearable medical devices, digital healthcare, and sustainable textiles.

Kai explained:

“We wanted to develop something easy for stroke survivors to use at home. People who have suffered a stroke get fatigued easily, so engaging in long rehabilitation sessions is very challenging. This glove enables them to work on their rehab in small blocks of time when it suits them.

“With stroke rehabilitation, the more you practice movement, the more you regain muscle strength and mobility.”

The prototype glove has been designed and made at Winchester School of Art, using the School’s industrial knitting machines. The electrodes are printed inside the sleeve

and connected to an electronic control unit, allowing the user to vary the level of stimulation as required.

The glove’s development is the latest stage in 12 years of work by Kai on e-textiles for stroke rehabilitation. Following initial funding from Wessex Medical Research, Kai led an interdisciplinary project team including colleagues from Electronics and Computer Science and Health Sciences, on the £1.1 million SMARTmove project, funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) to develop a personalised wearable rehabilitation device.

Southampton Institute for Arts and Humanities (SIAH) then funded the development of the knitted textile for the glove. Meanwhile Innovate UK provided a

“It’s life-changing, it means I can move my hand – something I’ve been unable to do for eight years.”

Dave Lea Stroke survivor

grant to improve the durability and glove design for independent use.

Kai partnered with Different Strokes

Southampton, a charity run by stroke survivors for stroke survivors, to develop the sleeve. Through the charity, she worked with stroke survivor Dave Lea. He suffered a major stroke in 2015, at the age of 54, that left him largely paralysed on his right-hand side. The glove enables him to move his paralysed right hand. “It’s life-changing,” he said. “It means I can move my hand – something I’ve been unable to do for eight years.”

Mr Lea’s wife, Sarah, added: “It was really emotional seeing Dave test-run the glove for the first time – it’s incredible that it enables him to move his hand. It really could change the lives of stroke survivors.”

Kai is now looking to refine the design of the prototype glove by working with more stroke survivors, and to conduct further usability testing. She intends to seek regulatory approval and then collaborate with a manufacturer to scale-up production of the glove.

“We would like to see this become a product that’s available to all stroke survivors, to help improve their recovery and their quality of life,” she said.

Top: E-textile Lab at Winchester School of Art

Above: Stroke glove close up

Right: Stroke survivor Dave Lea testing the stroke glove, with his wife Sarah and Professor Kai Yang

USING CULTURE TO CREATE HEALTHY FUTURES

The place where you grow up can determine your health throughout your life: those born and living in disadvantaged areas are at higher risk of poor health and reduced life opportunities.

Southampton is a young and vibrant city –almost 20% of the population is aged between 0-16. But, despite being in the so-called ‘affluent south’, it is a place of great inequality. One in five children under the age of 16 live in low-income families. A similar proportion of young people come from neighbourhoods considered to be in the 10% most deprived nationally. The number of looked after children in Southampton is almost a third higher than the average in England.

The effects of deprivation on young people in the city can lead to health challenges around alcohol, mental health and obesity, which worsen into adulthood. Previous efforts to tackle this have had limited success.

The ‘Pathways to Health Through Cultures of Neighbourhoods’ project set out to change that, creating a network of academics, civic leaders, health professionals, charities and cultural organisations working together with young people aged 11 to 16. Co-Director of the Southampton Institute for Arts and Humanities and Professor of Archaeology, Professor Joanna Sofaer, led the project. She explained:

“Although we know that early intervention can prevent adult health inequality there is a gap in the provision and understanding of adolescent needs within Integrated Care Systems (the partnership of local organisations, including the NHS, councils, voluntary sector, social care providers and others which come together to develop plans and services to meet local needs).

“Pathways to Health aimed to address that gap. Rather than simply taking a medical perspective, we looked beyond traditional ways of thinking to recognise the power of engaging with culture to promote health and wellbeing,” she continued.

“But what does ‘culture’ mean to young people and where do they experience it?”

The project, which began in 2022, has created a city-wide consortium of 30 organisations. The multidisciplinary research team included University of Southampton academics from Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences, and Medicine, as well as the leaders of Southampton City Council’s Public Health and Stronger Communities teams, and charities Artswork and No Limits.

Hearing from young people Consultation carried out as part of Southampton’s bid to be UK City of Culture 2025 revealed that access to ‘official’ arts and culture opportunities for young people varies enormously across the city.

“For us to understand the needs of young people, shape the development of provision and reduce future health challenges,” said Joanna, “the first step had to be hearing from the young people themselves.”

The project worked with more than 200 young people from disadvantaged communities across the city. It aimed to understand what culture means to them, how they use placebased cultural assets, how they feel about the

“The project has created a knowledge exchange forum with the young people at its centre and culture as a way of understanding young people’s lives.”

Professor Joanna Sofaer

places where they live, and to empower them to shape their own pathways to health.

Workshops delivered by the consortium’s creative partners, including photography, drama, dance and creative writing, enabled young people to express their thoughts and experiences. Young participants emoji-mapped their neighbourhoods, took part in focus groups and ‘plausible futures’ exercises. The project also asked adults in those communities about community cultural assets.

The University’s LifeLab, which works with young people to co-create and deliver health education interventions, trained a cohort of 19 young people aged 14 to 16 as peer researchers and advocates.

“The best people to talk to young people are young people themselves,” said Joanna. “Our ‘Young Researcher’ training programme recruited young people to become the voice of their communities.

“They are telling us what the issues are that matter to young people, how these impact their health and wellbeing, and potential ways to address them,” said Joanna.

The project found that despite living in the same places as adults, young people experience them differently. Their understandings of place-based strengths and opportunities are different to those of adults in their communities and to ‘official’ assets documented by the City of Culture project and Southampton City Council.

“Young people have not only told us about ‘hidden’ cultural and community assets but also about ‘hidden’ barriers to accessing them. Young people challenge existing approaches to health improvement and point to ways of doing things differently. These have significant implications for service provision, including its form, location and uptake,” explained Joanna.

Lines of communication

A series of development days and a young researcher conference during 2023 gave the young people the opportunity to speak directly to the city’s decision-makers, including the Director of Public Health, school head teachers, and the leaders of charities and cultural organisations.

By bringing together different services and providers to learn from young people and involve them in decision-making, Pathways to Health has facilitated joined-up thinking and created a new youth-led vision for the city. It has helped the consortium better understand the central role of culture in young people’s lives and how co-creating opportunities with young people can be used to support their health and wellbeing. This will enable the development of best practice and tools for using cultural engagement to improve young people’s health outcomes and life chances.

“The project has created a knowledge exchange forum with the young people at its centre and culture as a way of understanding young people’s lives,” said Joanna. “We have created, not just new research, but also a community of practice, and lines of

“We have created, not just new research, but also a community of practice, and lines of communication throughout the city that did not previously exist.”

Professor Joanna Sofaer

communication throughout the city that did not previously exist.”

“Participation in the Young Researcher Training Programme has transformational effects on young people. Teachers tell us that their students are more confident and motivated, and the young people say they feel more confident and empowered.”

Pathways to Health finished at the end of 2023, but consortium members, including Southampton City Council, are committed to continuing to work together with young people. The consortium and Young Researcher Training Programme have secured additional funding, enabling development and evaluation of the programme, as well as sharing good practice in working with young people. Their goal: to improve the health outcomes of young people now and as future adults.

Pathways to Health and the Young Researcher Training Programme are funded and supported by the AHRC/UKRI through the Mobilising Community Assets Programme, University of Southampton, NIHR Public Health Research Support Service, NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre, Southampton Institute for Arts and Humanities (SIAH), LifeLab, and Young Person’s Professional Advisory Group (YPAG).

Read more about Pathways to Health:

www.pathways-to-health.org

NEW INTERDISCIPLINARY INSTITUTE FOCUSES ON A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

There are few more pressing questions than how we will choose to manage our planet for ourselves and future generations. It is this question which is driving the University of Southampton’s newest interdisciplinary institute.

The Sustainability & Resilience Institute (SRI) was officially launched by the ViceChancellor, Professor Mark E. Smith, on 1 November 2023. The new institute will be the focus of inter- and transdisciplinary work in sustainability around the University. It will take an integrated approach to sustainability, involving research, education, operations and student experience.

Led by Director Professor Craig Hutton, the SRI aims to give students as well as staff the opportunity to be involved in worldleading solutions-led research, education and enterprise. Craig is joined by Deputy Directors, Dr Lindsay-Marie Armstrong (Associate Professor, Engineering) and Professor Simon Kemp (Geography and Environmental Science).

Southampton is already strong on research that addresses the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and the Sustainability and Resilience Institute’s research themes will build on those strengths. The University is also known for its interdisciplinary research but, said Craig, “we still have a tendency to think of sustainability and resilience as the Environment.”

In fact, sustainability is usually defined as having three pillars: environmental, economic and social. To those three themes, the SRI team would add ‘culture’. “Sustainability is the interaction between the environment and people,” explained Craig, who is Professor of Sustainability Science, Geography and Environmental Science.

The new institute will support research which focuses on the means of achieving a sustainable future. This could range from renewable energy and decarbonisation to climate change and health, Nature-based Solutions, and tools for sustainability and resilience.

Through the SRI researchers can apply for seed funding and access support, events, and networks for potential University and industry collaborations.

We all have a part to play

“One of our aims is to broaden the understanding of sustainability across the University and broaden the participation of people in those research themes,” said Craig. “We believe all disciplines – from business to engineering, environment to humanities,

information systems to health and social sciences – have a part to play.”

Within each research theme, the Institute will be looking for proposals that consider the social-economic, cultural, health and governance contexts and implications.

“If you are looking at renewable energy for example, you need to look at what land is being used, what training is required, what transport links might be needed. And who benefits and who disbenefits from those things,” explained Craig.

As a society, we need to engage with this interconnectedness, using what Craig termed a ‘systems thinking’ approach.

“Right now, we are quite naive about the way we look at things like Nature-based Solutions. We are planting forests, but many of them are mono planting. They are capturing carbon, but some of them are actually reducing biodiversity. We are failing to consider the social and biological contexts.”

Universities have a role to play in undertaking the more complex thinking that is required

SRI Director, Professor Craig Hutton

SRI Deputy Director, Dr Lindsay-Marie Armstrong

SRI Deputy Director, Professor Simon Kemp

to achieve sustainability and resilience, and sharing that with industry, government and NGOs.

The SRI team is keen to improve the interconnectedness between researchers within the University already working on research addressing sustainability, and to facilitate collaborations with external partners.

“If we are going to make the Sustainable Development Goals a reality as a society, then we have to accelerate progress and that means connecting academia with different industry sectors, with policymakers and with wider society,” explained Lindsay. “It is hearing what their challenges are that will drive the research we choose to do.”

Sustainable research and education

Part of the new institute’s purpose is to help academic colleagues across the University to understand and talk about the sustainability of their research. Increasingly, funders are expecting bids from all disciplines to consider environmental, social and economic impacts.

“We want to enable and support researchers to see the bigger picture,” said Lindsay.

As well as upskilling established researchers, the SRI is determined to harness the energy that early career researchers, postgraduates and undergraduates bring to sustainability.

“What makes our institute distinct from similar institutes in other universities is that we want our interdisciplinary research to feed directly into the curriculum,” explained Simon, who is University Lead for Education in Sustainable Development.

The aim is to create a pipeline of future researchers to address the big questions, and to train the next generation “to advocate from the ground up,” said Lindsay.

“I engage with lots of different sectors. For a lot of companies, sustainability is a whole new world that they don’t have the knowledge or skills to navigate.

“We want to create a workforce – equipped with these skills because it has been embedded in their education – who can go out and make the change, no matter what sector they go into,” explained Lindsay.

Read more about the SRI: www.southampton.ac.uk/research/ institutes-centres/sustainabilityresilience-institute

INTRODUCING THE SRI:

• Craig Hutton Director

• Lindsay-Marie Armstrong Deputy Director

• Simon Kemp Deputy Director

• Jon Lawn Collaboration Officer

Get in touch: sri@soton.ac.uk

Engage: Staff can engage with the SRI through a range of membership options. More information for staff is available at: https://sotonac.sharepoint.com/teams/ Sustainabilityandresilienceinstitute

SRI membership is also open to external partners. To find out more, please contact: sri@soton.ac.uk

• Grace Compton Policy Officer

• Alice Brock Sustainable Development Officer

• Ellie Pun Co-ordinator

• Lou Payne Communications & Marketing Manager

Listen:

Engage with the sustainability debate and learn more about the critical challenges we face, with the Meliora podcast from the Sustainability and Resilience Institute: https://meliorapodcast.buzzsprout.com/ share

£15M AI FOR SUSTAINABILITY TRAINING CENTRE LAUNCHED

A new £15million training centre at the University of Southampton, launched in Autumn 2023, is tasked with nurturing British tech talent and developing AI to tackle climate change.

A funding package, which included £8million from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), enabled the University to establish the new UKRI AI Centre for Doctoral Training in AI for Sustainability, known as SustAI.

It will train at least 70 PhD students in AI and sustainability, with plans to advance the technology for use across a number of areas such as transport, renewable energy, biodiversity, and reducing carbon emissions and waste in manufacturing and supply chains.

SustAI director Professor Enrico Gerding (Electronics and Computer Science) said: “Environmental sustainability is one of the greatest challenges our world is facing – and many countries are setting ambitious targets to reduce emissions and increase renewable energy production.

“AI will be key to achieving these targets and, through SustAI, we will nurture the next generation of researchers, engineers and technologists who will be trained to create a sustainable future using AI.”

The award followed the announcement of £31million funding from UKRI for the University to launch the Responsible AI UK consortium to develop trustworthy artificial intelligence.

Associate Professor Dr Lindsay-Marie Armstrong, from the SustAI team, added: “Sustainability is at the heart of the centre, both in its research and ethos. We will equip our students with the ability to transform academic research and make a real change to businesses and society.”

More than ten other training facilities across Britain were also announced by UKRI, as part of a £117million package, all aimed at developing artificial intelligence.

SustAI is now accepting applications for students for the start of the 2024 academic year.

Read more about SustAI: www.southampton.ac.uk/research/institutes-centres/doctoraltraining-centre-for-ai-sustainability

GOING GREEN: DEBATING THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF ACHIEVING NET ZERO

In January 2024, as part of the UN’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) UK, the SRI brought together researchers, policy makers and industry professionals in Southampton for a major conference: ‘Going Green: Debating the socio-economic impacts of achieving Net Zero’.

Focusing on the economic and social factors that will drive or impede the Net Zero transition in the UK, the event aimed to identify the most pressing research questions for a Net Zero future. Experts from different sectors and academic disciplines contributed “their unique perspectives on what the greatest challenges and opportunities are for decarbonisation,” said Grace Compton, SRI Policy Officer.

Following the event, members of SDSN and attendees can apply for seed funding to develop new research proposals that address the research questions identified in discussions.

“We anticipate that connections made at the event will enable attendees to build new research partnerships and collaborations around the socioeconomic impacts of achieving Net Zero.”

Grace Compton

Professor Enrico Gerding

Professor Keith Bell, Scottish Power Professor of Future Power Systems, University of Strathclyde, delivering the keynote address

£1MILLION-PLUS DECARBONISATION FUNDING BOOST FOR THE SOLENT CLUSTER

The Solent region is set to benefit from an investment of over £1million to decarbonise industries following a successful bid for national funding.

Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance, Lord Callanan announced the winners of the Local Industrial Decarbonisation Plan competition, on a visit to the region in January 2024.

As part of the Government’s £6 million funding for projects across the UK, The Solent Cluster is in line for up to £757,601. Matched contributions from Solent Cluster members means that £1,032,540 will be earmarked for the development of a comprehensive plan to decarbonise the Solent region.

Lord Callanan said: “Reducing emissions from industry in every corner of the UK will be essential for us to reach net zero. I look forward to seeing The Solent Cluster’s plans to cut its carbon footprint, create green jobs and grow the local economy.”

The University of Southampton is a founding member of The Solent Cluster (featured in Re:action Spring 2023), the country’s largest and most diverse decarbonisation cluster, which brings together expertise in carbon capture and hydrogen technologies.

Dr Lindsay-Marie Armstrong, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, SRI Deputy Director, and Academic Lead for The Solent Cluster, said:

“We are incredibly pleased to have received this funding from Innovate UK as part of The Solent Cluster Local Industrial Decarbonisation Plan.

“In partnership with regional industrial partners and local authorities, Professor Craig Hutton, Dr Mohamed Hassan-Sayed and I will be conducting a range of stakeholder engagement workshops to identify plausible decarbonisation scenarios.

“This objective research study will work alongside further socio-techno-economic evaluation conducted by project partners and aims to support future regional decarbonisation strategies with wider perceptions incorporated earlier in the decision-making process.”

This 12-month interdisciplinary project is one of the first successful funded projects to be established through engagement activities from the Sustainability and Resilience Institute.

STUDENTS’ CREATIVE CLIMATE SOLUTIONS

The University of Southampton has been selected as one of just five universities globally, and the only one in the UK, to take part in the Universities for Goal 13 Student Competition run by Siemens Gamesa and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

In 2015 the UN agreed 17 Sustainable Development Goals created with the aim of ‘peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.’ Goal 13 is: ‘Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.’

In the competition, teams of students, supported by an academic staff member, will compete with their creative solutions for energy transition and environmental sustainability.

Projects must demonstrate a multidisciplinary approach considering technological, legal, economic, and social aspects of the transition toward a carbonfree economy.

Teams shortlisted by the SRI will work with a mentor from Siemens Gamesa to further develop their idea until the competition judging in July 2024. The winners will receive USD $10,000 in prize money for development and implementation.

Left to right: Zoë Colbeck and Anne-Marie Mountifield, The Solent Cluster, Nick Bone – ExxonMobil, Lord Callanan – Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance, Katriona Baker – Geo Specialty Chemicals, Michael Foley – ExxonMobil, Maria Brucoli – SSE, Damian Morris – Ada Mode, Lindsay-Marie Armstrong –University of Southampton, Ralf Rashbrook – ExxonMobil, Stuart Baker – The Solent Cluster

When we say that something is ‘glacial’, we usually mean that it’s barely moving. But in fact, glaciers are constantly on the move –and a collaboration between Southampton researchers from Geography and Electronics & Computer Science (ECS) is enabling closer study of this movement.

MEASURING THE MELT

“We’re trying to understand the response of glaciers to climate change,” said Professor of Geography Jane Hart. “We know that as temperatures are warming, glaciers are melting and that water is going into the ocean and causing global sea level rise.

“However, there isn’t a linear relationship between rises in temperature and in sea levels due to the multiple factors that determine how glaciers melt.”

One key factor, known as subglacial soft bed hydrology, is the slipperiness of the bed beneath the glacier.

“When the sun shines on the glacier’s surface, the water goes down to the base of the glacier and allows the glacier to shoot forwards,” explained Jane. This subglacial environment is difficult to access – and so it is by closely monitoring movement that scientists can measure slipperiness, seeing how glaciers respond to changes in surface heat.

Delivering data

The invention of GPS offered a new way to measure glaciers’ velocity, but installing a GPS system onto a glacier posed many challenges. Traditional systems were too expensive given the high risk of falling into a glacial crevasse. There was also the problem of data-gathering: scientists had to undertake the dangerous task of climbing the glacier to physically recover the sensor.

As this might only happen once or twice a year, any damage to the system would mean large-scale data loss.

Professor of Electronics & Computer Science

Kirk Martinez and his team undertook the challenge of designing a system which could meet these challenges: low-cost, able to send live data – and lightweight enough to be delivered into remote environments not by humans but by drone.

“This is the first time that anyone’s ever flown a GPS unit onto a glacier using a drone,” said Jane. “And we were able to place it in the middle of the glacier where you couldn’t physically go.”

Above: A drone delivers a sensor to a glacier

Right: The field team working on the sensor

Top: Jane, Kirk and their team on a glacier

The communications systems used to relay the data from far-flung glaciers back to Southampton vary depending on location, from new or custom technologies to the more everyday. “Currently we’re using mobile phone networks,” explained Kirk, “which are available where we’re working because they have 3 million tourists wanting to send TikToks!”

Beyond mitigating the risk of data loss, live data brings other benefits, enabling researchers to perform instant analysis against the latest meteorological data or satellite images. “You can go and dig into the data week to week instead of waiting for the data once per year, which is the traditional way.”

Out of the lab

Designing systems to meet real-world needs challenged his team in new ways, Kirk reflected. It wasn’t just a matter of creating cutting-edge technology, but of balancing the experimental with the practical. “It’s got to work! It can’t be so experimental that it crashes and burns on day one.

“This challenges the researchers’ methodologies by teaching them what the environment will do to their equipment when it gets out there. A lot of people are stuck in labs doing theoretical designs and they don’t get to experience what the real sun and cold will do to their systems.”

This exchange of expertise worked both ways, said Jane. “The early career researchers, postdocs and postgrads got to work together and learn different techniques that they wouldn’t normally get the chance to learn.

“The electronics people get a chance to learn about real world problems and the geographers get a chance to see different technical aspects.”

On-campus collaboration made for a smooth and speedy co-design process, with researchers contributing from Southampton’s range of specialisms including mechanical and electrical engineering, satellite imaging and

“A lot of people are stuck in labs doing theoretical designs and they don’t get to experience what the real sun and cold will do to their systems.”

Professor Kirk Martinez

fieldwork. A shared drone kit – available to researchers across the University – allowed the team to borrow otherwise expensive equipment like drone cameras.

Asking new questions

The new technology has the potential to yield fresh insights into how glaciers are responding to climate change. Future applications could include investigating what causes calving (when ice chunks break from the edge of a glacier) and looking at velocity changes associated with lakes on the glacier surface (which can drain and cause sudden speed-ups in movement).

“We know so little about the subglacial environment – you could argue that it’s probably one of the least explored environments on Earth,” said Jane. “The great thing about the instrumentation is it allows you to ask questions that you wouldn’t previously have been able to ask.”

The project was funded by the Leverhulme Trust and National Geographic, based on a project funded by the National Environmental Research Council.

Find out more about the project at glacsweb.org

“As academics we are trained in quite siloed ways, conditioned to see some subjects as rigorous and others as messy and contingent. So, learning to respect other disciplines has been an incredibly important part of the journey.”

Professor Les Carr

When ‘Web Science’ was first studied at the University of Southampton in 2006, the term referred to a relatively new phenomenon: the idea of people and institutions moving online or living out parts of their lives in the online world. In 2024, of course, it’s completely normal for every function from shopping to work to dating to be carried out online. Beyond our personal lives, there’s no area of society untouched by technology, and the WSI’s work reflects this.

WEB SCIENCE INSTITUTE (WSI)

WORKING ACROSS DISCIPLINES

Since the WSI was launched it has created opportunities for interdisciplinary research collaborations by bringing together multidisciplinary partnerships between departments, including more than 176 multidisciplinary PhD studentships.

“Anything that relates to the human relates to web science,” explained WSI Deputy Director Leslie Carr, which is why the institute interacts with practically every discipline at the University, from engineering to history, psychology, and medicine. “We interact with many of the social sciences because they’re about our relationships, our families and our work practices. Philosophers help us understand how we find value in these machines and online experiences.

“We even interact with archaeology! Archaeologists look at the evidence regarding

civilisations and how technologies were incorporated.” This observation of the past can help researchers to explore how technology might impact society going forward.

The secret to the WSI’s successful collaborations, said Leslie, lies partly in communication – “helping people to understand what’s out there and forging connections.” And these connections are built on trust. “As academics we are trained in quite siloed ways, conditioned to see some subjects as rigorous and others as messy and contingent. So, learning to respect other disciplines has been an incredibly important part of the journey.

“We need to reach out and work with others who understand different aspects of our world.”

Read more about the Web Science Institute:

www.southampton.ac.uk/research/ institutes-centres/web-science-institute

MAPPING AND GUIDING AI RESEARCH AT SOUTHAMPTON

The Web Science Institute (WSI) was formed at the University of Southampton in 2014 to study the transformational impact of online ecosystems as they reshape business, culture and society. Since then, the emergence of massive online platforms that collect and process personal data has opened up new opportunities for the development of human-centred AIs.

Interdisciplinary AI is a key WSI focus, and the Institute has launched a plan to map and guide AI activity from across the University.

The aim is to bring faculties, schools, and disciplines together, using disciplinary expertise around AI to promote activity around all three strands of the University’s triple helix – education, research, and knowledge exchange and enterprise (KEE).

WSI Deputy Director Leslie Carr emphasised, “Our institute isn’t saying, ‘we’re the place where the AI is happening’ – quite the reverse. Instead, the WSI is the hub for discovering exactly where AI is happening across the University, and we’re

putting up signposts to help everyone discover this activity and connect with one another.”

The wider strategy will encourage the creation of new knowledge through novel interdisciplinary combinations of methods, methodologies, expertise, arts and cultural practices. The WSI has plans to extend its network through new interdisciplinary staff, and to deepen AI partnerships with policymakers, industry, business and third sector organisations.

RE-IMAGINING THE GALLERY GUIDE WITH AI

Many of us will have used an audio-guide when looking around an art gallery or museum. University of Southampton researchers have been asking how AI technology could make these devices more sophisticated, fun and engaging.

Associate Professor of Digital Culture and Design Dr Seth Giddings was inspired to reimagine what a digital gallery guide could be by his research background in video games. “Since the 70s, games have featured nonplayer characters powered by AI. They would guide you, but they wouldn’t just dispense information. They had their own motives and personalities, so they might conceal things or even lie.”

The pilot project, funded by the Web Science Institute (WSI), brought Seth together with Professor of Literature and Visual Culture Dr Sarah Hayden, whose previous project ‘Voices in the Gallery’ looked at how voice, text and access intersect in contemporary art. Seth and Sarah ran a workshop at the Winchester School of Art (WSA), bringing together PhD students from WSA, Humanities and Computing to playfully imagine how an AI gallery device could look and behave.

“We played with craft materials and created these alien characters, which seemed to give them a sense of otherness. We talked about their backstory and what ulterior motives

they might have for the information they were imparting!” The researchers imagined that the characters would sit on gallery visitors’ shoulders and chat via voice recognition or a mobile phone Bluetooth connection.

The workshop combined critical approaches to game genre and AI in character design with expertise in gallery settings and computergenerated dialogues. Seth, who is now seeking funding to develop the project further, envisions applications not only in the arts but in the therapeutic space too, such as improving chatbots used for mental health and mindfulness. “I want people to have a rich, challenging and maybe even funny experience with AI beyond the screen.”

“I want people to have a rich, challenging and maybe even funny experience with AI beyond the screen.”

Dr Seth Giddings

An alien character as a gallery guide

DEMOCRACY FOR THE DIGITAL AGE

Many anxieties about AI are focused on hypothetical future developments. But given the spike in online political disinformation and voter profiling during recent UK and US elections, one fear seems all too present: could AI destabilise society by undermining democracy?

A 2023 position paper by two Southampton researchers – Regius Professor of Computer Science Dame Wendy Hall and Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations Matt Ryan – along with technology policy consultant and Visiting Fellow Ben Hawes tackles this question. The paper explains that AI can create and spread misinformation, manipulate public opinion, use data profiling to target voters, hack online voting systems and enable cyberattacks on critical infrastructure before or during an election.

While none of these tactics are new, AI can vastly increase the effectiveness, volume and frequency of threats; generative AI technologies (which themselves create and distribute new information) are a particular worry.

There are steps that government, law enforcement, media, civil society organisations and the tech industry need to take to counter these threats. But Matt, whose research underpins the social science aspects of the paper, believes we can do

more than just conserve democracy: we can use AI technology to help understand and improve it.

Language insights

“There’s a lot of talk about how AI is a potential threat to democracy. I’d like to look at it as a potential boon to democracy,” said Matt. His work on the ‘Rebooting Democracy’ project looks at how to regulate for inclusion in political speech, and how machines can track and predict behaviour, classify political communication, and foster political participation.

Research into Natural Language Processing (NLP) alongside Dr Rafael Mestre and Dr Stuart Middleton has yielded insights into how political speech works. This technique entails analysing speeches or writing by looking at the relationships between the words – for example, how frequently words occur in relation to each other. The team has looked at electoral debates in the US and parliamentary debates in the UK, as well as online and in-person conversations between ordinary people.

“There’s a lot of talk about how AI is a potential threat to democracy. I’d like to look at it as a potential boon to democracy.”

Dr Matt Ryan

With enough data, a programme can create a rule-based model for how language works. It can then learn to predict the next word, or to identify where an argument is happening. This is useful for understanding the kinds of rhetorical devices people use, or trends in the way they communicate, such as when men talk over women in political debates. The data then allows for a corrective to be ‘programmed in’ – for example, via an automated facilitator which could moderate an online discussion space.

Just as human facilitators can improve the quality of deliberation and make sure people are included and listened to respectfully in discussions, a programme could be trained to provide interventions such as prompting an over-zealous contributor to give someone else a turn or asking people to give reasons for their arguments. Via NLP an AI could learn to recognise and predict problematic behaviours from language being used – or even, using different techniques, to interpret and respond to body language captured on video.

The dominance of particular ways of communicating can keep people shut out if they don’t have the right education or background, said Matt. “One way that people are excluded is through speech. Politics privileges rhetorical and deliberative forms of argument, while other modes and forms of engagement – such as storytelling – are deprioritised.” The goal is to use computeraided tools and better design to include more voices in the discussion.

Designing for democracy

Many of us will know from experience that popular online spaces don’t lend themselves to productive or inclusive conversations. “Social media platforms are designed to sell us products and give us a dopamine hit, not for a rational intellectual debate,” said Matt. Affordances – the opportunities technology gives to take actions such as liking or retweeting a post – are not always used in the way designers intended. And affordances can themselves shape user behaviour, with unintended consequences.

Matt has run workshops (alongside Dr Selin Zileli and Dr Richard Gomer) for practitioners working in the democracy sector to understand what they and their end users really need from software. This understanding lays the foundation for design that encourages constructive engagement. Participants have included the World Bank, Southampton City Council, Involve Foundation and the Scottish Parliament.

This approach, Matt hopes, can lead to digital spaces which are more useful and inclusive. “When social media platforms were first around, you’d have guys in Silicon Valley saying, ‘this is what we think the world really needs’. But their ideas about those needs are exclusive to certain types of people. As a social scientist I can ask critical questions about what’s missing.”

Questions and solutions

Working with computer scientists on these problems has its challenges, Matt said. “When you take on interdisciplinary projects, they’re naturally going to be slower than something that’s right in your wheelhouse.” Specialist language, for example, can be confusing, and ideas about worthwhile approaches and outcomes can differ between disciplines.

But there are benefits even in these differences, Matt reflected. While social scientists are trained to understand and critique the world as it is, their colleagues in computer science are driven to engineer solutions. “They’re coming from a design perspective, so they’re asking very practically, if we want to design something to make a better world, what would it look like? I like when computer scientists talk in the sense of what’s possible.”

Dr Matt Ryan was granted a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship in 2020, which provides the primary funding for Rebooting Democracy. He is also Co-Director of the Centre of Democratic Futures and Policy Director at the Web Science Institute.

SOUTHAMPTON MARINE AND MARITIME INSTITUTE INNOVATING, INFLUENCING AND ENGAGING AT THE SMMI

When it comes to making change for the oceans, the right technology alone isn’t enough, said Director of the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute (SMMI) Professor Damon Teagle.

“There is no doubt that many of the major societal challenges we face – decarbonisation, protection of habitats, emissions reductions, pollution reduction, trying to abate our conspicuous consumption – require a mixture of technical solutions, behavioural and societal change, and political will.”

This is where interdisciplinarity comes in. “It’s no use having a solution if it won’t be taken up effectively, hence we need to work across the landscape of subjects. We need to inform and influence our policymakers and politicians, and to engage and listen to the worries of populations.”

At the SMMI, experts in ocean science, engineering, maritime law, archaeology, and other related fields tackle problems together. Damon emphasised that to him, interdisciplinarity is more than working across fields: it’s also about the interaction of specialisms within those

fields. “One of our biggest challenges, for example, is decarbonisation, and from a narrow view of disciplinarity you’d say that’s all engineering. But it involves very different sets of expertise, such as maritime engineering, energy systems, and materials.”

Part of the SMMI’s role, said Damon, is to have an overview of the research being conducted by its membership to identify where expertise might be relevant to other problems. “Many researchers are actually excited by taking their knowledge and applying it in different ways that have a direct impact on society.”

The Institute also sponsors lectures across the University, and hosts workshops around the latest government policy documents on issues like decarbonisation or Naturebased Solutions. “That means that when there is a call for funding or for policy response, then we’re in a good position to rapidly pull together groups to engage.”

“Many researchers are excited by taking their knowledge and applying it in different ways.”

Professor Damon Teagle

Read more about the SMMI: www.southampton.ac.uk/research/ institutes-centres/marine-maritimeinstitute

WORKING TOGETHER FOR MARITIME CARBON REDUCTION

The shipping sector is deemed to be responsible for approximately 2.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions –equivalent to the whole of Germany. However, because of the high energy demands and remote operations of ships, it is technically one of the most difficult sectors to decarbonise. Due to the expected increase in global trade in the next decades, shipping emissions are likely to increase unless there is radical change in the fuels used to power ships.

At the end of 2023, the Institute for Maritime Law (IML) and the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute (SMMI) hosted a Conference on Sustainability in the Shipping and Maritime Sector, bringing together contributors from different disciplines and sectors.

Academic, industry and regulatory speakers, chairs and rapporteurs

contributed their expertise, from Oceanography and Environment to Technology Vectors, Industry and the Legal/ Regulatory framework. The event was funded by Gard AS through the GARD/IML Research Fund.

This was the first step of an ongoing project on sustainability in the shipping sector. Taking a multidisciplinary approach to the environmental challenges confronting the maritime industry, the project will look to ensure that maritime operations can become more sustainable, while remaining safe and efficient.

The project will lead to the publication of guidelines on how to render the shipping and maritime industry sustainable in the long term. The combination of IML and SMMI expertise will enable the University of Southampton to continue leading the debate on this crucial issue.

INTERDISCIPLINARY GROUPS

TACKLING OCEAN CHALLENGES

The SMMI Special Interest Groups (SIGs) bring together experts working on similar topics and solving related problems in marine and maritime. These groups provide opportunities for networking, collaboration, and developing joint bids to combine efforts in the pursuit of ocean solutions. By focusing on interdisciplinary engagement, the SIGs create bridges between disciplines at the University and beyond.

“These groups are useful when there are funding calls, but also when we’re working with external partners from government, third sector or business organisations,” said SMMI Director Professor Damon Teagle. “Whether they’re looking for an AI solution or to analyse different plastics being found in fish, we can point them to a ready-made community of expertise.”

There are seven SIGs, each led by champions representing different faculties or schools:

• Coastal Communities focuses on changes in physical and social coastal environments

• Digital Oceans looks at applying digital innovations like Cloud Computing and AI in the marine and maritime space

• Healthy Oceans links researchers in all aspects of marine biology

• Maritime Decarbonisation focuses on greener shipping and ports

• Nature-based Ocean Solutions looks at how nature-inspired ocean solutions can address societal and engineering challenges

• Ocean Energy focuses on unlocking the potential of ocean renewable energy

• Ocean Justice looks at the meaning of justice and law in the context of the ocean

SIG Membership is open to anyone within or outside of the University of Southampton with an interest in the group topic, including students, and industry and government partners.

“This method allows us to bring underwater archaeology to the surface digitally. We can then perform tests and take measurements which allow us to understand the scale of the site and begin reconstructing the past.”

RAISING WRECKS THROUGH DIGITAL MODELLING

Dr Felix Pedrotti from the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute has a background in maritime archaeology and specialises in creating digital twins. These are 3D models of real-life objects or environments, usually created via photogrammetry – taking photographs from multiple perspectives – or via laser-scanning.

“This method allows us to bring underwater archaeology to the surface digitally,” said Felix. “We can then perform tests and take measurements which allow us to understand the scale of the site and begin reconstructing the past.”

Felix brought these skills to a recent collaboration with the SMMI’s partners at the Cyprus Marine and Maritime Institute (CMMI). He assisted their multidisciplinary team across several projects.

Marine biology researchers wanted to explore the potential of 3D modelling as a more accurate and less costly method for monitoring the health of the endemic endangered coral species Cladocora caespitosa. These corals build large structures which support wider biodiversity. Monitoring that can accurately assess structural changes is essential for effective conservation.

Meanwhile a team of robotics engineers were interested in deploying the same technology to monitor the condition of marinas and other infrastructure. This removes the need to send down human divers into busy shipping environments.

The collaboration also focused on improving the safety of diving tourism in Cyprus. The team created 3D models of wrecks popular with divers, while developing and testing Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) to collect digital photorealistic datasets. “We can give divers the models to help them visualise the various routes and their suitability for different skill levels. Every year, some shipwrecks in Cyprus, unfortunately, hit the news because of accidents, but when divers can plan more accurately or see which areas to avoid, it safeguards against that.”

The CMMI and its partnership with the SMMI are funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and matching funding from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus.

Dr Felix Pedrotti

Dr Felix Pedrotti

Top right: A laser scan of the Kyrenia Liberty replica ship

Top left: A scientific diving workshop with researchers from the CMMI

Above: Felix surveying coral

Hidden away beneath the waves, meadows of seagrass provide amazing benefits for us and our planet. Seagrass beds help protect coastal areas from flooding and erosion by reducing the energy of waves as they head to shore and holding the sand together. They store and capture carbon, helping to combat climate change. They provide a habitat for marine life including the Spiny Seahorse, one of two species found in UK seas.

MAPPING SEAGRASS FOR GREENER OCEANS

The seagrass mapping project, funded by Southampton Geospatial and the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute (SMMI) and led by Dr Hachem Kassem from the School of Ocean and Earth Science, is using autonomous surface and underwater vessels (ASV/AUV), diver surveys and machine learning to help protect seagrass in the Studland Bay Marine Conservation Zone.

“Nature-based Solutions can help address the climate emergency and biodiversity loss crisis.”

Dr Hachem Kassem

Surveying with autonomous vessels and machine learning

The sheltered conditions of Studland Bay in Dorset, just along the coast from Southampton, make it perfect for sailing. On the plus side, this boosts the local economy – but it also puts the seagrass beds at risk. When boats drop their heavy anchors onto the seabed, they are dragged through the seagrass and cause lasting damage. One proposed solution is the eco-mooring, a small screw which goes into the seabed, tied to a floating buoy at the surface where boats can be secured. Ten of these have been installed on a trial basis, with a proposal to install up to 100 more. The Southampton team set out to provide evidence that they really do prevent damage to the seagrass.

“I assembled a team of experts from my own school, Ocean and Earth Sciences –I’m a coastal engineer – along with marine biologists, geographers and engineers with expertise in autonomous vessels and mapping techniques,” explained Hachem. The project used more traditional surveying techniques, with divers physically counting and measuring

seagrass leaves, whilst also setting out to demonstrate the benefits of new technology.

“We used two autonomous vessels,” said Hachem. “The first was a surface vessel called PicoCAT, which sends out sound beams and allows us to construct a 3D image of the seabed, including the distribution of vegetation and the height of the seagrass canopy.

“The second was Smarty200, an underwater vessel which takes hundreds of images of the seabed whilst communicating with GPS. You can stitch the images together and reference them accurately in space thanks to geospatial data.”

‘Semi-supervised’ – that is, human aided –Artificial Intelligence gave a helping hand with analysing the images provided by Smarty200. Given around 10,000 stereo image pairs from a single survey, the algorithm was able to group these into representative clusters showing different types of seabed conditions. A human expert looked at a selection of representative images and labelled the

conditions shown, from 100% seagrass cover to lower coverage to bare sand. Assisted by these labels, the algorithm was then able to accurately classify the density of seagrass in each part of the surveyed area.

Geospatial trailblazers

This project, in partnership with the Dorset Coastal Forum and the Studland Bay Marine Partnership, has highlighted the advantage of eco-moorings in protecting seagrass meadows against traditional anchoring. It has thus informed a marine planning application for the next phase of ecomooring installations in the bay. It has also engaged the local community – including a live video link from the University lab in Southampton to Swanage School as part of their Environmental Challenge Day. Year 10 Geography students learnt about the vital role that seagrass plays in supporting the ecosystem at Studland. The work was also featured in the local yachting magazine.

The research was highlighted in the UK Government’s Geospatial Strategy 2030. This aims to unlock the opportunities offered by location data technologies. The strategy document spotlights the University of Southampton as ‘trailblazers in driving research using location data with emerging technologies to bring geospatial data into the forefront of innovation’. The Southampton Geospatial initiative is hailed for bringing together interdisciplinary expertise in computer science, engineering, geography, mathematical sciences, and ocean and earth sciences to address important societal and environmental challenges.

“Nature-based Solutions can help address the climate emergency and biodiversity loss crisis,” concluded Hachem. Protecting seagrass ecosystems and the many benefits they bring to the planet and human society is one such solution – giving hope for greener oceans in the years to come.

Top right: The team working with autonomous vessel PicoCAT

Right: A diver surveys the health of seagrass

Research award highlights

RESEARCH AWARD HIGHLIGHTS

FACULTY OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES

Prof Jeanice Brooks; School of Humanities

Constructing Nationality through Music in Eighteenth-Century England – Fellow: Alice Little British Academy; £346,999 over 36 months

Prof Joanna Sofaer; School of Humanities

Heritage Perception and Impacts on Wellbeing National Trust; £5,963 over 12 months

Prof Daniel Whiting; School of Humanities

Sympathy in Harmony: Margaret Cavendish’s Philosophy of Value AHRC; £226,118 over 18 months

Canan Balan: Visitor, School of Humanities

Women in Film After the Ottoman Empire British Academy/Cara/Leverhulme Research Support; £9,726 over 13 months

Prof Kai Yang; Winchester School of Art Design and Manufacturing of E-textiles for Wearable Healthcare AHRC; £40,966 over 12 months

Prof Mark Cornwall; School of Humanities

Writing a New History of Treason AHRC; £36,851 over 24 months

Dr Giulia Felappi; School of Humanities

The nature of the objects of thought and assertion AHRC; £27,034 over 24 months

Prof James Baker; School of Humanities

Critical Cataloguing for Digital Preservation: a research commercialisation follow-on project

AHRC; £40,955 over 12 months

Dr Lexi Webster; School of Humanities

Queer Joy as a Digital Good ESRC; £39,418 over 9 months

Dr Heather Browning; School of Humanities

Measuring animal welfare

Open Philanthropy; £37,751 over 12 months

Prof Philip Nelson; School of Engineering and Dr Christine Evers, Electronics and Computer Science

CIAT – Challenges in Immersive Audio Technology EPSRC; £1,316,299 over 36 months, part of £3.5m awarded to University of Southampton, Kings College London, University of Surrey

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES

Prof AbuBakr Bahaj; School of Engineering

Enhancing mini grid sustainability through e-cooking – Phase 2 Foreign & Commonwealth Office; £149,994 over 24 months

Prof Steve Gunn; School of Electronics and Computer Science Bubble Exchange in the Labrador Sea Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); £77,380 over 36 months

Prof Anna Barney; School of Engineering

Respiratory Disease Progression through Longitudinal Audio Data Machine Learning

UK Research and Innovation; £292,370 over 18 months

Dr Steve Taylor; School of Electronics and Computer Science

DS2: DataSpace, DataShare 2.0 European Commission; £458,579 over 36 months

Dr Steve Taylor; School of Electronics and Computer Science

FAITH: Fostering Artificial Intelligence Trust for Humans towards the optimization of trustworthiness through large-scale pilots in critical domains European Commission; £417,009 over 48 months

Prof Malcolm Levitt; School of Chemistry

The Spectroscopy and Quantum Mechanics of C70-Based Endofullerenes EPSRC; £1,100,527 over 36 months

Prof Hywel Morgan; School of Electronics and Computer Science

AquaBioSens

UKRI (Research England) – EU Horizon guarantee Scheme; £985,633 over 36 months

Prof vladi Sassone; School of Electronics and Computer Science

Develop digital economy research communities with NetworkPlus EPSRC; £65,777 over 48 months

Dr Alex Weddell; School of Electronics and Computer Science

Perfect Recollection for Clearer Insight EPSRC; £365,254 over 24 months

Dr Chris Holmes; Zepler Institute for Photonics and Nanoelectronics

Roll-2-Roll (R2R) Manufacture of multilayer solid-state batteries EPSRC; £1,050,232 over 36 months

Dr Chris Holmes; Zepler Institute for Photonics and Nanoelectronics

Novel flat fibre sensors for application in process control, evaluation and health monitoring of high value composite assets EPSRC; £598,102 over 36 months

Dr Tristan Rees-White; School of Engineering

Assessing The Impact Of Wood Landing On Landfill Methane Emissions Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; £99,664 over 15 months

Prof Francesco Poletti; Zepler Institute for Photonics and Nanoelectronics

Advanced hollow core fibres for next generation datacenters

Microsoft Corporation; £1,359,313 over 24 months

Dr Daniel Whiter; School of Physics and Astronomy

Revealing Particle Acceleration Physics During Substorms With Auroral Kilometric Radiation

Science And Technology Facilities Council; £408,206 over 36 months

Dr Andrew Vowles; School of Engineering

What fish want: Investigating the interplay between preferred environmental enrichment, welfare and reliability of applied behavioural research

Universities Federation for Animal Welfare; £15,308 over 18 months

Dr Bruce Ou; School of Physics and Astronomy

Compact imaging system for semiconductor inspection based on metalenses Royal Society; £69,946 over 18 months

Dr Ruomeng Huang; School of Electronics and Computer Science

Solution-based Transition Metal Dichalcogenides for Flexible Neuromorphic Electronics

EPSRC; £159,901 over 24 months

Prof Goran Mashanovich; Optoelectronics Research Centre

Capability for wafer-level sub-nanometre scale imaging EPSRC; £1,633,565 over 36 months

Prof Mark Sullivan; School of Physics and Astronomy

LSST and TiDES: the next generation of type Ia supernova cosmology

Science And Technology Facilities Council; £445,105 over 36 months

Prof Nuria Garcia-Araez; School of Chemistry

Faraday Institution Beyond Li Ion Call – EPSRC – N. Garcia-Araez EPSRC; £468,954 over 24 months

Dr Alberto Politi; School of Physics and Astronomy

Monolithic generation and detection of squeezed light in Silicon Nitride

Photonics

EPSRC; £489,134 over 36 months

Dr Christina Vanderwel; School of Engineering

UKRI FLF Renewal – Simulating urban air pollution in the lab MRC; £594,841 over 36 months

Prof Poshak Gandhi; School of Physics and Astronomy

Formation of Compact-objects Under Scrutiny (FoCUS)

Science And Technology Facilities Council; £433,341 over 36 months

Prof Sebastian Hoenig; School of Physics and Astronomy

STFC SG awards: Towards dynamical black hole masses at cosmic noon Science And Technology Facilities Council; £437,978 over 36 months

Dr Matthew Middleton; School of Physics and Astronomy

Searching for hidden compact objects in the Milky Way Science And Technology Facilities Council; £424,081 over 36 months

Dr Benjamin Cerfontaine; School of Engineering

TAILWIND: susTainable stAtionkeepIng systems for fLoating WIND UKRI (Research England) – EU Horizon guarantee Scheme; £509,663 over 48 months

Prof Dave White; School of Engineering

Supergen ORE Hub (Offshore Renewable Energy) – Phase 2 EPSRC; £526,401 over 48 months

Dr Sergio Maldonado; School of Engineering

Mechanics of plastic pollutants in rivers EPSRC; £125,706 over 12 months

Dr Siul Ruiz; School of Engineering

Quantifying soil biomechanics with X-Ray diffraction-imaging and mathematical models

Royal Society University Research Fellowship; £1,063,281 over 111 months

Dr Ahmed Elkady; School of Engineering

Seismic Resilience of Egypt’s Built Environment: A GIS-Based Framework for Assessment and Mitigation EPSRC; £133,510 over 24 months

Dr Firman Simanjuntak; School of Electronics and Computer Science

Simultaneous multi-stimulated sensorial artificial synapses for adaptive neuromorphic computing Royal Society; £69,712 over 18 months

Dr Dimitra Georgiadou; School of Electronics and Computer Science

Advanced Spectroscopy Research Unit for Sustainable Light Management European Regional Development Fund; £3,846 over 30 months

Dr Manda Banerji-Wright; School of Physics and Astronomy

Rubin-Euclid Joint Image Processing

Science And Technology Facilities Council; £114,175 over 12 months

Dr Sandra De Jesus Raimundo; School of Physics and Astronomy

Fuelling black holes with newly accreted gas Science And Technology Facilities Council; £384,575 over 36 months

Dr Rafael Mestre Castillo; School of Electronics and Computer Science

A framework for research, application, and governance of bio-hybrid robotics: plotting a path to responsible research and innovation ESRC; £243,827 over 24 months

Dr Stratis Batzelis; School of Electronics and Computer Science

UNIFORM: UNIfying grid-FOllowing and grid-foRMing control in inverter-based resources EPSRC; £165,138 over 18 months

Dr Felix Langfeldt; School of Engineering

Active acoustic metamaterials for non-Hermitian sound propagation phenomena inspired by quantum mechanics

The UK Acoustics Network Plus; £44,336 over 6 months

Prof Yannis Ieropoulos; School of Engineering

RETRO – Pollution Assessing, Tracking and Reporting Internet of Things Research Innovation Foundation; £2,508 over 9 months

Dr George Williams; School of Chemistry

Photoresponsive Mechanically Interlocked Polymers Royal Society; £70,000 over 18 months

Dr Zehor Belkhatir; School of Electronics and Computer Science

Dynamic optimisation of tumor’s dense-dose scheduling via closed-loop control and beyond EPSRC; £51,353 over 12 months

Prof Tony Bagnall; School of Electronics and Computer Science

aeon: a toolkit for machine learning with time series EPSRC; £387,714 over 27 months

Dr Xi Yu; School of Chemistry

A novel CFD model of biomass gasification toward smart design and sustainable gaseous fuel Royal Society; £12,000 over 24 months

Dr Ken Mimasu; School of Physics and Astronomy

Maximising the new physics reach of the LHC through Effective Field Theories Science And Technology Facilities Council Ernest Rutherford Fellowship; £515,941 over 60 months

Research award highlights

FACULTY OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND LIFE SCIENCES

Prof Justin Dix; School of Ocean and Earth Science

eSWEETS3

Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); £313,738 over 33 months

Prof Christina Vogel, Faculty of Medicine and Prof Mary Barker; School of Health Sciences

Evaluating the impact of the placement regulations on the CONvenience store sector and co-creating solutions for a healthier system: ECON study

National Institute for Health and Care Research; £495,990 over 30 months

Prof Robert Marsh; School of Ocean and Earth Science

Interacting ice Sheet and Ocean Tipping – Indicators, Processes, Impacts and Challenges

Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); £384,689 over 48 months

Prof Mark Moore; School of Ocean and Earth Science

Integrating Drivers of Atlantic Productivity (IDAPro)

Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); £557,373 over 36 months

Prof Mark Moore; School of Ocean and Earth Science

Coccolithophore controls on ocean alkalinity (CHALKY)

Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); £50,544 over 36 months

Prof Tim Minshull; School of Ocean and Earth Science

NSFGEO-NERC: Imaging the magma storage region and hydrothermal system of an active arc volcano

Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); £464,837 over 36 months

Prof Tim Henstock; School of Ocean and Earth Science

IMPULSE: Taking the pulse of the Iceland Mantle Plume

Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); £353,222 over 36 months

Dr Jenny Brown and Dr Charlie Thompson; School of Ocean and Earth Science

Gravel barrier resilience in a changing climate

Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); £323,637 over 48 months

Prof Catherine Bowen; School of Health Sciences

Big Toe OstEoarthritis (Big TOE) Trial

National Institute for Health and Care Research; £25,112 over 42 months, part of a total award of £1,816,671 with University of Warwick

Dr Michelle Myall; School of Health Sciences

Domestic Abuse and Housing: local authorities’ provision of safe accommodation for adults living with a disability and /or long-term/life-limiting illness: a mixed method study

National Institute for Health and Care Research; £349,917 over 36 months

Dr Maggie Donovan-Hall; School of Health Sciences

Patient and stakeholder perspectives on health data collection, use and sharing: Foundations for data driven improvements in prosthetic care

National Institute for Health and Care Research; £104,952 over 24 months

Prof Sara Demain; School of Health Sciences

Tulong, Ugnayan ng Lingap At gabaY (TULAY): Co-designing Philippine Community Physical Rehabilitation

National Institute for Health and Care Research; £48,036 over 48 months

Prof Mandy Fader; School of Health Sciences

The MultiCath clinical trial

National Institute for Health and Care Research; £211,758 over 21 months

Prof Jadu Dash; School of Geography and Environmental Science

EOCROP: Towards a digital twin of cropping systems based on ingestion of EO into process-based crop models

Science And Technology Facilities Council; £129,356 over 18 months

Prof Peter Sunley; School of Geography and Environmental Science

Powering Up Coastal Economies: Path creation in Low Carbon and Renewable Energies

ESRC; £677,914 over 30 months

Prof Phil Williamson and Professor Amritpal Mudher; School of Biological Sciences

A fly’s eye view on protein folding Leverhulme Trust; £165,008 over 24 months

Dr Lyn Ellett; School of Psychology

Group Mindfulness-based therapy for persecutory delusions: A Definitive Randomised Controlled Trial

National Institute for Health and Care Research; £102,911 over 30 months

Prof Diego Gomez-Nicola; School of Biological Sciences

Investigating and targeting microglial senescence in Alzheimer’s disease MRC; £865,717 over 36 months

Dr Robert Holland; School of Geography and Environmental Science Impact focussed Supergen Hubs in bioenergy, networks and ORE EPSRC; £240,695 over 24 months

Prof Andrew Tatem; School of Geography and Environmental Science

UNFPA/USAID: Common Operational Datasets on Population Statistics

US Agency for International Development; £174,065 over 24 months

Prof Andrew Tatem; School of Geography and Environmental Science

FCDO “Data for Development” Programme

Foreign & Commonwealth Office; £900,000 over 18 months

Prof Katrin Deinhardt; School of Biological Sciences

Investigating the interaction between phosphoinositides and mutant tau Alzheimers Research UK; £3,250 over 12 months

Dr Samantha Sodergren; School of Health Sciences

Supporting young people after treatment for cancer: What is needed, when is this needed and how can this be best delivered?

Southampton Hospital Charity; £27,467 over 12 months

Dr Attila Lazar; School of Geography and Environmental Science

GRID3 – Phase 2 (2023-25)

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; £1,726,015 over 24 months

Dr Mark Chapman; School of Biological Sciences

A computational comparative genomic analysis of legumes for future food security Royal Society; £2,930 over 9 months

Prof Nullin Divecha; School of Biological Sciences

‘How is PtdIns(4,5)P2, a membrane lipid messenger, localised and regulated in splicing speckles, a membrane less compartment within the nucleus?

BBSRC; £868,752 over 48 months

Prof Samuele Cortese; School of Psychology

Personalising the pharmacological treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children

National Institute for Health and Care Research, NIHR Research Professorship; £1,988,007 over 60 months

Dr Natasha Campling; School of Health Sciences

Just in case medicines use by ambulance paramedics Responding to End of Life care In the Community: a mixed methods study of the Experiences of paramedics, doctors, Family and carers

Health and Care Research Wales Support Centre; £12,704 over 21 months

Prof Justin Sheffield; School of Geography and Environmental Science

APP3793: Co-developed Environmental Solutions to Mitigate the Impact of Temperature Extremes on the Health of Vulnerable Populations

Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); £2,399,452 over 36 months

Dr Jo Hope; School of Health Sciences

Improving the care people with learning disabilities receive in hospital: an ethnographic study examining the experiences of people with learning disabilities and the organisation and delivery of their care

National Institute for Health and Care Research; £149,383 over 18 months

Dr Shengjie Lai; School of Geography and Environmental Science

The fear of “here”: Integrating place-based travel behavior and detection into novel infectious disease models

National Science Foundation; £150,432 over 36 months

Dr Owen Rackham; School of Biological Sciences

Using AI to extend the universe of cell types

BBSRC; £164,114 over 24 months

Dr Bieito Fernandez Castro; School of Ocean and Earth Science

NI – Dissolved Organic matter subduction and transport along the east Greenland MArgin

Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); £51,835 over 24 months

Associate Professor Emily Gwyer Findlay; School of Biological Sciences

Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship 3 year extension Royal Society; £711,201 over 36 months

Associate Professor Paul Conway; School of Psychology

Understanding Mental Health and Moral Injury in UK Military Chaplains

Taigh Mor Foundation; £22,771 over 6 months

Dr David Evans; School of Ocean and Earth Science

AMOEBA: Mechanistically understanding biomineralisation and ancient ocean chemistry changes to facilitate robust climate model validation

Selected by the ERC, funded by UKRI (Research England) via the EU Horizon Guarantee Scheme; £1,748,286 over 60 months

Dr Eamonn Reading; School of Biological Sciences

Determining structural dynamics of membrane proteins in their native environment: focus on bacterial antibiotic resistance

MRC; £581,874 over 36 months

MRC; £105,222 over 6 months

FACULTY OF MEDICINE

Prof Paul Little; Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education

Pharmacy partnership using decision-making tools and near patient testing for Antimicrobial Stewardship for EveryDay practice IN primary care

National Institute for Health and Care Research; £859,757 over 18 months

Prof Philip Calder; Human Development and Health

B-hydroxy B-methylbutyrate (HMB) supplementation to improve functional status in people with advanced liver cirrhosis: a multicentre double blind placebo-controlled randomised trial

National Institute for Health and Care Research; £24,744 over 33 months

Prof Tracey Newman; Clinical and Experimental Sciences

Listening to local communities to understand how to reduce inequities and barriers to risk reduction for better brain health.

Alzheimers Research UK; £3,440 over 12 months

Prof Tracey Newman; Clinical and Experimental Sciences

Cochlear implants and Inner Ear Inflammation

National Institute for Health and Care Research; £131,461 over 24 months

Prof John Holloway; Human Development and Health

Clusters of Epigenetic Networks at Birth and Asthma Incidence in Children National Institutes of Health – USA; £44,237 over 24 months

Prof Mark Cragg and Prof Stephen Beers; Cancer Sciences

CRUK – Targeting myeloid cells for improved antibody immunotherapy –DRCRPG-May23/100001

Cancer Research UK; £2,250,618 over 60 months

Prof Peter Johnson; Cancer Sciences

CRUK Senior Research Nurse (2024-2029)

Cancer Research UK; £398,607 over 60 months

Prof Issy Reading; Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education

Research Support Service 2023-2028

National Institute for Health and Care Research; £3,504,235 over 60 months

Prof Issy Reading; Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education

Research Support Service for Specialist Centre for Public Health 2023-2028

National Institute for Health and Care Research; £7,029,675 over 60 months

Prof Roxi Carare; Clinical and Experimental Sciences

Macrophages in neurological diseases

Formation Venture Engineering Foundry Inc; £93,000 over 12 months

Prof Sarah Ennis; Human Development and Health

Artificial intelligence methods applied to Genomic Data for improved health (AGENDA)

EPSRC; £624,229 over 18 months

Prof Sarah Ennis; Human Development and Health

Genomic AI Network (NHS Funded Genomic Network of Excellence in AI)) –Work Package 3Bii

NHS England; £149,410 over 24 months

Prof Chris Byrne; Human Development and Health

Reflex testing for MAFLD in patients with type 2 diabetes Echosens; £157,500 over 24 months

Prof Chris Byrne; Human Development and Health

Post doctoral support for REFLEX testing for MAFLD in patients with type 2 diabetes Southampton Hospital Charity; £48,787 over 12 months

Research award highlights

Prof Hazel Everitt; Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education

Expanding the eligibility criteria for a no-biopsy diagnosis for coeliac disease in adults and children: Individual participant data review and cost-effectiveness analysis.

National Institute for Health and Care Research; £7,204 over 24 months

Prof Delphine Boche; Clinical and Experimental Sciences

Study of immune reactions and correlation of imaging findings in CAA-related inflammation

Pathological Society of Great Britain & Ireland; £14,887 over 12 months

Prof Rohan Lewis; Human Development and Health

Convergent evolution of placental villi in primates and ungulates: Are some placentas more efficient than others?

BBSRC; £662,675 over 36 months

Dr Jane Cleal; Human Development and Health

Can endometrial gland structure and function help us understand why some women are more at risk of infertility and miscarriage than others? Rosetrees Trust; £55,700 over 36 months

Associate Professor Rami Salib; Clinical and Experimental Sciences

Identification of novel non-invasive nasal biomarkers to enable early diagnosis in Alzheimer’s disease

British Medical Association; £15,600 over 36 months

Associate Professor Rami Salib; Clinical and Experimental Sciences

Novel nasal biomarkers for Alzheimer’s Dementia

ENT UK; £1,500 over 12 months

Associate Professor Rami Salib; Clinical and Experimental Sciences

A comparison of the bacterial localisation site and inflammatory profile associated with Staphylococcus aureus strains in chronic rhinosinusitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

ENT UK; £500 over 12 months

Prof Andrew Lotery; Clinical and Experimental Sciences

PrivateEyes: Privacy-preserving Artificial Intelligence and Disease Progression Prediction for Patients with AMD.

EPSRC; £136,992 over 18 months, part of a total project award of £618,608, with Imperial College London and the Institute of Opthalmology.

Prof Andrew Lotery; Clinical and Experimental Sciences

DAME: Treatment of severe Diabetic macular oedema with Anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) monotherapy versus treatment with Anti-VEGF followed by subthreshold Micropulse lasEr when the thickness of the central retina goes below 400 microns (DAME): a pragmatic randomised equivalence trial – NIHR Funding and Awards

National Institute for Health and Care Research; £12,721 over 54 months, part of a total award of £2,073,284.17 with The Queen’s University of Belfast

Prof Juliet Gray; Cancer Sciences

B7-H3/GD2 Trispecific antibodies in Neuroblastoma

Childrens Cancer and Leukaemia Group; £198,167 over 27 months

Prof Ellen Copson; Cancer Sciences

A prospective multicentre study to determine the association between sarcopenia and grade 3 toxicity in people with metastatic breast cancer undergoing first line cytotoxic chemotherapy (CANDO-4)

Breast Cancer Now; £246,101 over 33 months

Dr Harnish Patel; Human Development and Health

B1 – Musculoskeletal health in community dwelling older people

Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust; £33,131 over 24 months

Prof Mark Jones; Clinical and Experimental Sciences

An open-access Spatial Biology Platform for inter-disciplinary studies of human disease MRC; £580,307 over 9 months

Prof Jon Dawson; Human Development and Health, co-investigator with Agnieszka Janeczek (Personal Fellowship), Renovos Biologics Pioneering Renovite nanoclay gels in cell therapy. MRC; £154,665 over 48 months

Dr Matthew Rose-Zerilli; Cancer Sciences

Harnessing the activities of gastro-intestinal innate immune cells for the prevention of oesophageal adenocarcinoma

Cancer Research UK; £201,666 over 24 months

Prof Nick Evans; Human Development and Health

Bubbles For Breaking Bone Biofilms

Rosetrees Interdisciplinary Award 2023, Rosetrees Trust; £286,628 over 36 months

Dr James Ashton; Human Development and Health

Clinical Research Fellowship (Dr Zach Green) – Utilisation of big clinical data to characterise, predict and personalise therapy in inflammatory bowel disease Crohn’s in Childhood Research Association; £260,589 over 36 months

Dr Matthew Blunt; Clinical and Experimental Sciences

Overcoming the immunosuppressive lymph node microenvironment to enhance natural killer cell therapy for blood cancer

Leukaemia UK John Goldman Fellowship Follow-up Funding, Leukaemia UK; £243,066 over 36 months

Prof Gareth Griffiths, Prof Tim Underwood and Prof Andrew Cook; Cancer Sciences

Understanding the variation of modern endoscopic ultrasound use in patients with oesophageal cancer (VALUE): a multi-methods study

National Institute for Health and Care Research; £258,971 over 33 months

Prof Gareth Griffiths; Cancer Sciences

DETECTION2 feasibility: A feasibility trial to assess recruitment rates and ctDNA reporting times for patients with resected stage IIB/IIC/IIIA melanoma. Cancer Research UK; £716,085 over 84 months

Prof Gareth Griffiths; Cancer Sciences

SELECTMeso: A phase II trial of BI907828 in patients with relapsed mesothelioma harbouring CDKN2A loss

Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co. KG; £593,630 over 30 months

Prof Kate little; Human Development and Health

Climate, muscle function and metabolomics

Medical Research Foundation; £58,709 over 39 months

Dr Jorn Lakowski and Prof Andrew Lotery; Clinical and Experimental Sciences

Investigating cone photoreceptor starvation in Retinitis Pigmentosa using stem cell derived retinal organoids.

Retina UK; £243,747 over 36 months

Dr Lareb Dean; Clinical and Experimental Sciences

The Impact Of Rising Temperatures On Lung Health In The Face Of Particulate Matter Air Pollution – AAIR Contribution AAIR Charity; £20,000 over 24 months

Dr Jonathan Swann; Human Development and Health

Interactions of dietary protein intake and intestinal resident microbiota affecting susceptibility to persistent Giardia infection and Giardia mediated enteropathy National Institutes of Health (NIH) US; £232,283 over 36 months

Dr Jonathan Swann; Human Development and Health

Alanyl-glutamine supplementation of standard treatment for C. difficile infection National Institutes of Health – USA; £57,143 over 24 months

FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

Prof Denise Baden; Southampton Business School

Engaging the Public in Climate Solutions via Interactive Theatre British Academy; £8,000 over 18 months

Prof Taufiq Choudhry; Southampton Business School

Impact of oil price fluctuations and volatility on the business cycle of major oil exporting and importing countries

British Academy; £3,300 over 24 months

Prof Jane Falkingham; School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences (Fellowship H Jin) The causal effects of caregiving on the spousal carer’s health, life satisfaction, and employment

ESRC; £108,330 over 12 months

Prof Christine Currie; School of Mathematical Sciences

Optimizing the sustainability of car sharing using mathematical modeling EPSRC; £22,395 over 12 months

Dr Olga Maslovskaya, School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences

UK Survey Data Collection Methods Collaboration

ESRC; £461,163 over 36 months for Southampton (ESRC; total £3.1 million)

Prof Leor Barack; School of Mathematical Sciences

LISA Ground Segment: Support For 2024-2025

Science And Technology Facilities Council; £22,142 over 12 months

Dr Ian Hawke; School of Mathematical Sciences

Simulating realistic neutron-star mergers

Science And Technology Facilities Council; £418,043 over 36 months

Dr Matt Ryan; School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences

Rebooting Democracy: Democratic innovation for the information age (FLF Renewal)

MRC; £593,040 over 36 months

Prof Brienna Perelli-Harris (Co-I member of Investigator Group); School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences

Understanding Society – Waves 17-22 bid ESRC; £43,627 over 72 months

Prof Will Jennings; School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences

RETRO How to rebuild trust in the public service University of New South Wales; £10,800 over 12 months

Prof Collins Ntim; Southampton Business School

The role and impact of public financial management in supporting fiscal transparency and public accountability: Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond World Bank; £12,329 ($18,000) over 21 months

Dr Rakesh Jory; Southampton Business School Management Accounting and Control: Approaches to building organisations driven by technology and sustainability

Chartered Institute of Management Accountants; £25,000 over 10 months

Prof Paul Smith; School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences

Understanding Coverage in UK Longitudinal Population Studies ESRC; £151,510 over 9 months

Dr Yun Luo; Southampton Business School

Do higher public and private debt levels benefit the wealthy?

The Leverhulme Trust; £3,966 over 12 months

Dr Natalia Cintra De Oliveira Tavares; School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences

Natalia Cintra De Oliveira Tavares BA FELLOWSHIP: Racial Politics of Forced Displacement in Latin America British Academy; £346,106 over 36 months

Dr Achala Gupta; Southampton Education School Teacher Support: Mentorship Provisions For Supporting Early Career Teachers’ Retention And Future Career Growth In The British Schooling System Society for Educational Studies; £9,993 over 12 months

Dr Achala Gupta; Southampton Education School

When AI (Artificial Intelligence) Meets AI (Academic Integrity): Educational Opportunities and Challenges in a Digital Age British Educational Research Association; £5,000 over 9 months

Dr Nora McIntyre; Southampton Education School

Eye-Inquire: Uncovering insights from expert teachers for effective Climate Change Education through Socio-Scientific Inquiry-Based Learning ESRC; £10,248 over 12 months (£25k including Taiwanese Co-PI side)

Dr Jon Cockayne; School of Mathematical Sciences

Unifying Probabilistic Computation for PDEs and Linear Systems EPSRC; £142,852 over 24 months

Dr Wonyong Park; Southampton Education School

Co-Developing a Community-Based Science Education Curriculum Framework for Disaster Justice and Resilience: A Response to the 2022 Buffalo Blizzard National Science Foundation; £6,712 over 12 months

Dr Tereza Capelos; School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences

PROTEMO: Emotional dynamics of protective policies in an age of insecurity. Project awarded in HORIZON-CL2-2023-DEMOCRACY-01-04: The emotional politics of Democracies, Jan 2024-Dec 2026, EUR 3,194,511.

UK partner funded by UKRI (Research England) – EU Horizon guarantee Scheme; £302,866 over 36 months.

Dr Tereza Capelos; School of Economic, Social and Political Sciences

PLEDGE: Politics of Grievance and Democratic Governance. Project awarded in HORIZON-CL2-2023-DEMOCRACY-01-04: The emotional politics of Democracies, Feb 2024-Jan 2027, EUR 3,160,690.

UK partner funded by UKRI (Research England) – EU Horizon guarantee Scheme; £178,192 over 36 months.

This list encompasses a selection of awards logged with University of Southampton Finance from June to December 2023 that are not considered commercially sensitive.

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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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