The UK has an exciting opportunity to radically improve the urban environment through the government's commitment to the creation of more "green infrastructure" (GI) in our town and cities. It is recognised that urban GI delivers multiple benefits to nature and society, by increasing biodiversity, enhancing those ecosystem services (such as air quality improvement, removing carbon dioxide from the air, and reducing flood risk) and improving the health and wellbeing of urban residents by living and working in a biodiverse rich environment. This extends to the role that rivers, streams, canals and other water bodies also play - the "blue" infrastructure and both are heavily constrained by the built, "grey" infrastructure. Urban GI exists as a patchwork of fragments of varying size, shape and composition within intensely complex and fragmented landscapes. This makes the identification of key biological processes linking urban landscapes to multiple ecological functions very difficult. Connectivity between green fragments can have much larger effects on the relationship between ecological structure and functioning than simple patch sizes. There is thus a need to understand how patches and their connectivity alter biological communities and ecological functioning. A key challenge faced by planners when investing in Green and Blue Infrastructure is how this should be designed and configured, so that the interactions between the green-blue-grey infrastructures will most effectively deliver multiple benefits. We shall be working closely with the general public, local authorities, NGOs and local businesses as Project Partners throughout the lifetime of the project. Improved understanding of multiple benefits from greenspace (improved air quality and health outcomes, biodiversity, carbon storage, etc.) can help stimulate engagement with, and uptake of GI solutions at a local scale, by "co-designing" such interventions. The project will have six work packages: WP1 Site selection and spatial survey: determining the relationship between urban spatial configuration, air quality and soil moisture, and the influence on these of biodiversity and local meteorology using sites in Luton, Bedford and Milton Keynes. WP2 Urban Observatory GI manipulations: real world and controlled experiments to investigate the impact of interventions on air quality, water and biodiversity. WP3 Mechanistic Modelling of urban ecological networks: better understanding how urban fragmentation and structure influence: i) air purification services; and ii) cascading effects of urban structure, air pollution and water availability on urban trophic networks. WP4 Integrated Modelling to assess the effects of altered greenspace structure and management: development of Bayesian hierarchical models to (i) allow 'virtual' scenarios to assess to the effects of altered GI on air quality, water regulation and biodiversity; and (ii) provide information for inputs to other WPs. WP5 Barriers to effective GI interventions: understanding the barriers to successful implementation of GI and identifying enabling mechanisms. WP 6 Impact: engagement with key users and stakeholder groups to understand their requirements and so that new knowledge is transferred to critical decision makers. This project aims to deliver new knowledge on how urban form affects biodiversity, biological processes and ecosystem services derived from them. This information can be used to design healthier and more resilient urban environments through targeted interventions with green, blue, and grey infrastructures, while improving our understanding of current barriers to implementation. The work will focus on the interventions that improve air quality, enhance water management, and safeguard and enhance biodiversity.

The mission of CoEXist is to systematically increase the capacity of road authorities of getting ready for the transition towards a shared road network with increasing levels of automated vehicles (AVs), both in terms of vehicle penetration rates and levels of automation using the same road network as conventional vehicles (CVs). CoEXist will enable mobility stakeholders to get “AV-ready” – which CoEXist defines as conducting transport and infrastructure planning for automated vehicles in the same comprehensive manner as for existing modes such as conventional vehicles, public transport, pedestrians and cyclists, while ensuring continued support for conventional vehicles on the same network. AV-ready transport and infrastructure planning in cities is a key precondition for fulfilling the promises of AVs to reduce road space demand and improve traffic efficiency and safety – without it, AVs could simply increase the urban mobility problems. CoEXist will address three key steps in transport and infrastructure development: • AV-ready transport modelling: Validated extension of existing microscopic and macroscopic transport models to include different types of AVs (passenger car/ light-freight vehicle, automation levels). • AV-ready road infrastructure: Tool to assess the impact of AVs on safety, traffic efficiency and space demand and development of design guidance for hybrid (AV-/CV-shared) infrastructure. • AV-ready road authorities: Elaboration of eight use cases in four road authorities (Gothenburg, Helmond, Milton Keynes and Stuttgart), used to evaluate AV impacts on safety, traffic efficiency and road space requirements (with CoEXist tools) and making detailed hybrid infrastructure design recommendations. Due consideration of CEDR’s Transnational Research Programme is shown through the participation of TRL, the coordinator of the CEDR-funded Dragon project.

The Central & Eastern England Regional Centre for exploring the FWW spans Suffolk, Essex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire. It will mark the centenary of the FWW through collaborative histories, creative performance, source exploration, practical experiment and digital sharing. We aim to connect academic and local experience, and to build productive community engagement and research partnerships with the capacity to stretch and even surprise all involved. In developing objectives and a programme of activities for the Centre, the team worked through the University of Hertfordshire's Heritage Hub to consult heritage and arts organisations, history groups and community associations in the region. Reflecting on this process, we selected themes that will bring new angles to familiar stories and inspire an extensive programme of community engagement at regional and (inter)national levels: food; theatre; military tribunals; learning disability; supernatural beliefs; military intelligence; childhood: * FWW food production, supply and consumption highlight international and local economies, creating a powerful tool in exploring memory, scale and present-day relevance. * FWW theatre offers participants another experiential route into a past more commonly shaped by war poetry. * Military tribunals link national institutions of war with individual lives on the Home Front; as conscientious objection (CO) emerges as an 'alternative' perspective to trenches, tribunals put CO in broader context. Reconstructing their proceedings has considerable research and engagement potential. * The theme of learning disabilities draws on Hertfordshire's distinctive institutional history of asylums and challenges us to think broadly about communities. * Beliefs in ghosts, angels, mediums and fortune-tellers provide important insights into the lasting psychological impact of disorientation, fear and huge loss of life. * Academically FWW intelligence is an under-researched area but, because of the resonance of intelligence in popular culture, it is one that is likely to stimulate community interest. * The impact of the FWW on those born since 1919 allows the Centre to address inter-generational relationships and re-think the meanings of 'legacy'. Geographical communities are significant to the Centre, but so is the inclusion of communities of interest, belief, practice, circumstance or experience. Through co-produced research, the Centre will develop intellectual and cultural contexts to enrich historical understanding of the FWW. It aims that by 2016 community organisations that have already embarked on research (with or without HLF funding) will have incorporated at least one new question or perspective; that people living in the region who have not yet thought about the centenary will have contributed to it; that the regional dimensions of the conflict will have come into focus; and that audiences and topics of research will have diversified. Micro-histories, documents and artefacts will emerge from local projects to benefit researchers across the board. The Centre will maximize these effects by connecting discrete projects through face-to-face events and digital communities. It will manifest the sheer variety of FWW heritage in Britain today and record it for the longer term. The centenary of the FWW is an opportunity to probe in innovative ways the historical significance of a period which resonates strongly in contemporary Britain. Looking forward from 2013, the precise form of centenary activities, the relationship between academic and public histories, and the influence of the state and other bodies in shaping memorialisation, are still uncertain. A conjunction of meticulous research, living tradition and multiple end uses, is creating a situation that is itself a fascinating subject for analysis and an occasion for profound dialogue about the nature of scholarship and heritage in 21st-century Britain.

This project reframes key challenges that underlie modern policing in a socio-technical world; a world instrumented with mobile and ubiquitous computing technologies, in which many citizens and communities live, work and play, but which must also manage threats to their wellbeing and their rights. The project aims to support a new engagement between authorities (such as the police) and communities of citizens in order to better investigate (and in the long term reduce) potential or actual threats to citizen security, safety, and privacy. This includes both empowering the police by opening up new ways of citizens providing data in ways that protect privacy and anonymity, and empowering citizens by using these new technologies to also hold the police to account. We will be harnessing many of the so-called Internet of Things, Smart City and Smart Home technologies to encourage and allow citizens to help the police collect and analyse disparate data to improve public safety at both local and ultimately national levels. The project will adopt a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing on the disciplines of software engineering for ubiquitous systems, social and cognitive psychology, and digital forensics / policing.

As a place of technological and societal innovation supported by local universities, Milton Keynes functions like a prototype Future City Demonstrator. Building on its economic strengths and its civic vision, MK will integrate its city-wide systems to maximise enterprise and jobs growth, business innovation, research and technology development. Integration will include community engagement, energy, health and wellbeing, housing, infrastructure planning and regeneration, transport and waste management. Integration will build on existing innovative projects such as a smart grid, electric mobility and telehealth. Outcomes will have a positive impact on the urban environment, citizens' experiences and the quality of city life. MK is growing with opportunity and offers a future-ready city in which people enjoy living, learning and working and where enterprises can develop innovative services that help manage future economic, environmental and social demands.