EMIL, the European Media and Immersion Lab, is a joint effort of four major European academic institutions (Aalto University, Filmakademie Baden Württemberg, Universitat Pompeu Fabra and University of Bath) to form a Pan-European XR Lab network to accelerate development of virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies, content, services and applications for the media. EMIL will establish a physical and virtual infrastructure (EMIL Nodes), supported by research excellence, technological, creative expertise and wide contact networks to bring together interdisciplinary actors in the XR-field; engineers, designers, journalists, filmmakers, game developpers, programmers, artists, researchers, entrepreneurs and investors, from start-ups, SME’s and global corporations. EMIL will launch and coordinate FSTP projects and support this interdisciplinary community to accelerate XR-development all across Europe. The projects will be prototyping advanced solutions for the creation, distribution and consumption of new immersive and innovative products for media and related creative industries. FSTP projects can tap into the latest scientific research knowledge demonstrated in the EMIL nodes’ Lighthouse projects that exhibit excellence in Narrative Media Production, Smart Garments, Animation, VFX, Embodied Interaction, Digital Cultural Heritage, Digital Health, Motion Capture/Analysis, and technological XR-development. The FSTP projects and Lighthouse projects will quickly provide concrete cutting-edge products and services for the benefit of the European Media industry. However, EMIL’s true ambition and impact lie beyond the limitations of these projects and in the establishment of a permanent Pan European XR network and community that will continue bringing new innovations in media, virtualization, computational design, interactive AI, resilient cities, manufacturing, and healthcare technologies and help Europe to be at the forefront of the next digital development revolution.

The nature of current Botswana electricity market can be summarized as: low security and high cost. Low security: the country sees an annual consumption around 3650 GWh, where at least 70% electricity is imported from South Africa. Such high dependency is a cause of great concern to the country's energy security, which is severely affected after the South Africa energy crisis in 2008. Coupled with its sole generation plant (Morupule) under refurbishment, the country is grappling with load shedding which occurs on a daily basis. Even with a well-documented load-shedding schedule in place, unexpected load shedding occurs when a locality's energy demand exceeds 50 MW. The industry productivity and household life quality are thus severely affected. High cost: Botswana has a population just over 2 million, 13.4% of which are living in extreme poverty (less than $1.25 per day), 30.6% in poverty and only 2.7% in urban areas. With a national average income less than £500 per household per month, household has to pay £30-100 electricity bills per month depending on the season, which accounts for approximately 13% of the total income. Swanbarton, a UK SME, will lead a consortium of University of Bath, University of Botswana Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC) and Yuasa Batteries UK in testing the technical and commercial feasibility of a system to support people in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia through the project of EMBOSSA. EMBOSSA will address this problem by enabling them to have a low-cost energy store sufficient to ensure constant lighting and mobile communications. The energy store will be capable of construction locally, mostly from recycled materials (including second-life car batteries and smartphones) and following designs which we will provide as open source, at prices affordable even for poor households. The energy store will be controlled by battery management software with an optimisation system embedded. It makes charge/discharge decisions based on the electricity tariff, demand estimation and load shedding schedule. The idea is to charge the battery during off-peak times and discharge during peak-time or load shedding periods to: i) saving energy bills and ii) improving electricity security. The key innovations are: i) As the battery system is recycled, it delivers energy security at a price point that's an order of magnitude lower than comparable European and North American solutions. ii) It uses mobile communications technology to integrate the home system to the electricity supplier's systems so that the energy management system could optimize multiple objectives including energy cost, energy security and network congestion. iii) It improves the optimisation performance by integrating real-time load profile estimation from cloud data, which provides an accurate and dynamic understanding of household demand. This project will test the technical and commercial feasibility of such a system to support people in Sub-Saharan Africa. The system will help householders by ensuring that essential services are not interrupted by power cuts, and help them to reduce energy bills. It also helps electricity companies to make fewer power cuts at times of peak load and defer network investment. The recycled hardware will not only stimulate local recycling economy but also give redundant hardware containing toxic materials a second life and saved from landfill. A single kerosene lamp will generate a tonne of carbon over five years. EMBOSSA will also reduce air pollution by enabling local poor households by reducing the use of kerosene.

This fellowship addresses two salient and inter-related questions in current counter-terrorism. First, why and how have counter-terrorism organisations in the transatlantic space transformed since 9/11? Second, given that a lack of trust remains a key inhibitor for better information exchange, how can it be improved? These themes are integrated in three research questions: 1/ Does a Post-Fordist conceptual framework enhance understanding of transatlantic CT transformation? 2/ What are the implications of this transformation for trust and information exchange? 3/ How can trust be improved? To address these questions the fellowship follows two research strands. The first addresses an acknowledged lack of theory in the literature on US and EU CT organisation by providing a major new theoretical explanation of the profound transformation of CT intelligence and policing since 9/11. It will apply a Post-Fordist framework originally used in industrial sociology to better understand the organisational solutions adopted by CT communities. When placed in the wider context of societal change, Post-Fordism's central organisational tenets of outsourcing; a network approach; core-periphery divide; and centralisation and de-centralisation will break new ground in understanding why and how transatlantic CT transformation has occurred. Other military sociology theories will give illuminating new perspectives on top-down innovative or bottom-up adaptive drivers of transformation; the development of professional status and organisational capabilities; the militarisation of police CT responses; and the implications of this transformation for organisational cohesion, trust and liaison, providing the richest sociological analysis to date. Building on three years of research and exploiting the applicant's unique CT network, the second strand follows the end of strand 1 by developing trust and capacity building through the pilot and refinement of a transatlantic CT Centre of Excellence (CoE). Identified by practitioners as sorely needed to help build trust between mid-level operational personnel, it will do so through the development of a syllabus focused on the sharing of operational and organisational lessons, the standardisation of terminology, and the development of trust. As demonstrated by the supporting letters, successful delivery of the CoE will have major international practical impact. With the Post-Fordist transformation context, it will also generate new data on trust building and liaison in this domain. The argument that there has been a transformation of transatlantic CT since 9/11, and that Post-Fordism best explains this, is controversial. Transformation has not been uniform, and many national CT organisations remain resistant, or unable, to change. Nevertheless, there is evidence to suggest that Post-Fordism explains the broad trajectory of CT organisation. To make this argument, the project will first gather data on US, EU and selected EU Member States CT organisation prior to 9/11 to establish a comparative evidential base using primary and secondary sources. Second, using interviews with policymakers and practitioners involved in organisational change, the applicability of the Post-Fordist framework will be analysed, along with top-down and bottom-up drivers of CT transformation. Third, using practitioner interviews and fieldwork observations, some of the lower-level micro sociological aspects of this CT transformation will be examined, such as the militarisation of police CT responses and the importance of professionalism. Fourth, organisational cohesion, trust and liaison in the CT community will be examined through engagement with CoE attendees. Senior practitioners on the Advisory Board will ensure research oversight, while a conference to elucidate key lessons learnt from both strands will occur towards the end of the fellowship.

The utilisation of small molecules such as O2, H2 and N2 in chemical transformations relies on them being able to first coordinate to reactive transition metal complexes. We have recently reported (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2009, 131, 9618; Chem. Eur. J. 2009, 15, 10912) a new ruthenium complex containing four N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligands that shows selectivity in binding these gases as a function of the NHC substituents. We now wish to build upon these initial observations to see whether this Ru multi-NHC 'scaffold' can be used to incorporate the bound O2, H2 and N2 molecules into catalytic reactions (oxidation, hydrogenation etc) and, on the basis or additional preliminary results, whether we can induce more exotic types of molecules such as white phosphorus (P4) and ammonia boranes (R2HNBH3) to take part in both novel stoichiometric and catalytic transformations.Efforts will be directed at preparing new Ru(NHC)4 fragments that contain abnormally coordinated NHCs, afford reactive heteroatom hydride products and precursors to long sought after naked 16e RuL4 species for intermolecular C-H activation. We will build upon more preliminary results with a Ru(NHC)3 fragment in an effort to bring about catalytic H-X addition to alkenes. It is important to establish whether the rich chemistry of these multi-NHC complexes hinted at by our published work and preliminary data can be extended on from Ru to other transition metals, both in the same group (specifically Fe) and surrounding groups (Mo, W, Re).

Homogeneous catalysts offer several advantages over their heterogeneous counterparts; including the greater selectivity and controllability because their molecular nature ensures that only one type of active site is present. Furthermore, it is estimated that 85% of all chemical processes are run catalytically, with the ratio of applications of heterogeneous to homogeneous catalysis of ca. 75:25.However, continuous flow processes involving homogeneous catalysis present difficulties and many efficient systems in batch processes cannot be transferred to flow. A major problem is associated with separating the products from the catalyst. The group at Bath has recently prepared two types of catalyst consisting of either organometallic species or a metallic shell around superparamagnetic iron oxide cores. Preliminary results indicate that immobilized sulfonated phosphines or acetate ligands allow the coordination of rhodium or palladium complexes that efficiently catalyse (up to 100% conversion) the conjugate addition of boronic acids, and Suzuki and Heck coupling, as well as hydrogenation and dihydroxylation reactions. The catalysts retained activity after magnetic separation, in some cases even after 10 consecutive runs. In this proposal we wish to develop flow chemistry protocols for the palladium-catalysed coupling of aminoalkylboron reagents using new types of magnetically moveable and recoverable semi-homogeneous catalysts. Their size means that they operate in the same manner as homogeneous catalysts but they are easily recovered in a magnetic field. With a clear emphasis on developing methodology of broad application to the synthesis of medicinal compounds, we will focus on the catalytic aminomethylation of aryl/vinyl halides as a strategic alternative to reductive amination. Normally the magnetic properties of the nanoparticles have been used to facilitate separation from the reaction product(s). We wish to extend this by further exploitation of the magnetism to (i) entrap the nanoparticle catalyst within certain regions of a flow reactor and (ii) to apply alternating magnetic fields to manipulate and move the nanoparticles around the reactor, enhancing mass transfer. This new technology will offer a number of advantages, chiefly entrapment of the homogeneous catalyst in the reactor without necessity of separation from products.