Chemical technologies underpin almost every aspect of our lives, from the energy we use to the materials we rely on and the medications we take. The UK chemical industry generates £73.3 billion revenue and employs 161,000 highly skilled workers. It is highly diverse (therefore resilient) with SMEs and microbusinesses making up a remarkable 96% of the sector. Today's global chemicals industry is responsible for 10% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and consumes 20% of oil and gas as carbon feedstock to make products. Decarbonisation (defossilisation) of the chemicals sector is, therefore, urgently required, but to do so presents major technical and societal challenges. New sustainable chemical technologies, enabled by new synthesis, catalysis, reaction engineering, digitalisation and sustainability assessment, are needed. In order to ensure that the UK develops a resource efficient, resilient and sustainable economy underpinned by chemical manufacturing, developments in chemical technologies must be closely informed by whole systems approaches to measure and minimise environmental footprints, understand supply chains and assess economic and technological viability, using techniques such as life cycle assessment and material flow analysis. Lack of access to experts in science and engineering with a holistic understanding of sustainable systems is widely and publicly recognised as a significant risk. It is therefore extremely timely to establish a new EPSRC CDT in Sustainable Chemical Technologies that fully integrates a whole systems approach to training and world leading research in an innovation-driven context. This CDT will train the next generation of leaders in sustainable chemical technologies with new skills to address the growing demand for highly skilled PhD graduates with the ability to develop and transfer sustainable practices into industry and society. The new CDT will be a unique and vibrant focus of innovative doctoral training in the UK by taking full advantage of two exciting new developments at Bath. First, the CDT will be embedded in our new Institute for Sustainability (IfS) which has evolved from the internationally leading Centre for Sustainable and Circular Technologies (CSCT) and which fully integrates whole systems research and sustainable chemical technologies - two world-leading research groupings at Bath - under one banner. Second, the CDT will operate in close partnership with our recently established Swindon-based Innovation Centre for Applied Sustainable Technologies (iCAST, www.iCAST.org.uk) a £17M partnership for the rapid translation of university research to provide a dynamic innovation-focused context for PhD training in the region. Our fresh and dynamic approach has been co-created with key industrial, research, training and civic partners who have indicated co-investment of over £17M of support. This unique partnership will ensure that a new generation of highly skilled, entrepreneurial, innovative PhD graduates is nurtured to be the leaders of tomorrow's green industrial revolution in the UK.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

The title of this project, 'Nature's Great Experiment', refers to the phrase that scientists and behavioural geneticists use to describe their research with identical twins. Behavioural genetics seeks to understand both the genetic and environmental contributions to individual variations in human behavior. \n\nI will interview and record Professor Terrie Moffitt and her research team at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London. Professor Moffitt is Professor of Social Behaviour and Development in the Department of Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry. Professor Moffitt and her team are directly involved with the area of scientific enquiry that is behavioural genetics - and specifically the study of twins and human behaviour. From these recorded interviews/conversations I will make a 15 minute, narrative, portrait based, documentary - style film. The film will also use drawings that have been made by the twins and the researchers, produced in the course of their research. The work will be based on case studies, academic/scientific research and anecdotal experience. This research will manifest itself as a short poetic film, and a series of exhibitions with a companion hardcopy publication.\n\nThe resulting works will ultimately deal with ideas of the human body, nature, evolution, the location of the human soul and the ability to change people's lives, (if not the world), through science, ideas and belief.\n\nOver the past five years my films have become increasingly influenced by the narrative structures found in the works of artists/filmmakers such as: Andy Warhol, Ondi Timoner, Chris Smith and Sarah Price, Sarah Tripp and Penelope Spheris. All of these artist/filmmakers have made work through the use of single camera and single microphone recording techniques. These works also all deal in some form of documentary and/or portraiture and that is where the core of their inspiration lies for me. \n\nI have been studying the recording styles of these artists while developing my own distinct style through the exploration of digital video editing, animation and software manipulation techniques. My recent exhibition, 'don't stop 'til you get enough', at Matt's Gallery London, April / June 2005, consisted of five, single-screen, portrait based video works. All of these works manifest the idea that narrative and structured storytelling can become the primary source for content within contemporary art videos. These works all contest the conventional idea that contemporary art based videos are ambient in nature, and seemingly without the recognized structure of a beginning, middle and end. The works included in, 'don't stop 'til you get enough', all required the audience to focus their attention for a concentrated period of time. Although they were exhibited together as a group, each work had its own distinct and strong identity. This was achieved not only through the different qualities and subject matter within each work, but also through the different ways in which the works were installed. I intend to continue this model of exhibiting a selection of works together but in different manners of actual installation. The films exist autonomously and completely, but within this context they also work as an accumulative effect towards an exhibition experience. \n\nI will continue to explore the exhibition of single screen works in the manner of 'Nature's Great Experiment'. Universally, the works are documentary-based portraits, constructed from both found and originally generated materials.\n

To understand biological processes at a molecular detail one needs to capture and visualize proteins in action. Modern structural biology methods such as X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy (CryoEM) could provide static high-resolution snapshots of protein structures, but they are unable to capture proteins in motion to reveal dynamic function. The new state-of-the-art electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectrometer in Leeds will be capable of extracting accurate distances between pairs of unpaired electrons engineered on protein sites and thus acting as a molecular nanoscale-ruler. The accurate measurement of such distances over a protein's functional cycle will thereby enable the elucidation of fundamental biological processes. Pulsed EPR is a powerful method in modern biomolecular research and has seen tremendous technical advances over the last 10 years with sensitivity increasing by more than an order of magnitude. As a network of protein structural molecular biologists in Leeds (including several leading EPR specialists), consider PELDOR as a key approach in the future of biosciences. We have a very large base of users in Leeds, nationally (Imperial, King's, Glasgow, St Andrews) and abroad (EU, Australia and India) and an unmatched variety of fundamental biological systems with representative proteins across all kingdoms of life. These proteins are involved in a wide range of disease-related biological mechanisms from cancer and neurodegeneration to antimicrobial resistance and metabolism. Novel information for fundamental biological machineries in molecular detail and currently inaccessible by other methods, would be first revealed by the new EPR spectrometer. Our investigators, collaborators and industrial partners come from a wide range of national and international institutions. We have an extensive track record in the field of EPR and biological and medical sciences and anticipate this installation will substantially increase the UK's capability and reputation in biological EPR worldwide. Our business case will ensure sustainability for the Leeds-based centre and will serve the North East and other Universities as demonstrated by our list of groups and investigators actively supporting BioEmPiRe. The position of an EPR staff scientist will be secured for an initial period of two years through a contribution by the University of Leeds. In addition, intended location will be fully refurbished and a chiller will be purchased to enable the optimal installation and operation of the spectrometer. The instrument will be part of the UK academic and industrial networks further ensuring sustainability. These upgrades will allow the UK to remain internationally competitive and to continue developing and applying the EPR methodology to important problems across the biosciences.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.