Delivery of net-zero carbon buildings is a critical and urgent component of UK legal obligation to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 (BEIS, 2019a). The construction sector represents 10% of UK carbon emissions and directly influences 47% of all national emissions (NFB, 2019). While there has been significant technical progress, the UK building stock remains one of the most energy inefficient in Europe and the Government is not on-track to meeting its decarbonisation goals (BEIS, 2019). Most research into this 'performance gap' focuses on either technical problems and solutions (De Wilde, 2014) or on the promise of new integrator roles (Parag and Janda, 2014), with little discussion of the professional and organisational issues that challenge the delivery of net zero carbon buildings. The current organisational structure of projects has direct implications for the delivery of low and net-zero-carbon buildings. Construction projects are temporary organisations, involving multiple disciplines, multiple firms and multiple phases - each with its own teams and extensive sub-contracting (Winch, 1998). Organisational boundaries shape who participates in the specification of design problems and solutions and their transmission across project teams and phases. They also establish who is accountable for particular targets and who is not. When faced with a new task, professionals often sub-contract work out to a team of specialists with no awareness or responsibility for the design as a whole. The result is that solutions developed at one moment in time are not fully understood, as they are passed from one phase to another and carbon targets often fall off the agenda. The proposed research explores these effects by examining the initial development and ongoing modification of carbon reduction design solutions in six cases of new and retrofit commercial buildings. Commercial buildings tend to be bespoke, making the formulation and communication of solutions across organisational boundaries all the more critical. The research will be developed in dialogue with industry partners involved in these six cases. Special attention will be paid to the way in which design solutions are embedded in visual representations and physical artifacts, which are subsequently re-interpreted and modified. Findings resulting from this novel approach promise to contribute targeted guidance for the development of net-zero carbon buildings, the organisational and professional capability development of firms, professional training and educational curriculum. Together researchers and upwards of 30 industry partners, involved in six projects, will explore the effect of organisational boundaries on the delivery of low and net zero carbon buildings, revise firm-level protocols and develop capacity. In addition, the project will contribute to policy and professional guidance for net-zero carbon building, to teaching case studies for use in HE and CPD training and to a climate change and de-carbonisation educational management framework for built environment curricula, currently under development by the Climate Curriculum Project. By focusing on teams of sustainable minded professionals with a history of working together and professed commitments to carbon reduction, the research also provides an opportunity to capture, further develop and diffuse good practice.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the environment is driven by antibiotics released in the urine of humans and animals into sewage and ultimately the receiving rivers. AMR is also released from within the gut bacteria that are shed in faeces of both humans and animals. In both cases, antibiotics and AMR-containing gut bacteria are released into the environment through sewage. Despite the continued release of both antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant bacteria into our rivers, we still don't know the relative role that they play in explaining the amount of antibiotic resistance that we see in our environment. This is a critically important knowledge gap as it prevents industry and policy makers from determining where to spend our time and resources so as to lower this 'environmental reservoir of antimicrobial resistance'. Sewage contains thousands of chemicals, many of which are at concentrations sufficient to inhibit or kill bacteria. Microbes defend themselves from these chemicals with a range of strategies, all of which have genes that are broadly classified as 'resistance genes'. Hence, sewage is an excellent place to find bacteria rich in resistance genes. Many of these genes are known to be mobile, which allows for the genes to be shared, thereby increasing its abundance within the environment. This mobility of genes is key to why it is so difficult to know what is driving AMR in the environment-a bit like 'which came first, the chicken or the egg.' Are the concentrations of antibiotics present in sewage sufficiently high to select for resistance genes in the environment or are the genes for resistance simply spreading from the gut-derived bacteria into the native environmental microorganisms? The keys to answering this question lie in the following two questions: 1) Do genes released from sewage move into and persist in the natural microbial community without continued exposure to critical threshold concentrations of antibiotics; and 2) Are the critical threshold concentrations in the environment sufficiently high to maintain gut-derived AMR genes in the natural microbial community or select for them all on their own? In the proposed research we aim to answer these two key questions using four innovative experimental systems: 1) a small laboratory microfluidic system for the precise control and manipulation of microbial biofilms; 2) an in situ river mesocosm and 3) ex situ macrocosm which can also control and manipulate microbial biofilms under controlled conditions with the addition of antibiotics and/or antibiotic resistance genes; and finally 4) the use of the freshwater shrimp, Gammarus pulex, as an indicator species of environments where the reservoir of antibiotic resistance is elevated. In the case of the Gammarus, we will study the microorganisms that live within this shrimp and determine if these microbes acquire similar antibiotic resistance traits as those found in identically-exposed biofilms. Modern molecular techniques (i.e, metagenomes, plasmid metagenomes, qPCR, meta-transcriptomes), will be used to quantify treatment effects within biofilms and Gammarus. The data from these studies will be used to parameterise a mathematical/statistical model that will be designed for use by regulators, industry and academia to better predict and understand the risks posed by AMR in the environment.

Female academics, particularly in STEM subjects, score consistently lower than male academics in metrics measuring international [1] and industrial collaborations [2]. These two related assessment criteria are key at all stages in academic careers and particularly important at senior levels to secure the highest value research grants and promotions. While several barriers have been identified to academic career advancement for women and have led to strategic interventions at national and institutional levels, there remains a lack of data and action specifically targeting networking and collaboration - the focus of this VisNET programme. Our vision is 1) To identify key barriers to international collaboration for female engineering academics 2) To design and demonstrate interventions and new best practices in networking and collaborations to define a new and more effective normal. The emergence and rapid development of technologies that support geographically remote working relationships presents a timely opportunity. Effective use of such tools could help to correct the disadvantages experienced by women in international collaboration. We propose an intervention to determine and remodel the implicit 'rules' of networking and collaboration. This pilot project is aimed at a cohort of female post-doctoral researchers (PDRAs). Transition from post-doc to academic is a key attrition point for women in engineering. Success is reliant on demonstrating the means to develop academic independence. Possession of a strong network can be crucial. At the same time this group has relative freedom to trial new approaches of working and represents a critical mass to demonstrate and embed novel methods, including a route to involve more established academics. Thus, the interdisciplinary academic and industrial consortium we have brought together will lead the way in developing, integrating and advocating a new approach where networking and collaboration is conducted predominantly in situ (i.e. from home institutions). We believe that at this critical postdoctoral stage implementation of strategic networking and collaboration can be career defining, providing crucial routes to build confidence, establish future academic independence and funding success. Furthermore, it has the potential to mitigate the impact of future career breaks and parenthood. By demonstrating that networks can be built without frequent travel, it will also address the perception that an academic career is incompatible with work-life balance or family responsibilities, factors identified by junior researchers when consulted about their choice to leave academia [3]. While we see here an opportunity to have a rapid tangible impact on the academic career of a finite group of women, VisNET will also act as an effective route to embed our approaches into the working practices of our universities. Effective in situ networking has the potential to directly tackle negative perceptions of work-life balance in academia, contribute to the promotion of flexible working patterns and advance inclusivity for other minority academic communities such as academics with disabilities or remotely located. The coordinated outcome of this programme fits directly into EPSRC's and our Universities' strategic plans to build leadership, accelerate impact and balance capabilities ensuring the continued progression of UK emerging research leaders by enhancing their experiences and embedding career robustness. [1] Larivière et al., "Bibliometrics: Global gender disparities in science," Nat. News, vol. 504, no. 7479, p. 211, 2013 [2] Tartari & A. Salter, "The engagement gap: Exploring gender differences in University - Industry collaboration activities," Res. Policy, vol. 44, no. 6, pp. 1176-1191, 2015 [3] Shaw & Stanton, "Leaks in the pipeline: separating demographic inertia from ongoing gender differences in academia," Proc. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci., vol. 279, no. 1743, p. 3736, 2012

Current global infrastructure is plagued by ageing and deterioration and the scale of investment needed for maintaining its functionality is immense. With many nations having entered an era of austerity and financial restraint, the demand for infrastructure life-extension is currently more prevalent than ever. In these countries, however, asset owners have difficulties managing their infrastructure due to the absence of reliable data about the true 'state of health' of their assets. The proposed research centres on the development of engineered cementitious composites with a built-in self-monitoring system termed smart-ECCs (s-ECCs). This self-monitoring feature can provide future civil engineering infrastructure with a 'brain and nervous' system, enabling structures to sense and respond to the internal changes and external environment without the need of additional sensors. Furthermore, introducing 'smartness' to ECCs could also give the material a number of non-structural applications thereby making the material multi-functional. The research proposed will provide a comprehensive study of the rheological, mechanical and a.c. electrical properties of s-ECCs. It will be the first to undertake a detailed study into the electrical properties of ECCs from initial gauging, throughout setting and long-term hardening and into its piezo-resistive response under mechanical and environmental loading. A fuller understanding of these technical aspects will allow development standarised test protocols that can be further implemented in real-world applications. The novelty of the proposed research lies in the use of recycled, milled carbon (MC) fibres as conductive filler in ECC systems. As the length of MC fibres is equivalent to the characteristic crack width of ECCs, it is anticipated that the fibres will not bridge the micro-cracks in ECC, allowing the material sensitivity to cracks formation to be maintained thereby fulfilling its function as a damage sensor. At the same time, the high aspect ratio of MC fibres would allow the formation electrical continuity within the ECC matrix at practically low dosage rates. This is 'percolated' fibre network is essential to ensure that the influence of hydration and moisture changes in the material will not have appreciable influence on the bulk conductivity thereby minimising false sensing.

Historic rock-mounted lighthouses play a vital role in the safe navigation around perilous reefs. However their longevity is threatened by the battering of waves which may be set to increase with climate change. Virtual navigational aids such as GPS are fallible, and reliance on them can be disastrous. Mariners will therefore continue to need the physical visual aids of these strategic structures. The loss of any reef lighthouse will be incalculable in terms of safety, trade and heritage. Plymouth University has trialled the use of recording instruments to capture limited information on the loading and response of Eddystone Lighthouse, with the support of the General Lighthouse Authorities (GLAs) having legal responsibility to safeguard aids to marine navigation around the British Isles. The study evaluated the extreme logistical constraints of lighthouse operations and the feasibility of using instrumentation to understand the response of the lighthouse to wave loads, with results strongly encouraging a comprehensive study of the load and response environment. Hence a full-scale project is proposed whereby field, laboratory and mathematical/computer modelling methods, novel both individually and collectively, will be used to assess six of the most vulnerable rock lighthouses in the UK and Ireland. Depending on the findings the investigation will then focus on extended full-scale evaluation of one lighthouse for the following two winters. The field instrumentation run by University of Exeter, and which will include modal testing and long term instrumentation will require novel procedures and technologies to be created to deal with the challenging environmental and logistical constraints e.g. of access, timing power. The modal test data will be used to guide the creation, by UCL, of sophisticated multi-scale numerical simulations of lighthouses that can be used with the data to diagnose observed performance in the long-term monitoring. The numerical structural model will also be linked with advanced physical modelling at Plymouth University's COAST Laboratory, and numerical (computational fluid dynamic) simulations. Finally, based on the structural and wave loading models, the long term monitoring will be used to characterize the wave loading in-situ at full scale. Outcomes of the project will be used to inform the comprehensive structural health monitoring of other lighthouses both in the British Isles and further afield through the International Association of Lighthouse Authorities. This will lead to the identification of structural distress and reduction in the risk of failure through preventative measures. Methods developed will also be of relevance to other masonry structures under wave loads so the project team includes a number of industrial partners: AECOM, Atkins, HR Wallingford and the Environment Agency who have interests in this area. As the UK has a large number of ageing coastal defences whose vulnerability to wave load was demonstrated in the winter 2013/14 storms, the applicability of the STORMLAMP findings to these structures is an important additional benefit of the project.