Increasing levels of urbanization and climate change dictate that managing surface water in cities is an area of major concern. At present the maintainers of the surface water drainage infrastructure have a limited understanding of the way in which this network operates and how it should best be maintained to protect citizens from the risks of flooding and environmental damage through pollution. Existing systems, pioneered by members of this consortium, have recently enabled new forms of intelligent maintenance regimes but their effectiveness is severely constrained by the limited data available. In this project we will create a system that delivers a step-change in the quality and quantity of data available from our urban water infrastructure and enables a transformation in our understanding of the network and how best it can be maintained. If successful we will deliver a world-class urban surface water management system that can be used to increase the effectiveness of city maintenance practices, support new data-driven applications and reduce overall costs in a time of increasing urbanization.

Helping to address the sustainability agenda through informed personal travel has been an area of intense research activity with many new forms of information collection and dissemination having been investigated. Much less well studied is the problem of maintaining the transport infrastructure in a sustainable fashion. In our work we wish to explore in the wild how new developments in travel information gathering and dissemination can be used to drive more sustainable approaches to maintaining the UK's transport infrastructure. The project builds on successful collaborations established through funded research projects (Our Travel (TSB), Faith (TSB/EPSRC), Smart Streets (TSB)) and looks to test in the wild ideas emerging from new areas of academic research as typified by the RCUK funded Sixth Sense Transport project. Our work builds on two recent research projects, i.e. Our Travel and Sixth Sense. Within the Our Travel project the consortium have shown how crowd-sourced transport information can be integrated with highways maintenance activities to help better coordinate work activities and to ensure timely dissemination of information regarding maintenance activities to travellers. The on-going Sixth Sense Transport project is a multidisciplinary academic research project involving the Universities of Southampton (transport), Edinburgh (design), Salford (psychology) and Bournemouth (tourism) that is looking to encourage travellers to adopt a more sustainable approach to travel. To this end the project is developing applications that allow travellers to see predictions of future travel patterns of other users, enabling them to avoid congestion and make more opportunistic use of travel links, particularly across transport modes and between travellers. For example, the project looks to encourage travellers to identify opportunities for shared travel, convert single-purpose trips into multi-purpose trips, engage in collaborative logistics and shift to mixed-mode transport by providing simple interactive maps that show traces of both past and future travel patterns. Our interest is in exploring whether the idea of using such predictive travel patterns can help provide a more sustainable approach to maintaining the UK's transport infrastructure. At present many highways maintenance activities are driven largely by a need to comply with contractual KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). This tends to lead to an inherently unsustainable "earliest deadline first" approach to scheduling that significantly increases the environmental overhead associated with highways maintenance. Prediction of future travel patterns may help in two distinct ways. Firstly, by enabling highways maintenance engineers to predict future travel patterns they can schedule work in a way that minimises traffic disruption - particularly with respect to journeys that involve multiple transport modes (e.g. driving to the station to catch a train). This can lead to a significant reduction in congestion and associated emissions. Secondly, by predicting future travel patterns of their own maintenance vehicles highways maintenance engineers can maximise the potential for opportunistic improvements to work-flows. For example, it may be possible to identify opportunities for maintenance operatives to opportunistically share tools and materials such as tarmac without the need to return to base between road repairs - reducing transport costs and environmental impact. More generally, in this research we are looking to enable a shift from a reactive, and distinctly inefficient and environmentally costly model of scheduling to a predictive, opportunistic model that looks to minimise the environmental impact of work.

The main objective of the project was to help develop the European tourism sector, by promoting, developing and improving the skills and knowledge of tourism professionals in the field of sustainability and quality principles, so that they are able to face the following issues:- Properly manage their facilities, by taking into account environmental protection, use of resources as well as economic development;- To understand and implement European Tourism Quality Principles, so that professionals effectively know them and learn how to make appropriate use of them during their daily decisions;- The use of cultural and environmental heritage as a driver for sustainable development and competitiveness of valuable destinations, with high tourism potential.The Tourism sector heavily impacts on the development of contemporary European society; furthermore, tourism professionals are not always best prepared to assess the impact they can make in terms of sustainable development due to low skill levels and high turnover in the sector. The sector also has a skills and seasonality issue to deal with. Target groups were professionals in the tourism sector (mainly hoteliers and accommodation providers but some of the curriculum is also suitable for others in the tourism industry, e.g. attractions) or those considering working in the tourism sector. The training model was developed through the following activities:- Needs analysis and investigation on the state of the art, at the national level, leading to an overarching set of guidelines, based on a cross-national analysis of the cases;- Development of training modules, based on the results of the needs analysis and consultation with the industry, specific to the tourism sector and especially to hotel hospitality;- Development of a platform (SMARTOUR GENIE tool) which provides a personalised approach for learners in their daily decisions, so that they undertake sustainability as a competitive advantage for their companies and businesses;- Development of a system of certification of acquired skills, complying with the ECVET system and ensuring European-wide recognition;- Testing, refinement and final development of the training modules and SMARTOUR GENIE tool.The project consortium represented well Europe (IT, UK, FI, GR). There was a very good range of partners in terms of the type of organizations involved (from SMEs and tourism associations to experts in professional training), which ensured a correct interpretation of the market and training needs due to complementary competences (technical knowledge, experience in marketing, experience on sustainability).A facebook page is available entitled Sustainable Tourism in Europe at https://www.facebook.com/smartourproject/ The project website is at http://www.smartourproject.eu/

Increasing global competition for natural resources poses major challenges to the Arctic. ArcticHubs will develop sustainable solutions for reconciliation of competing livelihoods and land-use modes in key Arctic ‘hubs’—important socioeconomic nodes in a geographical network—and their surroundings, considering in particular the needs and cultures of local communities (incl. indigenous people). This will be achieved by applying multi- and interdisciplinary, multi-actor participatory approaches to systematically map, identify and analyse global drivers and pressures with high environmental, societal and economic impacts affecting 33 key hubs examining sustainability of fish farming, multiple use of forests, tourism, mining and indigenous cultures. The outcome of ArcticHubs will be the provision of solution-oriented tools, such as improved public participatory geographical information systems, guidelines for ‘social license to operate’, and future scenarios to Arctic communities, industrial stakeholders, decision- and policymakers, and other relevant actors. This will enable creation and implementation of regional development strategies that reconcile new economic opportunities with traditional livelihoods, and increase the resilience of both new and existing industries and livelihoods against environmental, economic and political changes in the Arctic. The impact of the project will be long-term sustainability and resilience of future environmental, socio-cultural, economic and political factors in the increasingly competitive and globalised Arctic, enhancing social acceptance of increased economic activity. These impacts will contribute to the implementation of the new integrated EU policy for the Arctic, IPPC assessments and other major regional and global initiatives, provide support to the EU Arctic Research Cluster, and enhance engagement of and interaction between local (incl. indigenous), national and global actors.

Rapidly developing digital technologies, together with social and business trends, are providing huge opportunities for innovation in product and service markets, and also in government processes. Technology developments drive socioeconomic and behavioural changes and vice versa, and the rate of change in these makes tracking and responding to high-speed developments a significant challenge in public and private sectors alike. Agile governance and policy-making for emerging technologies is likely to become a key theme in strategic thinking for the public and private sectors. Particular trends that are challenging now, and will increasingly challenge society include developments in technologies on the outskirts of the internet. These include Artificial Intelligence, not just in the cloud but in Edge computing, and in Internet of Things devices and networks. Alongside and in conjunction with this ecosystem, is Distributed Ledger Technology. Together this ensemble of technologies will enable innovations that promote productivity, like peer-to-peer dynamic contracts and other decision processes, with or without human sight or intervention. However, the ensemble's autonomy, proliferation and use in critical applications, makes the potential for hacking and similar attacks very significant, with the likelihood of them growing to become an issue of strategic national importance. To address this challenge, and to preserve the immense economic and productivity benefits that will come from the successful deployment and application of digital technologies 'at the edge', a focused initiative is needed. Ideally, this will use the UK's current platform of experience in the safe and secure application of the Internet of Things. The contributors to this platform include PETRAS partners, and several other centres of excellence around the UK. It is therefore proposed to build an inclusive PETRAS 2 Research Centre with national strategic value, on the established and successful platform of the PETRAS Hub. This will inherit its governance and management models, which have demonstrated the ability to coordinate and convene collaboration across 11 universities and 110 industrial and government User Partners, but will importantly step up its mission and inclusivity through open research calls for new and existing academic partners. PETRAS 2 will maintain an agile and shared research agenda that views social and physical science challenges with equal measure, and covers a broad range of Technology Readiness Levels, particularly those close to market. It will operate as a virtual centre, providing a magnet for collaboration for user partners and a single expert voice for government. User partner engagement is likely to be strong following the successes of the current PETRAS programme, which has raised over £1m in cash contributions from partners during 2018. The new PETRAS 2 'Secure Digital Technologies at the Edge' methodology will inherit the best of PETRAS, including open calls to the UK research community and a partnership-building fund that allows a responsive approach to opportunities that emerge from existing and new user and academic partnerships. PETRAS 2 will be driven by sectoral cybersecurity priorities while retaining a discovery research agenda to horizon-scan and develop understanding of new threats and opportunities. The scope of projects and the associated Innovate UK SDTaP demonstrators, spans early to late TRLs and aims to put knowledge into real user partner practice. Furthermore, the development of many early career researchers through PETRAS 2 research activities should lead to a step change in our national capability and capacity to address this highly dynamic area of socio-technical opportunity and risk.