In a circular economy, clean growth is achieved by increasing the value derived from existing and planned economic infrastructure, products and materials which in turn significantly reduces or eliminates negative externalities. Increased value can be achieved by maintaining the integrity of a product or material at a higher level, using products longer, cascading their use in adjacent value chains and designing pure, high quality feedstocks (avoiding contamination and toxicity). A circular economy approach to plastics addresses simultaneously the accumulation, impact and costs in the environment whilst maintaining applications for multiple high value purposes. To translate potential to reality requires new circular plastics systems that a) co-ordinate and integrate key system players and activities across the value chain b) are underpinned by rigorous scientific research evidence; c) promote novel and creative approaches to the circulation and cascading of plastics in society and; d) demonstrate and proof points in support of decision-making and action at varying s Ths proposal will connect excellent institutional research activities within a single highly visible Multidisciplinary Plastics Research Hub - "ExeMPlaR" led by the University of Exeter to provide the first stage in a comprehensive, systematic and coordinated approach to the formation of a novel and creative circular economies, using regional demonstrators in the SW of England to test a number of key building blocks. This will be based on system-oriented innovation and high quality inter-disciplinary and collaborative scientific research within a proven, cohesive circular economy framework to address both the cause(s) of the problems and efforts to solve them rather than just treating the symptoms. This research effort involves the demonstration of the technical feasibility and superior economic, material, health, environmental and social value of a circular economy system re-design against a current linear base case. Expert-led, technical solutions by themselves however are unlikely to be effective and require in addition a theory of change that connects human behaviours, social systems and structures with circular economy principles. ExeMPLaR will bring together business, policy, community, environmental, and media representatives with a shared 'narrative' (in this case , a new Circular Plastics Economy) values and ideas, to jointly identify and work on a complex set of activities and pilot projects, that together form an effective innovation ecosystem (WP1). EXeMPLaR will undertake a novel and creative approach to impact by applying the principles of networks of transformative change into a circular economy project. ExeMPLaR therefore focusses on the current plastic system and address the potential to create higher value from existing plastic flows, create new opportunities for regional design and closed loop manufacturing and community initiatives, reduce negative externalities and create networks for transformational change to co-design and support systems innovations required at regional scale. To achieve this vision many challenges have to be overcome. To start the process of creating effective regional plastics economies, ExeMPLaR will synthesise an authoritative evidence base to inform regional actions, interventions and evaluation. This will build on a wide range of world leading plastics research at Exeter. We will translate these findings into the first stage of an evaluation tool and apply these to three front runner regional interventions, and additional smaller projects co-designed and prioritized by our network, to test opportunities for re-using, replacing or eliminating certain categories of fossil fuel derived plastic. After testing the impacts, outcomes and value creation potential we will address the potential challenges and enablers to replication and scaling these interventions at regional and national scale.

Coral reefs are the most diverse marine ecosystems on Earth and provide enormous economic value for hundreds of millions of people including fisheries, tourism, and coastal protection. However, these benefits are threatened by the rapid decline of coral reefs resulting from accelerating human impacts on local to global scales. Confronting this reef crisis with limited resources requires prioritisation of protection actions, and many researchers are now turning to reef ecosystems living outside of typical shallow, clear-water habitats as critical priorities for additional research. There is new evidence that these so-called marginal reefs living in turbid or deeper water can be more resilient to bleaching, changes in water quality, and other impacts. Increased bleaching resilience might result from sediments in the water that limit UV stress, or because the corals may be more readily able to take advantage of food sources in the plankton. Thus, marginal reefs potentially serve as refugia for resilient corals, and could be critical for the future recovery of declining clear-water reefs. However, most studies of marginal reefs have focused on contemporary (and in a few cases historical) assessments from sites on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and the Caribbean. New datasets from different regions are needed to capture the full range of modern human impacts (especially in areas of the most diverse coral development), and we also need data that spans the timescales (centuries to millennia) necessary to capture coral ecological adaptation and migration within marginal settings. In this context, recent discoveries of exceptionally preserved fossils from the Coral Triangle (CT) region of Southeast Asia provide a unique opportunity to integrate present-day ecological data with information from the geological record to document the evolutionary and ecological history of turbid water reefs in the modern-day global biodiversity hotspot. There is an urgent need for more information on the diversity, structure, and functioning of marginal reefs in the CT in order to help develop management strategies they continue to respond to human impacts. The long-term temporal scope of our study is thus significant. A growing body of research aims to describe the composition, distribution, and genetic structure of potential present-day reef refugia and we will add data from the fossil record into these analyses. There is a compelling case to do this because reef resilience is likely to be shaped by long-term processes with deep roots in evolutionary history. We will assess the dual role of marginal reefs in the CT as both cradles and refugia of diversity. Key research questions include: 1) has coral diversity of marginal ecosystems changed through time? 2) how have reef communities responded to environmental changes on regional or global scales? 3) how has reef functioning in marginal settings changed and what have been the consequences for reef-associated biota? 4) how easy has it been for reef-corals to move from marginal to clear-water reefs during the evolution of the biodiversity hotspot, and 5) what could be the consequences for the modern biota if clear water habitats become increasingly inhospitable? To address these questions we will produce new comprehensive datasets of species occurrences, abundances, morphological traits, ecological data, and environments that cover 30 million years of reef history of the CT. With this resource, we will provide rigorous answers to long-debated issues by applying new tools for molecular systematics, geochemistry, and evolutionary patterns to modern reefs and an extensive and well-sampled fossil record. Ultimately, we will be able to reveal the murky history of marginal reefs in the CT and better understand the potential future trajectories of change for coral reefs in the CT and in other regions that depend on coral reefs for their economic and ecological value.

Marine litter (manufactured solid waste) forms a serious threat to the marine environment and needs immediate action. Research shows us that marine litter is linked with huge financial costs, causes massive disruption to the environment, and harms wildlife. For example, over 690 species have been found to be impacted by marine litter. A recent review estimated that the collective social, environmental, and economic cost of one tonne of marine plastic alone can equate to $3,300-33,000. One effective way to help tackle marine litter is engaging the public through citizen science. Citizen science projects involve members of the public to help the scientific process, typically by recording and removing marine litter items found in different marine environments. For example, the Marine Conservation Society runs year-round events where members of the public remove and record litter items found on beaches, whereby over 11,000 metric tonnes of waste have been removed from the UK coast in 25 years. To maximise the benefits of these projects for science, the volunteers as well as the marine environment it is important to gain a clear insight into the obstacles and benefits of using citizen science. Such insight will then help develop clear step-by-step processes to maximise their benefit. Our research team has been involved in an ongoing UK-Brazilian project. Initial findings of this project identified the importance of placing equal importance to the science and the citizen scientists (the volunteers) to maximise outcomes of such projects. The quality and quantity of scientific data generated by citizen science is closely linked to volunteer experiences, motivations and continued engagement. We therefore need to better understand how to improve the quality of research conducted in this field and improve the experience of the volunteers involved in citizen science. To achieve these goals, we need to develop agreement amongst experts about how we can do this. To get the most meaningful outcomes we need to engage with a range of experts and active volunteers (the citizen scientists) involved in citizen science from around the world within different cultural, societal, political and environmental contexts. This will help maximise our understanding of successful citizen science projects for a broad context. We will engage with users (researchers and practitioners) of citizen science in two ways, first, using the team's connections, around 160 people from around the world will be asked to complete an online questionnaire (including users that run these initiatives and active volunteers). This will tell us more about how and why they use citizen science, what are the main obstacles they have encountered when using citizen science, and what they feel is needed to improve citizen science related to marine litter. Second, around 35 of the experts will be asked to attend a 2-day workshop where we will discuss the results from the questionnaire and have in-depth discussions about the step-by-step processes needed to improve citizen science. By using international experts in citizen science, we will be able to extend the work that we have already done and look at whether people in different countries face different challenges to those we see in Brazil and the UK and identify appropriate solutions. The areas that are identified through our international questionnaire and workshop will be developed into research priorities used to shape a research agenda for developing marine litter citizen science. This research agenda will be published alongside summary practical guidelines and used to support future activities into marine litter citizen science. This project will also allow us to link up the experts needed to take the research agenda forward. By conducting this project, we will be able to meet our overarching vision of understanding the practical ways in how citizen science related to marine litter can be advanced.

Growing evidence suggests that anthropogenic litter, particularly plastic pollution, represents a highly pervasive and persistent threat due to its potential to cause ecological and socio-economic impacts (Beaumont et al., 2019). For example, entanglement, ingestion and the associated increased risk of exposure to chemical contaminants, seabed smothering and abrasion, spread of invasive species, and detrimental effects on human health and well-being. Understanding the abundance, distribution and composition of litter along coastlines is important for designing and implementing effective management strategies aimed at reducing future inputs. Gathering such data, however, can be expensive and time-consuming but organisations that enlist volunteers - or citizen scientists - to clean up litter and record information about its presence, are often able to resolve many of the logistical or financial constraints. Globally, the number of citizen-science litter clean-up projects appears to be increasing and it is essential that we are able to harness the evidence generated by the data they collect and hold. Currently, however, many citizen-science programmes operate independently from one another and our previous work with one organisation, the Marine Conservation Society (Nelms et al., 2017) highlighted that the data they collect are not directly comparable with other organisations due to differences in data collection methods. These differences may be due to a range of factors, such as constraints in capacity, financial restrictions or the challenges of volunteer management. For this project, we will collaborate with UK organisations using an online questionnaire survey and follow-up workshop(s) leading to a high quality, policy relevant peer-reviewed publication, to i) understand the scale of litter removal and data collection by volunteers across the UK; ii) explore the barriers citizen-science organisations face in maximising public engagement of data collection; iii) build capacity for improved data-sharing and evidence gathering throughout the sector; and iv) understand how citizen science clean-up schemes could contribute to more circular plastics economy. References: Beaumont N.J., Aanesen M, M. Austen, T. Börger, J. Clark, M. Cole, T. Hooper, P. K. Lindeque, C. Pascoe, K. Wyles (2019) Global ecological, social and economic impacts of marine plastic. Marine Pollution Bulletin 142, 189-195 Nelms SE, Coombes C, Foster LC, Galloway TS, Godley BJ, Lindeque PK, Witt MJ (2017) Marine anthropogenic litter on British beaches: a 10-year nationwide assessment using citizen science data. Science of the Total Environment. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.11.137

Most assessments of sea turtle population trends are based on adult females at the nesting beach and there is a paucity of information available on the status and dynamics of foraging populations. Where legal marine turtle fisheries operate, these data are critical to assess the impact on stocks and to regulate harvest. In the Turks and Caicos Island's (TCI) there is a legal marine turtle harvest. There is no closed season, there are no quotas and the fishery is not monitored. A recent survey estimated that 400-2,000 green and hawksbill turtles (listed as endangered and critically endangered by the IUCN) are legally harvested in TCI each year; one of the largest legal marine turtle harvests in the world. It is not known whether this harvest is sustainable and therefore there is a need for quantitative data to be gathered on both the harvested animals and foraging stocks of marine turtles in the TCI. Understanding the dynamics of the marine turtle populations of TCI and collecting baseline data on the harvest, are crucial first steps towards assessing the sustainability of this fishery and will help underpin sea turtle conservation practices in many nations. The student will establish an in-water capture/mark/recapture study to monitor the species, and size classes of turtles in TCIs waters and collect tissue samples for mtDNA, sex hormones and stable isotope analysis in order to address the following questions: 1) What are the origins of marine turtles within the foraging grounds of the TCI? 2) At what size do turtles recruit to the foraging grounds? 3) Do primary sex ratios persist through to later life-stages? 4) How do origin and sex affect growth rates? This project is a direct request from the TCI Government to the CASE partner (Marine Conservation Society) for help in assessing the status of marine turtle populations in their waters. Data will be provided to the TCI government for use in policy making and to direct legislation amendments. This project will also assist TCI government in their commitments to biodiversity and to meet TCI's current obligations under the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS).