Rare-earth metals such as neodymium, terbium and dysprosium have unusual and highly desirable magnetic properties; some of their alloys are amongst the strongest known permanent magnets. Rare earth magnets have widespread applications in a range of settings, including computer hard-disk drives. Magnetic materials are particularly important for computing because they provide the means by which digital information is transferred to, stored within, and read from an information storage unit. The storage unit typically consists of a collection of magnetic domains, where ordering occurs across dimensions of hundreds of nanometres. The size of the magnetic domain is crucial because it determines the amount of information that can be stored and processed. One of the most important tasks facing society today is to find ways of dealing with so-called Big Data, the term used to describe digital information that occurs in vast amounts and is of an increasingly complex nature. Processing Big Data with conventional magnetic storage media will eventually prove to be impossible, hence the development of new information storage devices is the grand challenge. The key to success with this challenge is miniaturization, hence this project will develop a new generation of magnetic materials on the molecular scale, with dimensions of only a few nanometres. The molecular materials with which this project is concerned are known as single-molecule magnets (SMMs). In contrast to traditional permanent magnets, SMMs are discrete molecular nano-magnets that retain magnetization in ways that do not rely on interactions across large distances, hence they offer unique properties that have been proposed as the basis of ultrahigh-density information technology, with processing at unprecedentedly fast speeds. SMMs have also been proposed as the working components of nano-scale molecular spintronic devices. The drawback with SMMs is that all examples function only at liquid-helium temperatures: this project will develop SMMs that function at more practical temperatures, which will introduce the possibility of developing prototype devices. More broadly, achieving the aims of this project will make an important contribution towards advancing the EPSRC Nanoscale Design of Functional Materials Grand Challenge. The aims of the project will be achieved using innovative synthetic strategies based on molecular rare earth compounds in which the metal centres are linked by a series of novel magnetic organic groups. The key advance that will be enabled by this project will be with the magnetic organic linkers, which provide an innovative way of preventing the processes that otherwise switch off the magnetic memory of SMMs. An important feature of the molecular design process is the ability to change the magnetic properties at the atomic level by, for example, switching the atoms that connect the rare earth metals from phosphorus to arsenic, and from arsenic to other main group elements. Alternatively, a family of organic linkers with the capacity to change their magnetic moments via targeted chemical modifications have also been proposed, a strategy that will allow fine tuning of SMM properties. The experimental approach will be complemented by high-level theoretical calculations, which will provide detailed insight into the new SMMs and will provide a rational way of developing improved systems. Ultimately, we will develop SMMs that function at temperatures that can be reached by cooling with liquid nitrogen. Such materials would represent a step-change in molecular nanomagnetism, and would result in tremendous impact across the scientific community, with the potential to make impact more widely in society.

Photonic materials interact with light in useful and interesting ways. They enable its manipulation, and conversion into other forms of energy. One important class of photonic materials are non-linear optical (NLO) materials, which can be used to manipulate and adjust the properties of laser light beams. For example, they are used to make green lasers by second harmonic generation (SHG) from an infra-red source, and in electro-optic (EO) modulators that transfer digital electronic signals into fibre-optic telecommunications. At present, most commercial NLO materials are simple inorganic salts. These are inexpensive, durable and ideal for simple SHG applications. However, in telecommunications and computing they suffer from slow speed, as their responses originate from displacement of (relatively heavy) ions in response to the electric field of light. Molecular organic and metal-organic materials promise faster responses, because they arise from displacement of lighter, faster electrons, and also rational property tuning and the possibility of rapid property switching (i.e. on/off for optical or electrooptical transistors). But it is difficult to obtain molecules combining high NLO activity with adequate transparency and photostability, and adding the ability to reversibly switch between on/off states is a still greater challenge. Recently, we discovered a promising new class of molecular NLO materials based on polyoxometalates (POMs) - a type of molecular metal oxide cluster - connected to organic groups. These POM-based chromophores (POMophores) obtain high NLO coefficients from materials with small, stable organic groups and excellent transparency, and show redox properties that could be used to switch the NLO response. The next stage, addressed in this project, is to assemble POMophores into bulk materials that can be used in devices - specifically EO modulators and transistors. To do this, we must find a way to align all of the POMophores so that they point in the same direction and give a net NLO effect. This is challenging, as methods for controlled assembly of POM-based materials are currently very limited, and to achieve the goal we will develop a new approach where we first trap the POMophore in a molecular container. The molecular containers are designed in such a way that they form a film where the desired molecular orientation is forced on the POMophore. In addition to organising the POMophores to give bulk NLO properties, the containers will also protect them from degradation when we investigate redox-switching of the NLO response. POMs offer many other properties beyond non-linear optics - for example many POM clusters are excellent catalysts or photocatalysts due to their ability to rapidly accept and transfer electrons, some have magnetic and/or luminescence properties introduced by incorporating suitable heterometals into the POM framework, and POMs have also demonstrated anti-viral activity. Therefore, we expect that other areas of chemistry and materials science will benefit from methods enabling their encapsulation and control over their positioning on the nanoscale. Possibilities could include selective catalysis, solar energy conversion, memory devices, and even targeting of biologically/medicinally active POM species for therapeutic interventions. This project will lay the groundwork necessary for such developments, as well as potentially producing the new, high performance bulk NLO materials needed for future telecommunications and computing.

This project brings together art historians and musicologists to develop new methods for the historical study of sensory experiences. To do this, we will focus on art and music in the Southern Low Countries (roughly present-day Belgium) between 1350 and 1700. But why do we need such a project? First it is important to note that, over the past decade, there has been much fruitful historical work on the senses, especially in the medieval and early modern periods. Yet most historians in this field privilege written sources over music, printed imagery, art and architecture. Even when they do use such material it is often approached as if it were text rather than something experienced by the senses. Musicologists and art historians are ideally placed to address this problem. We are experts at patient looking and listening, a process termed 'formal analysis' in both disciplines. Such analyses are normally anchored in specific historical knowledge about the makers and consumers of art and music. But what are the similarities and differences between how musicologists and art historians perform their historically grounded analyses? And how can we learn from one another to refine existing and develop new methods of enquiry so as to benefit the broader exploration of the history of the senses? This matters because comparing how we interpret works of art and music will offer a deeper, more nuanced understanding of how sensory experiences informed medieval and early modern European culture. The academic disciplines of history, art history and musicology developed as distinct in the nineteenth century. Yet in the period and area covered by this project such scholarly boundaries did not exist. Painting, sculpture and architecture were increasingly defined as 'fine arts' and, to bolster their prestige, were often linked to music, studied as a 'liberal art' at universities from the middle ages onwards. At the same time, music and art circulated widely: poor people earnt their keep by singing popular ditties or selling cheap woodcut imagery while prelates and princes built sumptuous interiors for grand musical performances. To explore all this, we shall focus on the Southern Low Countries between 1350 and 1700. It is, quite simply, ideal for pursuing our aims. During the period covered by this project, this region was a powerhouse of art, music, literature, manuscript illumination and printing. Moreover, these art forms were closely related. Painters like Jan van Eyck and Hugo van der Goes composed scenes of angelic music-making while the music scribe Petrus Alamire supplied elite customers across Europe with richly decorated musical manuscripts. Princely courts across Europe vied to attract composers such as Josquin des Prez, Jacob Obrecht and Orlandus Lassus. Crucially, artists, architects, print-makers, musicians and builders of musical instruments often moved in the same social circles. For instance, in Antwerp - the most populous city in northern Europe in the sixteenth century - music-printers, harpsichord builders and painters were all organized under the Guild of St Luke. At the end of the fifteenth century, this guild had merged with a literary society called 'De Violieren' with a socially diverse membership ranging from panel-makers' apprentices to urban patricians. Together they wrote poetry, plays and songs to be performed outdoors, on public stages set in important urban spaces and self-consciously addressed to the full social spectrum of the city, including children, women and immigrants from as far as Asia and Africa. In turn, these public stages were often designed and decorated with imagery and sculptures made by fellow guildsmen of 'De Violieren'. It is this wealth of visual, spatial, textual and musical sources that makes the Southern Low Countries the perfect laboratory for developing new, sensorially informed research methods applicable across history, art history and musicology.

Rare-earth metals such as neodymium, terbium and dysprosium have unusual and highly desirable magnetic properties; some of their alloys are amongst the strongest known permanent magnets. Rare earth magnets have widespread applications in a range of settings, including computer hard-disk drives. Magnetic materials are particularly important for computing because they provide the means by which digital information is transferred to, stored within, and read from an information storage unit. The storage unit typically consists of a collection of magnetic domains, where ordering occurs across dimensions of hundreds of nanometres. The size of the magnetic domain is crucial because it determines the amount of information that can be stored and processed. One of the most important tasks facing society today is to find ways of dealing with so-called Big Data, the term used to describe digital information that occurs in vast amounts and is of an increasingly complex nature. Processing Big Data with conventional magnetic storage media will eventually prove to be impossible, hence the development of new information storage devices is the grand challenge. The key to success with this challenge is miniaturization, hence this project will develop a new generation of magnetic materials on the molecular scale, with dimensions of only a few nanometres. The molecular materials with which this project is concerned are known as single-molecule magnets (SMMs). In contrast to traditional permanent magnets, SMMs are discrete molecular nano-magnets that retain magnetization in ways that do not rely on interactions across large distances, hence they offer unique properties that have been proposed as the basis of ultrahigh-density information technology, with processing at unprecedentedly fast speeds. SMMs have also been proposed as the working components of nano-scale molecular spintronic devices. The drawback with SMMs is that all examples function only at liquid-helium temperatures: this project will develop SMMs that function at more practical temperatures, which will introduce the possibility of developing prototype devices. More broadly, achieving the aims of this project will make an important contribution towards advancing the EPSRC Nanoscale Design of Functional Materials Grand Challenge. The aims of the project will be achieved using innovative synthetic strategies based on molecular rare earth compounds in which the metal centres are linked by a series of novel magnetic organic groups. The key advance that will be enabled by this project will be with the magnetic organic linkers, which provide an innovative way of preventing the processes that otherwise switch off the magnetic memory of SMMs. An important feature of the molecular design process is the ability to change the magnetic properties at the atomic level by, for example, switching the atoms that connect the rare earth metals from phosphorus to arsenic, and from arsenic to other main group elements. Alternatively, a family of organic linkers with the capacity to change their magnetic moments via targeted chemical modifications have also been proposed, a strategy that will allow fine tuning of SMM properties. The experimental approach will be complemented by high-level theoretical calculations, which will provide detailed insight into the new SMMs and will provide a rational way of developing improved systems. Ultimately, we will develop SMMs that function at temperatures that can be reached by cooling with liquid nitrogen. Such materials would represent a step-change in molecular nanomagnetism, and would result in tremendous impact across the scientific community, with the potential to make impact more widely in society.

Species are increasingly faced with the challenge of coping with a changing environment caused by human disturbance or climate change. Whether they are able to cope or not is critical for biodiversity and the benefits that we get from ecosystems. The ability of species to evolve and adapt to new environmental conditions is a key factor that we need to understand if we are to predict how species will cope with a changing environment or to help mitigate the impacts of climate change. It is particularly important to understand how rapidly species can adapt, what the limits are to evolution, and how evolution of one species will affect the rest of the ecosystem with which it interacts. In this project, we will investigate these questions through a series of large scale experiments using a small crustacean called Daphnia, which has a major impact on water quality and the health of freshwater ecosystems. Our approach has several unique strengths. First, Daphnia can reproduce clonally, which means that we can manipulate the genetic diversity of populations to examine its effects on the rate and limits of adaptation. Second, we will use a system of large outdoor heated tanks - the largest such facility in Europe - to examine the response of Daphnia, and its associated ecosystem, to heat-waves, which is a key environmental challenge faced by species. Third, we will exploit the latest DNA sequencing technologies - available at a major genomics centre at Liverpool - to examine the genetic mechanisms underlying adaptation to climate change. Finally, our study is supported by recent, exciting findings from our laboratory where we have demonstrated the potential importance of two processes - plasticity and epigenetics - for adaptation. Plasticity allows individuals to change their pattern of development, growth and/or reproduction in response to the environment, and epigenetics allows these changes to be transmitted to their offspring by modifying the action of genes. These processes are central to questions about what limits the ability to adapt to environmental change, since they could allow the animals to adapt far more rapidly than they would by conventional evolution alone, in which only frequencies of genes change over time. As such, these processes may also help protect the animal populations from going extinct following an environmental change, so allowing time for the species to evolve over a longer period. The research will: i) quantify how two major influences on animals (food and temperature differences) affect many different and crucial aspects of the lives of Daphnia (phenotypic plasticity); ii) use the knowledge of this plasticity together with whether the Daphnia are adapted to local or different environments, to undertand how plasticity, genetic diversity and epigenetics determine the potential of populations to evolve; iii) understand how limitations in the potential of populations to evolve will alter the fate of other species in the community and the functioning of the whole ecosystem (e.g. by regulating water quality and blooms of harmful algae). This research will, therefore, fundamentally advance our understanding of how three different influences (genetic diversity, plasticity and epigenetics) contribute and combine to allow populations to adapt to environmental change, and how this can affect other species and ultimately the services (clean water, food, fibre, amenity) that freshwater ecosystems and their biodiversity provide. Our findings will be disseminated to the academic community, to policy-makers, to schools and to the general public.