The objective of the proposed project is to create a Design Options Paper (DOP) for the implementation of a cross-sector innovation collaboration programme benefitting start-up SMEs in the cleantech sector. A twinning partnership between three partners of the Climate-KIC initiative in three different EU countries will be established. This partnership will execute peer learning of a model (Climate Innovation Exchange), which uses expertise from different sectors to improve the business support given to start-up SMEs to wishing to successfully enter low carbon innovations to the market. This will be achieved by the implementation of the Twinning Advanced methodology for the development of the Design Option Paper in order to facilitate the mutual learning between innovation agencies in a structured way. The best practice model – Climate Innovation Exchange - developed within the Climate-KIC Accelerator programme from the Climate-KIC UK will be transferred to the innovation agencies from Spain and Italy involved in the programme. The key driving forces for successful implementation of the programme in UK will be analysed, together with the transfer conditions, obstacles and possibilities concerning, in particular, the target groups for the programme and the process by which the programme operates. The practices developed with Accelerator programme in Spain and Italy will also be studied informing the design of even better practices for the SMEs support in UK. The core group of 6 peer-learners (2 from each innovation agency) will be established to observe transferred practices, analyse local conditions, create the strategy (DOP), provide peer-to-peer support for the implementation as well as draft deployment driven amendments to the DOP and execute dissemination of the results.

This project will develop new nanometre-sized catalysts and (electro-) chemical processes for producing fuels, including methanol, methane, gasoline and diesel, and chemical products from waste carbon dioxide. It builds upon a successful first phase in which a new, highly controlled nanoparticle catalyst was developed and used to produce methanol from carbon dioxide; the reaction is a pertinent example of the production of a liquid fuel and chemical feedstock. In addition, we developed high temperature electrochemical reactions and reactors for the production of 'synthesis gas' (carbon monoxide and hydrogen) and oxygen from carbon dioxide and water. In this second phase of the project, we shall extend the production of fuels to include methanol, methane, gasoline and diesel, by integrating suitably complementary processes, using energy from renewable sources or off-peak electricity. The latter option is particularly attractive as a means to manage electricity loads as more renewables are integrated with the national power grid. In parallel, we will apply our new nanocatalysts to enable the copolymerization of carbon dioxide with epoxides to produce polycarbonate polyols, components of home insulation foams (polyurethanes). The approach is both commercially and environmentally attractive due to the replacement of 30-50% of the usual petrochemical carbon source (the epoxide) with carbon dioxide, and may be commercialised in the relatively near term. These copolymers are valuable products in their own right and provide a commercial-scale proving ground for the technology, before addressing integration into the larger scale challenges of fuel production and energy management. The programme will continue to improve our catalyst performance and our understanding, to enable carbon dioxide transformations to a range of valuable products. The work will be coupled with a comprehensive process systems analysis in order to develop the most practical and valuable routes to implementation. Our goal is to continue to build on our existing promising results to advance the technology towards commercialisation; the research programme will focus on: 1) Catalyst optimization and scale-up so as to maximise the activities and selectivities for target products. 2) Development and optimization of the process conditions and engineering for the nanocatalysts, including testing and modelling new reactor designs. 3) Process integration and engineering to enable tandem catalyses and efficient generation of renewable fuels, including integration with renewable energy generation taking advantage of off-peak electrical power availability. 4) Detailed economic, energetic, environmental and life cycle analysis of the processes. We will work closely with industrial partners to ensure that the technologies are practical and that key potential impediments to application are addressed. We have a team of seven companies which form our industrial advisory board, representing stakeholders from across the value chain, including: E.On, National Grid, Linde, Johnson Matthey, Simon Carves, Econic Technologies, and Shell.

This proposal concerns the creation of an internationally leading Centre for doctoral training in sustainable civil engineering. The widest possible definition of sustainability is adopted, with the Centre covering the effective whole life design and performance of major civil engineering infrastructure. This includes the re-appraisal and re-use of existing infrastructure and the opportunities afforded by multiple-use. This sector is widely reported to face major problems recruiting the type, quality and number of people required. The Centre will address the key challenges of fit for purpose, economic viability, environmental impact, resilience, infrastructure inter-dependence, durability as well as the impacts of changes in population, urbanisation, available natural resources, technology and societal expectations. This requires a broad-based approach to research training, effectively integrated across the wide range of disciplines presently encompassed within the civil engineering profession. Very few academic institutions are capable of providing in-depth training across this range of subjects. However, the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Imperial College, recently (QS 2013) ranked number one in the world against its competitor departments, is uniquely placed within the UK to achieve exactly this. The Centre will recruit high quality, ambitious engineers. The doctoral training will combine intellectual challenge, technical content and rigor, with focused involvement in the practically important problems presently faced by the civil engineering profession. Advice and guidance from a high-level and broadly-based industrial advisory panel will be important in achieving the latter. Most importantly, the CDT will equip students with an appreciation of the wider context in which their research work is undertaken. The proposed programme is clearly designed to be PhD-PLUS; where the PLUS relates to a clear understanding of the breath of the problem within which their specific research sits, with a strong emphasis on sustainability. This latter component will include the industrial perspective, the societal need, the long term sustainability of the work and its immediate impact. The proposed CDT will make a difference by producing high quality civil engineers who understand global sustainability issues, in the widest possible context, and who have the skills and vision to eventually lead major infrastructure development projects or research programmes. Training will combine intensive taught training modules, group working around Grand Challenge projects in collaboration with industry and high quality research training. Project-based multi-disciplinary collaborative working will be at the core of the CDT training experience, modelling the way leading companies explore design options involving mixed disciplinary teams working together on ambitious projects. Working on a real-world problem, the students will have to interact extensively with others to understand the problem in detail, to develop holistic potential solutions, to assess these solutions and to identify the uncertainties and questions that can only be answered through further research. They will develop skills associated with coping with complexity, being able to make value-based decisions and being confident with interdisciplinary working. They will also be heavily involved in identifying and defining the research problem within the wider multi-faceted project and so will gain a much broader perspective of how specific research developing responsible innovation fits within a large civil engineering project. Overall, this approach is much more likely to develop the additional skills required by industry compared to conventional doctoral civil engineering training.

Our environment has a major influence on all aspects of human endeavour ranging from the mundane, such as deciding whether to cycle or take the bus to work, to the exceptional, such as coping with the ever more damaging effects of extreme natural phenomena (tropical storms, inundations, tsunamis, droughts, etc.). In addition, climate change is one of the most pressing challenges that confront humanity today. What was once viewed as something that might happen in the future is now part of daily life. Because most impacts of climate variability and change occur through extreme weather events and spells, the two issues of weather and climate are closely interlinked. We rely on science and technology to provide the means of managing the complex intricacies of the environment and to meet the pressing challenges of climate change. Mathematics plays a central role in this massive undertaking as it provides the fundamental basis of the theory and modelling of weather, oceans and climate. However the nature of the mathematical challenges is changing and the need for scientists trained in risk and uncertainty is growing rapidly. Meeting these needs can only be achieved by training an entirely new generation of scientists to meet the multi-faceted challenges, with all their complex inter-dependencies. These scientists will need extraordinarily broad training in several scientific areas, including geophysical fluid dynamics, scientific computing, statistics, data assimilation and partial differential equations. Above all, they must understand the mathematics that unifies them. The alignment of Imperial College's Mathematics Department and Grantham Institute for Climate Change with Reading University's Departments of Mathematics and Statistics and of Meteorology has put these two institutions into a unique position to offer a CDT focussing on the priority area: Mathematical Sciences for Weather, Ocean and Climate, as a 50-50 joint venture. We propose to bring together, as academic supervisors and stakeholders in the centre, more than 60 world-leading researchers with expertise in a wide spectrum of areas that comprise the mathematical foundation as well as the frontier application areas. The central aim of the proposal is to build a strong cohort of young scientists whose backgrounds will span the breadth of the mathematical sciences from statistics, PDEs and dynamical systems, scientific computing, data analysis, and stochastic processes including relevant application areas from weather, oceans and climate. These young scientists must also acquire problem-specific knowledge through an array of elective courses and supervisory expertise offered by the two institutions and the external partners. A core component of the cohort training will be a ten-week programme hosted by the Met Office in Exeter which will include lectures given by world-leading scientists and research internships with Met Office staff, tackling real-world projects by teamwork. Key partners to the proposed CDT include major international players in research and operational forecasting for weather, oceans, and climate, including the UK Met Office, the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, the German DWD, the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and the National Centre for Earth Observation. The EPSRC contribution to the Centre will be heavily leveraged with institutional and external partners, whose financial commitments are estimated to cover 65% of the total costs. The proposal is also in alignment with the global initiative Mathematics of the Planet Earth 2013 which involves scientific societies, universities, institutes and organizations all over the world aiming to learn more about the challenges faced by our planet and to increase the research effort on these issues.

Plastic Electronics embodies an approach to future electronics in their broadest sense (including electronic, optoelectronic and photonic structures, devices and systems) that combines the low temperature, versatile manufacturing attributes of plastics with the functional properties of semiconductors and metals. At its heart is the development, processing and application of advanced materials encompassing molecular electronic materials, low temperature processed metals, metal oxides and novel hybrids. As such it constitutes a challenging and far-ranging training ground in tune with the needs of a wide spectrum of industry and academia alike. The general area is widely recognised as a rapidly developing platform technology with the potential to impact on multiple application sectors, including displays, signage and lighting, large area electronics, energy generation and storage, logistics, advertising and brand security, distributed sensing and medical devices. The field is a growth area, nationally and globally and the booming organic (AMOLED) display and printed electronics industries have been leading the way, with the emerging opportunities in the photonics area - i.e. innovative solid-state lighting, solar (photovoltaics), energy storage and management now following. The world-leading, agenda-setting UK academic PE research, much of it sponsored by EPSRC, offers enormous potential that is critical for the development and growth of this UK technology sector. PE scientists are greatly in demand: both upstream for materials, process and equipment development; and downstream for device fabrication and wide-ranging applications innovation. Although this potential is recognised by UK government and industry, PE makes a major contribution to the Advanced Materials theme identified in Science Minister David Willet's 'eight great technologies', growth is severely limited by the shortage of trained scientists and engineers capable of carrying ideas forward to application. This is confirmed by industry experts who argue that a comprehensive training programme is essential to deliver the workforce of scientists and engineers needed to create a sustainable UK PE Industry. The aim of the PE-CDT is to provide necessary training to develop highly skilled scientists and engineers, capable both of leading development and of contributing growth in a variety of aspects; materials-focused innovation, translation and manufacturing. The CDT brings together three leading academic teams in the PE area: the Imperial groups, with expertise in the synthesis, materials processing, characterisation, photonics and device physics, the Oxford team with expertise in ultrafast spectroscopes probes, meso and nano-structured composites, vacuum processing and up scaling as well as the material scientists and polymer technologists at QMUL. This compact consortium encompasses all the disciplines relevant to PE, including materials physics, optoelectronics, physical chemistry, device engineering and modelling, design, synthesis and processing as well as relevant industrial experience. The programme captures the essentially multidisciplinary nature of PE combining the low temperature, versatile manufacturing attributes of plastics with the functional properties of semiconductors and metals. Yet, to meet the needs of the PE industry, it also puts in place a deep understanding of basic science along with a strong emphasis on professional skills and promoting interdisciplinary learning of high quality, ranging across all areas of plastic electronics.