The EPSRC CDT in Net Zero Aviation in partnership with Industry will collaboratively train the innovators and researchers needed to find the novel, disruptive solutions to decarbonise aviation and deliver the UK's Jet Zero and ATI's Destination Zero strategies. The CDT will also establish the UK as an international hub for technology, innovation and education for Net Zero Aviation, attracting foreign and domestic investment as well as strengthening the position of existing UK companies. The CDT in Net Zero Aviation is fully aligned with and will directly contribute to EPSRC's "Frontiers in Engineering and Technology" and "Engineering Net Zero" priority areas. The resulting skills, knowledge, methods and tools will be decisive in selecting, integrating, evaluating, maturing and de-risking the technologies required to decarbonise aviation. A systems engineering approach will be developed and delivered in close collaboration with industry to successfully integrate theoretical, computational and experimental methods while forging cross theme collaborations that combine science, technology and engineering solutions with environmental and socio-economic aspects. Decarbonising aviation can bring major opportunities for new business models and services that also requires a new policy and legislative frameworks. A tailored, aviation focused training programme addressing commercialisation and route to market for the Net Zero technologies, operations and infrastructure will be delivered increasing transport and employment sustainability and accessibility while improving transport connectivity and resilience. Over the next decade innovative solutions are needed to tackle the decarbonisation challenges. This can be only achieved by training doctoral Innovation and Research Leaders in Net Zero Aviation, able to grasp the technology from scientific fundamentals through to applied engineering while understanding the associated science, economics and social factors as well as aviation's unique operational realities, business practices and needs. Capturing the interdependencies and interactions of these disciplines a transdisciplinary programme is offered. These ambitious targets can only be realised through a cohort-based approach and a consortium involving the most suitable partners. Under the guidance of the consortium's leadership team, students will develop the required ethos and skills to bridge traditional disciplinary boundaries and provide innovative and collaborative solutions. Peer to peer learning and exposure to an appropriate mix of disciplines and specialities will provide the opportunity for individuals and interdisciplinary teams to collaborate with each other and ensure that the graduates of the CDT will be able to continually explore and further develop opportunities within, as well as outside, their selected area of research. Societal aspects that include public engagement, awareness, acceptance and influencing consumer behaviour will be at the heart of the training, research and outreach activities of the CDT. Integration of such multidisciplinary topics requires long term thinking and awareness of "global" issues that go beyond discipline and application specific solutions. As such the following transdisciplinary Training and Research Themes will be covered: 1. Aviation Zero emission technologies: sustainable aviation fuels, hydrogen and electrification 2. Ultra-efficient future aircraft, propulsion systems, aerodynamic and structural synergies 3. Aerospace materials & manufacturing, circular economy and sustainable life cycle 4. Green Aviation Operations and Infrastructure 5. Cross cutting disciplines: Commercialisation, Social, Economic and Environmental aspects 75 students across the UK, from diverse backgrounds and communities will be recruited.

This CDT will train the next generation of manufacturing researchers with unique capabilities to combine predictive models and in-process data, with a systems perspective, to enable faster, more flexible, and more sustainable high value manufacturing. The UK's growth lags behind Europe and North America [1], and the chancellor, whilst celebrating our advanced manufacturing sector, also states [2] that 'poor productivity, skills gaps, low business investment and the over-concentration of wealth in the South-East have led to uneven and lower growth'. Although digital technologies are recognised [3] as a key productivity enabler, integrating these into an advanced manufacturing environment is a significant challenge. Our CDT will address this from a systems perspective by using sensors, communications, controls and informatics technologies that are coupled to the physics underpinning complex manufacturing processes. This vision aligns strongly with the EPSRC's priorities (especially AI Digitalisation and Data); the EPSRC Made Smarter programmes, and the UK Innovation Strategy's [4] digital and manufacturing priorities. However, embedding Digital Manufacturing into the UK economy will require people with new doctoral-level skill sets dedicated to the four productivity challenges in manufacturing: 1. sustainability - an emerging underpinning theme in our stakeholder discussions. 2. speed - reducing production lead time; 3. quality - eliminating rework whilst achieving functional performance; 4. flexibility - adaptive production systems that eliminate intrusive setup/measurement; The CDT will train cohorts that focus on cross-disciplinary research at the interface between these productivity challenges and key Digital Engineering themes identified by our industrial co-creators: (1) mechanics, modelling, and intelligent control / optimisation of processes; (2) sensor networks and monitoring; (3) manufacturing informatics, system integration, and data security. We will focus on key manufacturing processes that are essential to the UK landscape: subtractive manufacturing (machining) and product assembly. We are uniquely placed to enable this approach: we lead the machining capability on behalf of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, collaborate on the Manufacturing Made Smarter Research Centre in Connected Factories, (with a focus on assembly automation), and through Factory 2050 we host the UK's first state of the art factory entirely dedicated to reconfigurable robotic, digitally assisted assembly and machining technologies. We will provide a unique opportunity for students to study alongside peers with a common application focus in machining, assembly, and digital engineering for manufacturing, leveraging the world leading environment provided by the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre. This will enable the highest standards of subject-specific research training, underpinned by Sheffield's breadth of activity in engineering science. We will tailor the first year training to support their transition into the centre, and provide cohort experiences that reinforce system-level thinking and leadership skills, to ensure that our alumni's impact on society far exceeds that of a typical PhD student. Training will be undertaken individually, within a cohort, across the centre, and in combination with other centres and groups. Through this approach, we will achieve horizontal and vertical integration of the student experience within the centre and will support students in developing the specific skills required for their research. This will foster a collective culture in key training areas such as leadership, inclusion, innovation and communication, amply preparing students for their future careers. [1] IMF, World Economic Outlook Jan 2023 [2] Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's speech at Bloomberg, 27/1/2023 [3] RAEng/IET Connecting Data Report 2015 [4] UK Innovation Strategy: Leading the future by creating it

The UK Net Zero Strategy published in October 2021 reflects the urgency of action needed to avoid climate catastrophe. The net zero journey outlined therein addresses economy and emissions reduction in all sectors, with the specific challenge in aviation a notable element. Global aviation is currently responsible for 2% of emissions with 90% currently from aircraft operations, and this will grow progressively as air transportation grows. In response to this technology and policy are changing rapidly offering both opportunity and challenge, but the standard design systems and processes in practice today are insufficiently agile to support the current need for novel designs that can adapt to these rapidly changing future needs. With current approaches solutions get locked in early based on the available technology level, and optimised around that technology, and consequently have limited opportunity for upgrade and enhancement through operational life, which in the case of aerospace is decades. But delivery of net zero demands radical change quickly. Agile and adaptable design systems are needed to help develop solutions that can be easily upgraded to use advanced technology as it emerges. The key here is that constraints are needed to to allow a baseline solution to be found, but in then optimising around this baseline the constraints become a barrier to future enhancements. To allow future variation without redesign needs new capability. In particular capability to map and measure a design space and to subsequently be able to dynamically change the constraints was found to be a core need for progress in this area. The mapping and measurement capability is needed to understand how constraints are influencing the design at this point in time, and the capability to deal with changing constraints to allow understanding of how the design could change with new technology advance or policy changes. The four research questions emerging from this are therefore: 1. Navigation of Dynamic Design Spaces: How can constraints be represented in a design model such that a changing design space can be navigated and the constraints driving or limiting the design can be identified, and their influence on the design quantified? 2. Evolving Constraints over time: How can constraints be allowed to evolve over time and their influence on the design solutions over time captured, including ability to prioritise requirements/constraints? 3. Measurement and Evaluation of Solution Paths: What metrics are appropriate for maintaining a set of time-history linked solutions open to further development? 4. Keeping Design Options Open: How can design options be kept open, and how can technology changes/policy changes or removal over a long time period be studied? In DECIDE for Net Zero constraints will be permitted to evolve just as every part of the design can. In doing this the design context itself will evolve, creating new fitness landscapes for product evolution. Contrary to standard practice today which is to optimise as far as possible, the aim here is to generate a diverse population of solutions that will have many individuals that survive major disruptions even if some may fail. This is moving significantly beyond current concepts of robust design. This variation of constraints requires a completely novel design system architecture using time history dependent genetics. Geometric analogies for design spaces will allow innovative design tools to support exploration of design spaces in a more meaningful way and the latest bio-inspired methodologies will allow exploration of how products evolve in the context of ever-changing constraints. With this capability robust baseline designs can be developed that will enable the fastest transition to net zero, for example a more modular airframe that can accept plug and play solutions for hydrogen or electric propulsion systems and energy supply which are easy to cost effective to maintain.

Society complexity and grand challenges, such as climate change, food security and aging population, grow faster than our capacity to engineer the next generation of manufacturing infrastructure, capable of delivering the products and services to address these challenges. The proposed programme aims to address this disparity by proposing a revolutionary new concept of 'Elastic Manufacturing Systems' which will allow future manufacturing operations to be delivered as a service based on dynamic resource requirements and provision, thus opening manufacturing to entirely different business and cost models. The Elastic Manufacturing Systems concept draws on analogous notions of the elastic/plastic behaviour of materials to allow methods for determining the extent of reversible scaling of manufacturing systems and ways to develop systems with a high degree of elasticity. The approach builds upon methods recently used in elastic computing resource allocation and draws on the principles of collective decision making, cognitive systems intelligence and networks of context-aware equipment and instrumentation. The result will be manufacturing systems able to deliver high quality products with variable volumes and demand profiles in a cost effective and predictable manner. We focus this work on specific highly regulated UK industrial sectors - aerospace, automotive and food - as these industries traditionally are limited in their ability to scale output quickly and cost effectively because of regulatory constraints. The research will follow a systematic approach outlined in to ensure an integrated programme of fundamental and transformative research supported by impact activities. The work will start with formulating application cases and scenarios to inform the core research developments. The generic models and methods developed will be instantiated, tested and verified using laboratory based testbeds and industrial pilots (S5). It is our intention that - within the framework of the work programme - the research is regularly reviewed, prioritised and and flexibly funded across the 4 years, guided by our Industrial Advisory Board.

The future prosperity of the UK will increasingly depend on building and maintaining a resilient and sustainable manufacturing sector that can respond to changing supply and demand by adapting, repurposing, relocating and reusing available production capabilities. The pandemic which emerged in 2020 has influenced our perspective of future manufacturing operations and, in particular, has brought into focus the capacity challenges of delivering critical products and maintaining production in the face of major disruptions. It also accelerated the emerging trend for more localised, greener and cost-competitive indigenous manufacturing infrastructure with the ability to produce a wider set of complex products faster, better and cheaper. To meet the long-term structural and post-pandemic challenges, we need transformative new methods of building and utilising future factories by embracing complexity, uncertainty and data intensity in a dynamic and rapidly changing world. The "Morphing Factory" Made Smarter Centre aims to deliver a platform for next generation resilient connected manufacturing services. It will allow future manufacturing operations to be delivered by ubiquitous production units that can be easily repurposed, relocated and redeployed in response to changing market demand. This vision will be delivered through 3 closely related strands: (1) An underpinning fundamental research programme to define the principles, methods and models for future morphing factories in terms of architecture, topology, configuration methods, IoT digital awareness, in-process monitoring and AI based autonomous control. (50%). (2) A dynamic challenge-driven applied research programme to address emerging industrial needs and validate and demonstrate the results through a set of application studies including smart machining, production integrated 3D printing and autonomous assembly integrated into a common hyperconnected morphing factory cloud (45%). (3) A programme of networking and engagement activities with other ISCF Made Smarter research and innovation centres, industry and the general public to maximise the impact of the research, encourage accelerated technology uptake and increase the public awareness (5%).