The Centre for Climate Change Transformations (C3T) will be a global hub for understanding the profound changes required to address climate change. At its core, is a fundamental question of enormous social significance: how can we as a society live differently - and better - in ways that meet the urgent need for rapid and far-reaching emission reductions? While there is now strong international momentum on action to tackle climate change, it is clear that critical targets (such as keeping global temperature rise to well within 2 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels) will be missed without fundamental transformations across all parts of society. C3T's aim is to advance society's understanding of how to transform lifestyles, organisations and social structures in order to achieve a low-carbon future, which is genuinely sustainable over the long-term. Our Centre will focus on people as agents of transformation in four challenging areas of everyday life that impact directly on climate change but have proven stubbornly resistant to change: consumption of goods and physical products, food and diet, travel, and heating/cooling. We will work across multiple scales (individual, community, organisational, national and global) to identify and experiment with various routes to achieving lasting change in these challenging areas. In particular, we will test how far focussing on 'co-benefits' will accelerate the pace of change. Co-benefits are outcomes of value to individuals and society, over and above the benefits from reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These may include improved health and wellbeing, reduced waste, better air quality, greater social equality, security, and affordability, as well as increased ability to adapt and respond to future climate change. For example, low-carbon travel choices (such as cycling and car sharing) may bring health, social and financial benefits that are important for motivating behaviour and policy change. Likewise, aligning environmental and social with economic objectives is vital for behaviour and organisational change within businesses. Our Research Themes recognise that transformative change requires: inspiring yet workable visions of the future (Theme 1); learning lessons from past and current societal shifts (Theme 2); experimenting with different models of social change (Theme 3); together with deep and sustained engagement with communities, business and governments, and a research culture that reflects our aims and promotes action (Theme 4). Our Centre integrates academic knowledge from disciplines across the social and physical sciences with practical insights to generate widespread impact. Our team includes world-leading researchers with expertise in climate change behaviour, choices and governance. We will use a range of theories and research methods to fill key gaps in our understanding of transformation at different spatial and social scales, and show how to target interventions to impactful actions, groups and moments in time. We will partner with practitioners (e.g., Climate Outreach, Greener-UK, China Centre for Climate Change Communication), policy-makers (e.g., Welsh Government) and companies (e.g., Anglian Water) to develop and test new ways of engaging with the public, governments and businesses in the UK and internationally. We will enhance citizens', organisations' and societal leaders' capacity to tackle climate change through various mechanisms, including secondments, citizens' panels, small-scale project funding, seminars, training, workshops, papers, blog posts and an interactive website. We will also experiment with transformations within academia itself, by trialling sustainable working practices (e.g., online workshops), being 'reflexive' (studying our own behaviour and its impacts on others), and making our outputs and data publically available.

Dementia is often presented as a global issue with substantial economic consequences for all countries and societies providing diagnostic and/or supportive services. Whilst we believe this is necessary and important information, in our 5-year study we want to celebrate the achievements, growth and contribution that people with dementia and their carers make to society. To do this, we are putting the local neighbourhood and networks in which people with dementia and their carers live and belong at the centre of our work. We have designed a study on neighbourhood living that has 4 inter-linked work packages (WPs), an international partner , the Center for Dementia Research [CEDER] at Linköping University, Sweden, and strong user involvement through the EDUCATE and Open Doors groups [Greater Manchester, England]; The ACE Club [Rhyl, North Wales]; and the Scottish Dementia Working Group [Glasgow, Scotland]. In the UK our academic partners are situated in Manchester, Salford, Stirling, Liverpool and London and we have third sector involvement through the Deaf Heritage Project at the British Deaf Association, as well as a range of project partners which includes the North West People in Research Forum, the Citizen Scientist initiative and a Community Integrated Company that supports people with dementia through accessible technology [Finerday]. As this is a complex set of networks based around a neighbourhoods theme, each WP will use different research methods and partners to meet their primary aims and objectives. WP1 is a secondary analysis of the English Longitudinal Study of Aging database which will compile Neighbourhood Profiles that will be available for the whole country; these Profiles will include information on cognitive risk factors and clusters of population; WP2 will develop a set of core outcomes measures in dementia that will involve people with dementia and their carers in deciding what measures and priorities are important for them; WP3 will explore what makes a dementia friendly neighbourhood and will take place in Stirling, Salford and Linköping; WP4 has 3 interventions representing various stages of the Medical Research Council's complex interventions framework. Intervention 1 will be a full RCT of an educational intervention for general hospitals that several members of the project team have developed and piloted over the last 2 years. In this study, we want to find out if the educational intervention results in people with dementia leaving hospital for their neighbourhood home sooner, but with high levels of satisfaction. Interventions 2 and 3 are pilot trials. Intervention 2 will be conducted in Sweden and Manchester, UK and will use technology to help couples, where one person has a dementia, to better self-manage the condition and, more importantly, their relationship. In intervention 3, we are looking at the diversity of a neighbourhood and will develop the first digitalised life story intervention in the world for Deaf people (BSL users) who live with dementia. This will be the first intervention for this group in the world. In this programme of work we will develop a user research programme as some people with dementia have told us that they would like to work alongside the research team as co-researchers. We will therefore appoint a PPI co-ordinator for the duration of the study with a responsibility for identifying co-researcher training needs, running a regular co-research programme, mentoring co-researchers, ensuring user goal preferences are met and facilitating user dissemination. Through the implementation of a neighbourhood approach each WP will promote closer relations and working between professionals, lay people and people living with dementia. This study will also contribute to the currently limited evidence base for dementia friendly communities and provide knowledge and insights to support a robust theoretical framework of neighbourhood work that will have international scope and relevance.

Ensuring there is sufficient energy is a global challenge, caused by increasing demand and the need to move to low carbon energy to avoid dangerous climate change. Photovoltaics, including those mounted on buildings and the ground, are predicted to provide a key component of energy in the future, with the recent US Clean Power Plan and policies in China and Japan placing particular emphasis on solar power. Further, solar energy is increasingly cost competitive, with large scale solar park costs now similar to that of conventional energy sources. Within the UK, 47 % of solar photovoltaics are ground-mounted as solar parks. There has been a shift towards ground-mounted solar parks in countries within 35 degrees of the equator and a shift toward large-scale ground-mounted systems in Europe is anticipated. Solar parks take up a relatively large area of land for the energy they produce compared with conventional sources of energy. Yet, despite the expanding land area occupied by solar parks little is known of the impacts of their construction, physical presence and management on the landscape, or how we can use the opportunities provided by this land use transition to bring additional benefits, such as enhanced green infrastructure and ecological connectivity. Alongside switching to low carbon energy sources, in the light of growing populations and heightened pressures on resources, it is becoming increasingly recognised that we need to protect our environment, since it provides many goods (e.g. crops) and services (e.g. carbon storage) that contribute to the wellbeing and economic prosperity of society. The increasing land cover of solar parks presents an excellent opportunity to maximise the provisioning of such goods and services, with management options relatively low cost compared with those related to solar park construction. Therefore, this project will develop a decision-support tool to assess the impacts of solar parks, including their construction, physical presence and management, on the goods and services the landscape provides. There are five key components: 1. Synthesis of existing solar park guidelines; 2. Production of a compendium of the beneficial and detrimental effects of solar parks on goods and services supplied by the landscape; 3. Quantification of the change in goods and services over the operational life-time of solar parks; 4. Development of a decision-support tool that promotes the optimal deployment and management of solar parks; 5. Dissemination of the outcomes of the project to the broader solar development community. There are 11 project partners, covering all solar park stakeholders: Christine Coonick, National Solar Centre; Ed Jessamine, Novus Solar; Nick White, Natural England; Jonathan Scurlock, National Farmers Union; Jon Abbatt, ADAS; Richard Winspear, RSPB; Melanie Dodd, Wiltshire Council; Adam Twine, Colleymore Farm; James Ryle, Good Energy; and Phillip Duncan, Corylus. The key output from the project is the SPIES (Solar Park Impacts on Ecosystem Services) decision-support tool, which will provide a standardised means of identifying the best way to install and manage solar parks. Thus the tool will be useful for developers, consultees and regulatory agencies and may reduce prolonged and expensive planning applications, which will be beneficial to all parties. The National Solar Centre will help us drive the tool into policy which would lead to a noteworthy sustained contribution to sustainable energy generation and the supply of goods and services from the landscape. Further, given the global proliferation of solar parks and the growing global awareness of the importance of our natural environment, the proposed tool could help to stimulate innovation in business and investment opportunities, and build the UK's reputation as a global leader in solar park deployment. Keywords: solar parks, low carbon energy, ecosystem services, green infrastructure

The Palace of Westminster is facing a major restoration programme. In October 2012 a joint study group of House of Commons Commission and House of Lords Committee reported that the historic fabric was in a serious state of decay, and that the current ventilation system were outdated and in need of a complete replacement. This provides the unique opportunity to systematically re-examine the original Victorian stack ventilation system, which had been in use for 90 years before it was replaced with mechanical ventilation and air-conditioning in the 1950s. Previous research by the PI has shown that the historic system was highly sophisticated. Its design had been refined over several decades and followed principles similar to those used in modern naturally ventilated buildings to reduce energy use. It was designed to exploit, as far as possible, the natural stack effect produced by hot air ascending air shafts within the large towers and numerous gothic turrets of the Palace. Yet, how effective was this historic stack system and how far could it be revitalized to provide a sustainable solution to ventilation in the 21st century? To address this question it will be essential to develop a critical understanding of the historic system. Although various studies have highlighted the importance of the Palace within the wider history of environmental design, to date there is no comprehensive study of the original stack system. This project aims to fill this significant gap in the literature by providing the first in-depth investigation into the design, history and performance of the ventilation, based on a combination of archival research, surveys inside the Palace, and the analysis of historic data collected and scientific studies conducted between 1852 and the 1941. Moreover, it will investigate how it could be restored in conjunction with the restoration, exploiting its potential in providing a sustainable strategy. Surveys and archival research will be used to reconstruct the original technical arrangements adopted in mid-19th century, to retrace how scientists, working alongside architects and engineers, had developed them, and to explore how the system was modified over its lifetime. Records of historic experiments, eye-witness accounts and measured data the project will be used to explore how scientists had empirically evaluated the performance of the ventilation, e.g in terms of thermal comfort and air quality. Covering a period of 90 years, these records will also be used to undertake an in-depth analysis of how the ventilation had performed historically under a variety of conditions. The gain such insights, however, the project will not only cross different areas within the field of history(e.g. history of science, environmental and architectural history), but also draw on current scientific methods to review the historic evidence from a technical perspective. Over the past 3 years the PI has conducted a pilot study, funded by the Kent Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, and built a partnership with the Palace of Westminster Restoration and Renewal Programme (R&R), a body appointed by the UK government to coordinate the restoration. Recognising the importance of the proposed research to the programme, the Houses of Parliament agreed to be project partner. The research will form a separate work stream within the programme, which will be led by the PI and feed directly into the restoration. In addition to taking part in project meetings at Westminster and the PI will lead a series of workshops and project conferences, bringing together the R&R team and Parliamentary Estate Directorate to develop proposals for re-vitalizing the stack ventilation based on the new insights yielded by the historical research. In addition to demonstrating how historical research can be used to gain insights into past environmental principles, the project aims to show how it can be applied in the context of conservation.

In the post-truth society we live in, experts must find novel ways to bring hard, factual data to citizens. Data must entertain as well as inform, and excite as well as educate. It must be built with sharing through social channels in mind and become part of our everyday activities and interactions with others. Data Stories will look at novel frameworks and technologies for bringing data to people through art, games, and storytelling. It will examine the impact that varying levels of localisation, topicalisation, participation, and shareability have on the engagement of the general public with factual evidence substantiated by different forms of digital content derived and repurposed from a variety of sources. It will deliver the tools and guidance that community and civic groups need to achieve broader participation and support for their initiatives at local and national level, and empower artists, designers, statisticians, analysts, and journalists to communicate with data in inspiring, informative ways. Our research hypotheses are as follows: 1. People engage more with data that is made relevant to them by localisation (data related to a specific geographic or geopolitical area of interest) and topicalisation (data about a particular entity, theme, or event). 2. People engage more with data and understand it better when said data is provided through interactive and participatory methods that help build a coherent narrative. 3. Data is more likely to be shared, and therefore reach more people, if shareability is built into its presentation. We will test these hypotheses and propose a data experience framework supported by models, algorithms, tools, and guidelines that help individuals and groups in creating bespoke, participatory content (for example, art, games, and stories, from data). The framework design will be informed by practice-led research in three main areas: (i) finding and enriching data; (ii) generating content; and (iii) sharing and engaging with content. It will draw upon methods from several disciplines: data and content management; machine learning; human data interaction; game design and gamification; crowdsourcing; online communities; social and political sciences; creative writing; and visual arts. The research will be prototypically showcased in four contexts: (i) within the Data as Culture programme at the ODI, working together with artists, designers, and open data activists; (ii) as part of the Datapolis project run by the ODI, which looks at the use of game interfaces to demystify data, with the support of game designers and local communities; (iii) in a fact-checking & journalism showcase together with the BBC, Full Fact, and the Parliament Digital Service; and (iv) via datathons and our own Data Stories challenge, run by WSI and the ODI, alongside initiatives such as Bath:Hacked and ODCamp UK, which will build community-relevant data narratives from open data enriched with other media, using creative writing techniques. Our proposal is well aligned with the EPSRC call, addressing several themes to varying degrees. The majority of the research is focused on enabling and facilitating content creation. Specifically, we look at providing intelligent tools to make it easier for people to create data experiences. The beneficiaries are artists, storytellers (such as journalists or analysts), game makers, and those in community and civil society groups wishing to use the modes of art, games, and narration to raise broader awareness of their work. The research will include using data to create immersive experiences through art, games and virtual reality environments that are built from structured data alongside other forms of digital content. Ultimately, these novel ways to get to know and interact with data, relevant to one's context and presented creatively and innovatively, will inform and educate the public, leading, to more sustainable digital ecosystems, and to a more inclusive society.