The proposal presented here is important for quantifying how interfacial chemistry in the atmosphere is important in the assessment of modern climate change. It relies on three aspects of atmospheric science 1) Atmospheric aerosols are tiny solid or liquid particles suspended in air. They arise from human activity (e.g. burning of fossil fuels) and naturally (e.g. breaking ocean waves) and can exist in the atmosphere for minutes to days. These aerosol are a large source of uncertainty when assessing man-made contributions to climate change as they strongly influence (I) the amount of light reflected back to space (potentially cooling the planet) and (II) the formation of clouds, and how much sunlight they reflect back to space (again, potentially cooling the planet). 2) Some of these aerosol have thin films or coatings of organic material. As the size of these aerosol are similar to the wavelength of sunlight a thin coating can significantly alter their ability to scatter and 'reflect' sunlight and their potential to form clouds. 3) The atmosphere effectively acts as a low temperature, dilute fuel, combustion system oxidizing chemicals released from the Earth's surface. The rate at which chemicals released from the Earth's surface can be removed by oxidation is important in understanding the atmosphere's self-cleansing mechanism. Previously *proxies* of thin films on atmospheric aerosol have been shown to potentially alter the light scattering and cloud forming ability of clouds. These proxies have been chosen from a chemical catalogue and do not represent the mixture and variety found in the atmosphere. We will use *real* material extracted from different locations to characterize the thin films formed on real atmospheric aerosol, determine their film thicknesses, light scattering ability and their chemical reactivity in the atmosphere. Our own preliminary work demonstrates that laboratory proxy thin films are not representative of the real atmosphere. The film thicknesses are critical to the calculation of their light scattering ability which in turn is critical to calculation of the proportion of sunlight scattered back to space. The chemical reactivity is important in determining the lifetime of the film, because as the film reacts the optical properties of the particle will change significantly. If the film lifetime is longer than a typical aerosol lifetime then it can be simply included into atmospheric models, but if the film lifetime is much shorter then it may be ignored. However preliminary data suggests it is has a similar lifetime meaning the *changing* light scattering properties of a coated particle will need to be modelled. The project represents the first comprehensive study of atmospheric thin film oxidation and light scattering with real atmospheric matter from the atmosphere. The combined experimental and modelling approach will allow the demonstration of (I) core-shell (thin film behavior) from atmospheric samples, (II) calculation of their optical properties and change in radiative balance at the top of the atmosphere., (III) measurement of atmospheric oxidation rates of the film and inclusion in Co-I led complex aerosol kinetic modelling of complex mixture aerosol. The proposal will also continue to develop two emergent exciting techniques for atmospheric science: Laser trapping with Mie spectroscopy and neutron scattering. The ability of these technique to study films ~10nm thick in real time, with the correct morphology and with unprecedented precision is phenomenal. The proposal will also be an excellent training vehicle for two PDRAS in soft-matter, facility, and atmospheric experimental science with real world modelling of atmospheric outcomes. The data and model systems from this proposed work will be ready for including global climate models. The letters os support demonstrate that ends users for some off data with the Met. office(UK) and MPIC (Germany).

Doctoral Training Partnerships: a range of postgraduate training is funded by the Research Councils. For information on current funding routes, see the common terminology at https://www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/how-we-fund-studentships/. Training grants may be to one organisation or to a consortia of research organisations. This portal will show the lead organisation only.

The UK government plans to increase woodland cover as part of its plans to store more carbon, to mitigate climate change. However, many of the UK's trees are threatened by climate change and a range of pests and diseases, which might limit their ability to contribute to carbon storage and the wide range of other benefits delivered by woodlands. We therefore need to make our woodlands resilient to these future threats. Resilience is the ability of a system, such as a woodland, to recover from a disturbance. One commonly proposed approach to increase the resilience of woods is to increase their tree diversity. Thus, spreading the risk amongst many different trees, as we don't know exactly how each tree species will respond to climate change, nor what threats from pests and diseases they may face decades into the future. However, woodland managers have different perceptions of diversity, and how management may best deliver it, and we know that different tree species will support the woodland ecosystem in different ways. Therefore, it is important to combine stakeholders' knowledge with ecological knowledge to identify which tree species and management approaches best deliver diversification that increases resilience. DiversiTree focuses on woods dominated by two conifer species, Scots Pine and Sitka Spruce, as in the year to March 2021 54% of all new woodland was coniferous. Scots Pine is the UK's only native conifer of economic significance. It is planted for timber production but is also the dominant species in the culturally iconic native Caledonian pinewoods. Scots Pine is at risk from the tree disease Dothistroma. Sitka Spruce is not native to Britain but is our most economically valuable tree species and is at risk from invasive bark beetles and climate change. This project addresses four knowledge gaps related to the diversification of woodlands: 1) How do stakeholders understand forest diversity, their diversification strategies, and their visions and ambitions for diverse future forests? 2) Are the microbes found on the leaves of trees more diverse in woodlands with mixed tree species and does this help trees to better defend themselves against diseases? 3) How may diversification of tree species within a wood allow the continued support of woodland biodiversity? 4) How do we implement and communicate management strategies to increase woodland resilience? To address these knowledge gaps, we work across disciplines bringing together ecologists, microbiologists, social scientists, and woodland managers. The Woodland Trust is embedded at the heart of our project to enable us to co-develop and check the feasibility of our results with practitioners. Results from interviews with woodland managers, focus groups and analyses of policy documents, will be used to improve knowledge of the options for woodland diversification, and both the enthusiasm for, and capacity to, implement diversification strategies. The microbes on leaves are important for plant health. Utilizing existing long-term experiments, we will examine the microbes on the leaves of Scots Pine grown in monocultures and in mixed woods. We will assess if the diversity of microbes on a leaf increases as the diversity of tree species increases, and whether this enables the trees to resist existing diseases. Surprising we don't have lists of which species use which trees. This information is required if we are to plant trees that will continue to support woodland biodiversity. We will collate data on the biodiversity hosted by Scots Pine and Sitka Spruce and assess which other tree species could also support the same biodiversity. Finally, we bring the results together to co-develop with practitioners, management strategies for diversification and case studies illustrating how the results can be implemented. The results will be shared via videos, podcasts, social media, and practitioner notes in addition to publications in the scientific literature.

There are major challenges inherent in meeting the goals of the UK national energy policy, including, climate change mitigation and adaption, security of supply, asset renewal, supply infrastructure etc. Additionally, there is a recognized shortage of high quality scientists and engineers with energy-related training to tackle these challenges, and to support the UK's future research and development and innovation performance as evidenced by several recent reports;Doosan Babcock (Energy Brief, Issue 3, June 2007, Doosan Babcock); UK Energy Institute (conducted by Deloitte/Norman Broadbent, 'Skills Needs in the Energy Industry' 2008); The Institution of Engineering and Technology, (evidence to the House of Commons, Select Committee on Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Fifth Report (19th June 2008); The Energy Research Partnership (Investigation into High-level Skills Shortages in the Energy Sector, March 2007). Here we present a proposal to host a Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) focusing on the development of technologies for a low carbon future, providing a challenging, exciting and inspiring research environment for the development of tomorrow's research leaders. This DTC will bring together a cohort of postgraduate research students and their supervisors to develop innovative technologies for a low carbon future based around the key interlinking themes: [1] Low Carbon Enabling Technologies; [2] Transport & Energy; [3] Carbon Storage, underpinned by [4] Climate Change & Energy Systems Research. Thereby each student will develop high level expertise in a particular topic but with excitement of working in a multidisciplinary environment. The DTC will be integrated within a campus wide Interdisciplinary Institute which coordinates energy research to tackle the 'Grand Challenge' of developing technologies for a low carbon future, our DTC students therefore working in a transformational research environment. The DTC will be housed in a NEW 14.8M Energy Research Building and administered by the established (2005) cross campus Earth, Energy & Environment (EEE) University Interdisciplinary Institute

The future of treescapes belongs to children and young people. Yet there is a lack of interdisciplinary research that explores their engagement with treescapes over time. This project aims to re-imagine future treescapes with children and young people, working with local and national partners including Natural England, Forest Research and the Community Forests and Scottish stakeholders. We will identify opportunities and barriers to treescape expansion and pilot innovative child and youth-focused pathways to realising this goal. We will create curricula material which will be disseminated with the support of our project partners, Early Childhood Outdoors and the Chartered College of Teachers. The aim of this project is to integrate children and young people's knowledge, experiences, and hopes with scientific knowledge of how trees adapt to and mitigate climate change in order to co-produce new approaches to creating and caring for resilient treescapes that benefit the environment and society. Drawing on interdisciplinary approaches and in collaboration with stakeholders, the team will produce a 'lexicon of experience' that captures the ecological identities of children and young people. An audit of existing activity in the field of activism and treescapes, with a particular focus on marginalised groups, will inform the project. In particular, the project will produce new material for use by practitioners, educators and policy makers that will inform future treescape planting and will be rolled out nationally, with the help of our project partners. Novel methods for assessing carbon storage in trees and soil will inform a 'tree-twinning' project to enable children and young people to recognise how they can relate to treescapes. Children and young people will draw on the scientific work together with their lived experience to balance their evolving carbon footprint with the changing treescapes they have partnered with. New treescapes will be planted with the help of Community Forests and local authorities. Learning will be enhanced by the scientific project on tree-twinning, embedded within the project, to advance knowledge about the relationship between climate science and urban trees. This research will be carried out with children and young people as co-researchers. The project will focus on hope as a vital ingredient of future planning and philosophically and practically create a set of actions to look to the future while addressing temporalities, including past archival work on trees. It will work with cohorts of young people across early years, primary, secondary and young people out of school, as well as families and communities, to think about and engage with treescapes, to plan as well as plant new treescapes and to engage in treescape thinking and curricula innovation. Working with Natural England as project partners, a toolkit will be developed to guide this work and a set of resources and outputs to be rolled out nationally that inspire and inform future generations of children and young people to become involved in treescapes, which will re-shape the disciplinary landscape of treescapes research and inform policy and practice. Community forest planners, policy-makers and practitioners will better understand how to engage children and young people in treescapes and how to work with their knowledges to inspire and inform future generations. Innovative approaches to arts and humanities, environmental science and social science will produce a new understanding of how combining disciplines can further treescape research with children and young people. The project will also advance methodological understandings of the relationship between children and young people and treescapes with a focus on co-production and attending to lived experience while conducting environmental scientific research. New knowledge in the fields of environmental and social science will create new disciplinary paradigms and concepts.