Magnetic materials have completely changed how we can access and make use of information during the last century. Digital information is stored in hard-drives in magnetic domains, where the north and south poles represent binary "one" and "zero". How fast data can be recorded is limited to the rate at which the poles of these domains can be reversed. Recent advances using laser pulses as short as a millionth billionth of a second (or femtosecond) have made it possible to overcome this limitation by switching magnetic domains 1000 times faster than what current technology can achieve. Ultrafast magnetism therefore has the potential to drastically increase the rate of writing information to memories by orders of magnitude and is one of the frontiers in current magnetic research. A continued development of new magnetic materials and new ways of controlling them will ensure that we can make the most of large data sets, which in turn will improve many aspects of our lives such as health care, government, logistics and will reduce global energy consumption. Another development, but hitherto unexplored in the context of ultrafast magnetism, is the study of molecular magnets. These will overcome the problems with reducing the size of data bits in hard drives to that of a few atoms, where the materials currently used have reached their size limit. Besides from reducing the size, molecular magnets also show another advantage for ultrafast magnetism. It has recently been shown that magnetic materials with localised magnetic moments are promising for achieving fast magnetisation reversal. These systems can be switched much faster in a process that generates less heat. Since the magnetic ordering of molecular magnets are from localised magnetic moments, these systems are very promising because their chemical flexibility makes it is possible to tune the interaction between the localised moments, and more importantly, their response to light perturbation. This will allow us to develop nanomaterials that can be switched using ultrashort laser pulses. In this proposal, we will look at a series of model compounds, where it is possible to systematically change the elemental composition and stoichiometry of the materials to tune their magnetic and optical properties. In particular, the project will be split into two work packages (WPs): spin-flips in Prussian Blue Analogues (WP1) and dynamics of photomagnets (WP2). In WP1, Prussian blue analogues (PBAs) will be studied. It is known that very fast spin-flips can happen in these materials after light excitation. We have recently applied specialised methods to directly observe the spin-flip on a femtosecond timescale. We will extend these methods to a range of PBAs to increase our understanding of how the interaction between the magnetic moments govern the dynamics after the spin-flip on the localised sites. In WP2, we will build on this knowledge and study a similar system based on Fe and Nb. After light excitation, the initially diamagnetic (or "non-magnetic") Fe(II) centres are switched, in a similar process to what was described earlier, but in this case, the spin-excited state is trapped after photoexcitation. This leads to a magnetic interaction between paramagnetic Nb centres and eventually a macroscopic magnetic ordering takes place. It is not known how fast the magnetic ordering process takes place, however, our methods can measure this with unprecedented time resolution. This will allow us to understand the mechanisms for the magnetic switching process, which is necessary for optimising the process to incorporate both the materials and techniques in a future ultrafast and ultradense magneto-optical data storage devices. EPSRC Reference: EP/S018824/1

Our programme focuses on the care needs of adults living at home with chronic health problems or disabilities, and seeks sustainable solutions to the UK's contemporary 'crisis of care'. It is distinctive in investigating sustainability and wellbeing in care holistically across care systems, work and relationships; addresses disconnection between theorisations of care in different disciplines; and locates all its research in the context of international scholarship, actively engaging with policy partners. It will fill knowledge gaps, contribute new theoretical ideas and data analyses, and provide useful, accurate evidence to inform care planning, provision and experience. It develops and critically engages with policy and theoretical debates about: care infrastructure (systems, networks, partnerships, standards); divisions of caring labour/the political economy of care (inequalities, exploitation); care ethics, rights, recognition and values (frameworks, standards, entitlements, wellbeing outcomes); care technologies and human-technological interactions; and care relations in emotional, familial, community and intergenerational context. Our team comprises 20 scholars in 7 universities, linked to an international network spanning 15 countries. Our programme comprises integrative activities, in which the whole team works together to develop a new conceptual framework on sustainable care and wellbeing, and two Work Strands, each with 4 linked projects, on 'Care Systems' & 'Care Work & Relationships'. 'Care Systems' will: (i) study prospects, developments and differentiation in the four care systems operating in England, N. Ireland, Scotland & Wales, comparing their approaches to markets, privatisation and reliance on unpaid care; (ii) model costs and contributions in care, covering those of carers and employers as well as public spending on care; (iii) assess the potential of emerging technologies to enhance care system sustainability; and (iv) analyse, in a dynamic policy context, migrant care workers' role in the sustainability of homecare. 'Care Work & Relationships' will: (i) develop case studies of emerging homecare models, and assess their implications for sustainable wellbeing; (ii) focus on carers who combine employment with unpaid care, filling gaps in knowledge about the effectiveness of workplace support and what care leave and workplace standard schemes can contribute to sustainable care arrangements; (iii) explore how care technologies can be integrated to support working carers, ensuring wellbeing outcomes across caring networks; and (iv) investigate care 'in' and 'out of' place, as systems adapt or come under pressure associated with population diversity and mobility. Each project will collaborate with our international partners. These scholars, in 26 collaborating institutions, will ensure we learn from others about ways of understanding, measuring or interpreting developments in how care is organised and experienced, and keep up to date with latest research and scholarship. Our capacity-building strategy will build future scholarly expertise in the study of sustainability and wellbeing in care, and ensure our concepts, methods, and research findings achieve international standards of excellence. Universities in our partnership are contributing 5 UK & 12 overseas PhD studentships, enabling us to form an international early career scholar network on sustainable care, supported by our senior team and partners. Our impact strategy, led by Carers UK, involves leading UK and international policy partners. Informing policy, practice and debate, we will co-produce analyses and guidance, enhance data quality, promote good practice and engage decision-makers, policymakers, practitioners in the public, private and voluntary sectors, carers, people with care needs, and the media. Our Advisory Board of leading academics, policy/practice figures and opinion formers will guide all our work.

Changes over time in population size arise due to changes in individuals (e.g. via survival or reproduction). Similarly, evolution via natural selection requires differences between individuals, under-pinned by heritable differences. The variation between individuals in their life-history phenotype (the way they grow, mature, reproduce and die) is thus key both to population changes and evolutionary changes. Traditionally, individual variation has been thought to arise because of genetic and environmental differences. Increasingly, we are recognising there is a third cause: past environmental conditions being passed across generations via paternal effects. The most common example of which are maternal influences on offspring condition. If my mother had a lot of food when she was pregnant, I am more likely to have grown in the womb and be born a large and healthy baby. As a result, I am likely to live a long time. Some types of maternal effect are not mediated by nutrition, but by switching on or off genes. Such gene silencing or activation (an 'epigenetic effect') can last several generations. By studying individuals and their life-histories (patterns of growth, maturity, health, survival, longevity) - whether in humans, other mammals, birds, fish, lizards or invertebrates - we are increasingly realising that parental effects are important in determining many aspects of an individual's life. Parental effects can arise through nutrition or epigenetics, and arise through the male or female line. Many studies have been observational (noting patterns and trying to explain them) and so little systematic experimentation has been undertaken. There remain many unanswered questions about the overall importance for parental effects in ecology. How much variation do parental effects create? Over what timescale: can they be outgrown or reversed? How do maternal and paternal effects interact? Do epigenetic effects act differently from nutritional effects? How much do they influence population dynamics by creating variation between individuals? In this grant we first explore the conditions leading to parental effects - by varying male and female age and condition and then looking across the offspring life history from start to finish. Second, we investigate whether the effects arise due to genetics (offspring have different combinations of genes to their parents), nutrition (by looking at the amount of yolk and its chemical composition) and epigenetics (which genes are switched on or off). Third, we build a model to ask the question why did the observed parental effects evolve. Finally, we create experimental populations of hundreds of individuals to see how parental effects created variability between individuals and how much this creates variation in population size and structure. The experiments are conducted using an experimental 'model' animal: a soil mite. This has a fast generation time and a small size, allowing experiments on both individuals and populations.

IP-PAD (Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Politics of Adolescence & Democracy) aims to address a timely, pressing societal issue, namely the understanding of how young adolescent citizens process political information and how this affects their engagement with politics. Youth engagement with politics has always been crucial for the future of democracy as the adolescents of today become the voting citizens of tomorrow. Their political engagement seems even more important today as we have witnessed a decline in youth satisfaction with democracy, while at the same time the social and political challenges of climate change, misinformation, declining voter turnout, polarization and radicalization raise concerns about the future of liberal democracies in Europe. To address these aims, IP-PAD will integrate, for the first time, in a systematic, rigorous and mutually beneficial way two main areas of research: first, the extensive literature on youth political engagement from the perspective of political and social sciences; and second, the insights on the wide-ranging changes that occur in the adolescent brain, obtained from the fields of developmental psychology and neuroscience. While prolific in their own respect, these two perspectives have till now been kept separate. IP-PAD argues that a rigorous understanding of how adolescents process political information requires the integration of these two strands. IP-PAD will fill this gap by studying how the developing adolescent brain in the different sociopolitical contexts of five European countries underpins the emergence of the social, and eventually, political self. By integrating these two perspectives and in collaboration with three major European non-academic partners (European Youth Parliament, Gallup International, Counterpoint Global) IP-PAD will provide an in-depth interdisciplinary training to a young generation of social scientists in conducting open, rigorous, innovative and impactful research.

Fullerenes are football-shaped cages of carbon atoms, for the discovery of which the British scientist Harry Kroto won the Nobel prize in 1996. Inside the cage is an empty space. Chemists and physicists have found many ingenious ways of trapping atoms or molecules inside the tiny fullerene cages. These encapsulated compounds are called endofullerenes and denoted A@C60. A remarkable method is called "molecular surgery" in which a series of chemical reactions is used to open a hole in the fullerene, a small molecule or atom is inserted into each fullerene cage, and a further series of chemical reactions is used to "sew" the holes back up again to reform the pristine cage with the atom or molecule inside. Initial examples were hydrogen (H2@C60) and water (H2O@C60). Our team greatly improved the reported method and extended it to HF@C60. Our team recently achieved a breakthrough in encapsulating methane to give CH4@C60 - the first time an organic molecule has been put inside C60. The route developed, using a larger hole than before, opens the way to encapsulating other interesting molecules such as ammonia (NH3), oxygen (O2) and formaldehyde (CH2O). In the gas phase, ammonia (NH3) displays an unusual resonance in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum. This resonance is associated with the "inversion" of the pyramid-shaped ammonia molecule, similar to an umbrella being inverted in a strong wind. This ammonia resonance is of great historical significance, since it was used for the very first MASER experiment (microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation), which was the precursor of the laser. This MASER resonance is quenched for ammonia in ordinary experimental conditions, by the interaction of the ammonia with neighbouring molecules. However it may exist for ammonia trapped inside the closed cavity of a C60 molecule. We intend to find out. Many small symmetrical molecules display a phenomenon called spin-isomerism. This means that they exist in several forms distinguished by the configurations of their magnetic atomic nuclei, and which convert only slowly into each other. We will study the spin-isomerism of confined molecules such as methane, ammonia, and formaldehyde by using techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), which detects radio frequency emissions from the atomic nuclei in a strong magnetic field. In some circumstances, spin-isomerism may be exploited to give strongly enhanced NMR signals. This is potentially important since NMR is widely used throughout science for examining the structure and motion of matter - the most famous example being MRI (magnetic resonance imaging). Any technique that increases the strength of NMR signals is potentially of great importance. Oxygen (O2) is an unusual molecule since it has two unpaired electron spins in the ground state. For this reason, oxygen is slightly magnetic. We will study the behaviour of the unpaired electron spins in fullerene-encapsulated oxygen by using a technique called electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) in which the unpaired electrons are monitored for microwave emission in a strong magnetic field. We have reason to believe that oxygen molecules in which one of the oxygen atoms has atomic mass number 16, and the other one has atomic mass number 18, will have very unusual and useful EPR properties at low temperature. The element Helium (He) has two stable isotopes, called helium-3 and helium-4. Helium-3 (3He) is a very favourable nucleus for NMR, giving a strong, narrow signal. However it is a very rare and expensive gas. We will encapsulate 3He inside fullerene cages and greatly enhance the 3He NMR signals of the helium-endofullerene by exposing the solid material to 3He gas which has been brought into a strongly polarized state by using lasers. The polarized 3He-endofullerene solid may have applications as a tracer substance, for example in magnetic resonance imaging.