The proposed research is part of a long-term research agenda to develop High Value Manufacturing (HVM) products with longer functional life and lower whole life cost. The research will deliver to the recently published national strategy on 'engineering services' and a 2025 vision - achieving our goal of 20% reduction in whole life cost with 20% increase in availability during the life of a product across more than £20bn of UK manufacturing sector output. A White Paper on 'Making Things Work. Engineering for life - developing a strategic vision' (Cranfield University, 2015), recognised that the UK has a declining 5% share of a rising global market in 'service and support' that currently exceeds £490 billion. Over 50% of the revenue comes from export. The global market will grow to £710 billion by 2025 [IBISWorld Industry report on Global Engineering Services, 2015]. Despite this there are around 107,000 people working in the "sector" in the UK with average wages 1.5 times those in wider manufacturing [Office of National Statistics (ONS) Data, Dec 2014]. Today more than 50% of revenue in the aerospace and defence sectors comes from the service contracts. For example the Rolls- Royce 'Total Care' contracts and related support activities. The contracts would never have been so successful without underpinning 'through-life performance' research. Both the Foresight Report on 'The Future of Manufacturing: A new era of opportunity and challenge for the UK' (The Government Office for Science, London, 2013) and the White Paper portray the importance of developing engineering services and support capability but recognise there is little underpinning science and good practice available to the extended service supply chain needed for UK competitiveness and productivity. This platform grant will contribute to an increase of around 3% (a total of 8%) in the UK's share of the global market. The aim of the platform grant is to sustain a world leading team with strategic research capability on through-life performance improvement, including complex in-situ degradation assessment technologies. The team between Cranfield and Nottingham Universities have worked together over the last ten years. They have a very strong portfolio of current research projects and publication record, this research will develop the team as an international centre of excellence in 'through-life performance improvement'. This is the only research group internationally focusing on this area in respect of HVM. The grant will accelerate career of the world-class researchers and support them to become internationally leading researchers. Current research capabilities still focus upon single degradation modelling and assessment. There is however, a significant lack of knowledge and models for compound degradation (e.g. the interaction of more than one failure mechanism; corrosion, fatigue and the role temperature plays in modifying the degradation processes). The research will take on a challenge to study and model compound degradations for mechanical components, give feedback on the degradation to design and manufacturing and develop instrumentation to assess (i.e. measure size and depth) the degradations in-situ, including in in-accessible areas. Understanding degradation science better (both single and then compound) is essential to extend the life of mechanical components and therefore availability of the HVM products. In-situ assessment of the compound degradation through very small service access holes will reduce the maintenance cost significantly. The research team will be supported by partner organisations: Rolls-Royce, Bombardier, Network Rail, SMD Ltd, HVM Catapult, XP School. They will directly benefit from the research along with other 500 HVM Companies.

The UK has fallen significantly behind other countries when it comes to adopting robotics/automation within factories. Collaborative automation, that works directly with people, offers fantastic opportunities for strengthening UK manufacturing and rebuilding the UK economy. It will enable companies to increase productivity, to be more responsive and resilient when facing external pressures (like the Covid-19 pandemic) to protect jobs and to grow. To enable confident investment in automation, we need to overcome current fundamental barriers. Automation needs to be easier to set up and use, more capable to deal with complex tasks, more flexible in what it can do, and developed to safely and intuitively collaborate in a way that is welcomed by existing workers and wider society. To overcome these barriers, the ISCF Research Centre in Smart, Collaborative Robotics (CESCIR) has worked with industry to identify four priority areas for research: Collaboration, Autonomy, Simplicity, Acceptance. The initial programme will tackle current fundamental challenges in each of these areas and develop testbeds for demonstration of results. Over the course of the programme, CESCIR will also conduct responsive research, rapidly testing new ideas to solve real world manufacturing automation challenges. CESCIR will create a network of academia and industry, connecting stakeholders, identifying challenges/opportunities, reviewing progress and sharing results. Open access models and data will enable wider academia to further explore the latest scientific advances. Within the manufacturing industry, large enterprises will benefit as automation can be brought into traditionally manual production processes. Similarly, better accessibility and agility will allow more Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) to benefit from automation, improving their competitiveness within the global market.

Along the well-to-wake value chain from upstream processes associated with fuels production and supply, components manufacture, and ships construction to the operation of ports and vessels, the UK domestic and international shipping produced 5.9 Mt CO2eq and 13.8 Mt CO2eq, respectively in 2017, totalling 3.4% of the UK's overall greenhouse gas emissions. The sector contributes significantly to air pollution challenges with emissions of nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide and particulate matters, harming human health and the environment particularly in coastal areas. The annual global market for maritime emission reduction technologies could reach $15 billion by 2050. This provides substantial economic opportunities for the UK. The Department for Transport's Clean Maritime Plan provides a route map for action on infrastructure, economics, regulation, and innovation that covers high technology readiness level (TRL 3-7). There is a genuine opportunity to explore fundamental research and go beyond conventional marine engineering and naval architecture and exploit the UK's world-leading cross-sectoral fundamental research expertise on hydrodynamics, fuels, combustion, electric machines and power electronics, batteries and fuel cells, energy systems, digitization, management, finance, logistics, safety engineering, etc. The proposed UK-MaRes Hub is a multidisciplinary research consortium and will conduct interdisciplinary research focussed on delivering disruptive solutions which have tangible potential to transform existing practice and reach a zero-carbon future by 2050. The challenges faced by UK maritime activity and their solutions are generally common but when deployed locally, they are bespoke due to the specifics of the port, the vessels they support, and the dependencies on their supply chains. Implementation will be heavily dependent on the local community, existing infrastructure, as well as opportunities and constraints related to the supply, distribution, storage and bunkering of alternative fuels, in decarbonising port handling facilities and cold-ironing, with the integration of renewable energy, reducing air pollution, to land-use and increased capacity and capability, and the local development of skills. The types of vessels and the cargoes handled through UK ports varies and are related to several factors, such as geographical location, regional industrial and business activity and wider transport links. Therefore, UK-MaRes Hub aims to feed into a clean maritime strategy that can adapt to place-based challenges and provide targeted technical and socio-economic interventions through a novel Co-innovation Methodology. This will bring together Research Exploration themes/work packages and Responsive Research Fund project activity into focus on port-centric scenarios and assess possibilities to innovate and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, 2040 and 2050 timeframes, sharing best practice across the whole maritime ecosystem. A diverse, and inclusive Clean Maritime Network+ will ensure wider dissemination and knowledge take-up to achieve greater impact across UK ports and other maritime activity. The Network+ will have coordinated regional activity in South-West, Southern, London, Yorkshire & Lincolnshire, Midlands, North-West, North-East, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. An already established Clean Maritime Research Partnership has vibrant academic, industrial, and civic stakeholder members from across the UK. UK-MaRes Hub will establish a Clean Maritime Policy Unit to provide expert advice and quantitative evidence to enable rapid decarbonisation of the maritime sector. It will ensure that the UK-MaRes Hub is engaging with policymakers at all stages of the hub activities.

Minerals are essential for economic development, the functioning of society and maintaining our quality of life. Consumption of most raw materials has increased steadily since World War II, and demand is expected to continue to grow in response to the burgeoning global population and economic growth, especially in Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) and other emerging economies. We are also using a greater variety of metals than ever before. New technologies such as those required for modern communication and computing and to produce clean renewable, low-carbon energy require considerable quantities of many metals. In the light of these trends there is increasing global concern over the long-term availability of secure and adequate supplies of the minerals and metals needed by society. Of particular concern are 'critical' raw materials (E-tech element), so called because of their growing economic importance and essential contribution to emerging 'green' technologies, yet which have a high risk of supply shortage. The following E-tech elements are considered to be of highest priority for research: cobalt, tellurium, selenium, neodymium, indium, gallium and the heavy rare earth elements. Some of these E-tech elements are highly concentrated in seafloor deposits (ferromanganese nodules and crusts), which constitute the most important marine metal resource for future exploration and exploitation. For example, the greatest levels of enrichment of Tellurium are found in seafloor Fe-Mn crusts encrusting some underwater mountains. Tellurium is a key component in the production of thin film solar cells, yet is prone to security of supply concerns because of projected increased demand resulting from the widespread deployment of photovoltaic technologies; low recycling rates; and its production as a by-product from copper refining. As a result, it is vital to assess alternative sources of supply of tellurium and the other E-tech elements, the largest source of which is held as seafloor mineral deposits. Our research programme aims to improve understanding of E-tech element concentration in seafloor mineral deposits, which are considered the largest yet least explored source of E-tech elements globally. Our research will focus on two key aspects: The formation of the deposits, and reducing the impacts resulting from their exploitation. Our primarily focus is on the processes controlling the concentration of the deposits and their composition at a local scale (10's to 100's square km). These will involve data gathering by robotic vehicles across underwater mountains and small, deep-sea basins off the coast of North Africa and Brazil. By identifying the processes that result in the highest grade deposits, we aim to develop a predictive model for their occurrence worldwide. We will also address how to minimise the environmental impacts of mineral exploitation. Seafloor mining will have an impact on the environment. It can only be considered a viable option if it is environmentally sustainable. By gathering ecological data and experimenting with underwater clouds of dust that simulate those generated by mining activity, we will explore of extent of disturbance by seafloor mineral extraction. Metal extraction from ores is traditionally very energy consuming. To reduce the carbon footprint of metal extraction we will explore the novel use of organic solvents, microbes and nano-materials. An important outcome of the work will be to engage with the wider community of stakeholders and policy makers on the minimising the impacts of seafloor mineral extraction at national and international levels. This engagement will help inform policy on the governance and management of seafloor mineral exploitation.

Minerals are essential for economic development, the functioning of society and maintaining our quality of life. Consumption of most raw materials has increased steadily since World War II, and demand is expected to continue to grow in response to the burgeoning global population and economic growth, especially in Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) and other emerging economies. We are also using a greater variety of metals than ever before. New technologies such as those required for modern communication and computing and to produce clean renewable, low-carbon energy require considerable quantities of many metals. In the light of these trends there is increasing global concern over the long-term availability of secure and adequate supplies of the minerals and metals needed by society. Of particular concern are 'critical' raw materials (E-tech element), so called because of their growing economic importance and essential contribution to emerging 'green' technologies, yet which have a high risk of supply shortage. The following E-tech elements are considered to be of highest priority for research: cobalt, tellurium, selenium, neodymium, indium, gallium and the heavy rare earth elements. Some of these E-tech elements are highly concentrated in seafloor deposits (ferromanganese nodules and crusts), which constitute the most important marine metal resource for future exploration and exploitation. For example, the greatest levels of enrichment of Tellurium are found in seafloor Fe-Mn crusts encrusting some underwater mountains. Tellurium is a key component in the production of thin film solar cells, yet is prone to security of supply concerns because of projected increased demand resulting from the widespread deployment of photovoltaic technologies; low recycling rates; and its production as a by-product from copper refining. As a result, it is vital to assess alternative sources of supply of tellurium and the other E-tech elements, the largest source of which is held as seafloor mineral deposits. Our research programme aims to improve understanding of E-tech element concentration in seafloor mineral deposits, which are considered the largest yet least explored source of E-tech elements globally. Our research will focus on two key aspects: The formation of the deposits, and reducing the impacts resulting from their exploitation. Our primarily focus is on the processes controlling the concentration of the deposits and their composition at a local scale (10's to 100's square km). These will involve data gathering by robotic vehicles across underwater mountains and small, deep-sea basins off the coast of North Africa and Brazil. By identifying the processes that result in the highest grade deposits, we aim to develop a predictive model for their occurrence worldwide. We will also address how to minimise the environmental impacts of mineral exploitation. Seafloor mining will have an impact on the environment. It can only be considered a viable option if it is environmentally sustainable. By gathering ecological data and experimenting with underwater clouds of dust that simulate those generated by mining activity, we will explore of extent of disturbance by seafloor mineral extraction. Metal extraction from ores is traditionally very energy consuming. To reduce the carbon footprint of metal extraction we will explore the novel use of organic solvents, microbes and nano-materials. An important outcome of the work will be to engage with the wider community of stakeholders and policy makers on the minimising the impacts of seafloor mineral extraction at national and international levels. This engagement will help inform policy on the governance and management of seafloor mineral exploitation.