The 20th Century was characterised by a tremendous growth in our capability to develop ever more sophisticated electronic devices, which have fundamentally transformed the way society functions. We now sit on the threshold of a similar revolution due to developments in photonics, which seeks to exploit the photon – the elementary particle of light – in the same way that electronics is ultimately concerned with controlling the electron. Photonics has been identified as a “Key Enabling Technology” by the European Commission. Within Europe there are over 5,000 photonics based small companies and the sector employs nearly 300,000 people. In addition to forming the backbone of the Internet, the technology is already starting to revolutionise manufacturing, healthcare, lighting, displays and sensing. This proposed Researcher Night – Light Night - will coincide with the UNESCO Year of Light 2015, it will bring together the Aston Institute of Photonics Technology (AIPT), Aston University, with the Library of Birmingham and Community Arts Group, the Flatpack Film Festival, to deliver an afternoon and evening of public engaging content, informed by EC funded research, to raise the enormous importance of photonics research to local schools, community groups and library visitors. Light Night is designed to engage adults and young people in a programme which enables them to identify the importance of light to their lives, and experiment in light based activities. The Night will end with a performance by international sound electronic music artist Pantha du Prince, who will perform his most recent album Elements of Light at the Birmingham Symphony Hall.

Every day we see the development of new "smart" things and come closer and closer to the moment when the perfect "smart" home of the future becomes a reality. A "Smart" home, is one in which each appliance (thing) is not only controllable but is also "intelligent", ie. tailored to our individual needs. Yet, smart objects and smart homes often consider the individual as a passive entity to be 'served', rather than an empowered individual who can make smart decisions based on information. This is often because of the assumption that human cognition isn't able to take on the massive amount of information that could be generated from such smart objects. Indeed, very little is known about how people interact with data and how much of the data which we generate can actually inform our day-to-day decision making. We also do not know whether data generated within a home can change our consumption habits and behaviour. Finally, we are uncertain about whether and to what extent the data that we produce influences other decision makers in our household. Our project offers a new approach to answering these questions by observing actual household behaviour "in the wild" and developing a personal resource planning system (PRP) to support decisions made by individuals, ie. a smart 'me'. Our approach is different from existing IoT research in the following ways. First, while traditional research views the customer, who either accepts or rejects the product/service developed by businesses, to be outside the supply system, our approach offers a new perspective in which the customer is also viewed as an inside component of the supply system. This means that the customer, through his/her behaviour, becomes an inherent component of the supply system, and thereby transforms this system into a collaborative exchange system. This collaborative exchange system allows customers to interact with businesses and make decisions about how much customisation they would like to see in each product/service they themselves consume (e.g., Crowcroft et al., 2011; McAuley et al., 2011; Ng. et al., 2013). Second, since our approach has a person (customer) in the centre, the main focus of this project is to understand how "smart" things interact with human behaviour, and possibly how this behaviour can be informed by the new data from "smart" things to catalyse the appearance of a more informed "smart" consumer (e.g., Ng, 2012). Finally, our third contribution to existing research is to create data architecture through the IoT which would allow customers to make more informed "smart" decisions. In a way, the main output of this project will be a proof of concept that customers could be "nudged" into making "smarter" consumption decisions which would optimise business-customer interactions and create more value for each household.

Public services are presently going through huge changes in response to a range of issues such as the Big Society agenda, increased localisation, greater demands for service user voice and control, increased public expectations and a greater mix in terms of the economy of welfare services. Public service organisations are grappling with significant changes at a time when they are also making significant cuts to budgets. The public service organisations of today are no longer large public sector organisations such as the local authorities of the past but are likely to be smaller in size and increasingly likely to exist in the commercial sector or the third sector. These changes have significant implications in terms of the types of roles that public servants undertake and their career trajectories. Whereas in the past an individual might start out in a junior role in a public sector organisation and work their way through various parts of that organisation, today it is more likely that individuals will work in a range of different organisations and institutions over the course of their career and also cross sectoral boundaries. Even where individuals may remain in the same organisation it is likely that they will be required to work more closely with those from other organisations, institutions and sectors as public services become ever more diversified. The existing knowledge and practice around career development of public servants is yet to catch up with these developments. There is no common and shared route through which public servants are developed or through which they can gain access to information about the types of roles available and the skills and competencies they may need to develop. The training of public servants has traditionally focused too much on the core civil service, whereas the majority of people who work in public services may not fit this model. Whilst those who work outside of the public sector are often trained and developed through different routes. This is compounded by the fact that professionals within the public service workforce (e.g. doctor, social worker, teacher, accountant, lawyer) are trained specifically for that role to a certain set of standards and expectations. Further, the notion of the 'public sector ethos' has been too associated with those working in the public sector which does not well reflect the myriad of organisations who today are involved with designing and delivering public services. Neither does this effectively take account of the shifting role of service users as co-designers, co-producers or citizens. This project aims to build on the findings of the University of Birmingham's Policy Commission into the 'Future of Public Services' which identified the desperate need to pay attention to the changing nature of the roles undertaken by public servants and the associated support and development needs. This project is a partnership arrangement between the University of Birmingham and Birmingham City Council and aims to establish: the existing knowledge base on this topic; undertake new research into public service roles; and, to establish a knowledge portal which should support other public servants and public service organisations. The knowledge portal will set out details about the context of public service, the range of roles which are developing in public service, the skills and resources that are needed to fulfil these roles, an indication of where existing development opportunities are available and detail on the sort of local and national government support that might be required for public servants and public service organisations.

Road accidents and traffic congestion are causing serious problems for global transport systems. More than 1.2 million people die each year due to road accidents. Connected vehicles and autonomous vehicles are two promising technologies that can improve road transport safe and efficiency, but they both have inherent shortcomings. This project proposes an innovative solution of cooperative connected intelligent vehicles, where vehicular communications technology and resource sharing and cooperation are exploited, to tackle the road transport challenges, and deliver enhanced road safety and efficiency. An international cross-sector and cross-disciplinary consortium consisting of world leading academic institutions, prominent industry and policymaker partners is created to collaborate on developing innovative CIV technologies and applications, with the support of novel vehicle communications and cooperative resource sharing. Advanced research technologies in vehicle communication, vehicle edge computing, machine learning, data fusion, advanced driving systems, and cellular network resource management will be applied to tackle the associated challenges. The resulting CIV technologies and applications will help reduce road accidents, improve transportation efficiency and reduce traffic congestion. They hold great potential for technology innovation, and are directly applicable to autonomous driving, smart cities, and the wider scientific community. With competent and complementary expertise of the partners and their extensive international research collaboration experience, COSAFE will promote knowledge sharing, foster research innovation, enhance the potentials of participating researchers, and contribute to the European competitiveness and leadership in the automotive and ICT sectors. Existing research links among the partners will be strengthened. New and sustainable collaborations will be developed to build up world-class research in road safe systems.