This research project will investigate the politics and ethics surrounding high-end diagnostic testing in India. Through interviews, participant observation, and group discussions with scientists and industry practitioners involved in this nascent, yet burgeoning industry, I will map two important sets of concerns in this field. The first is to do with pre-conception, pre-implantation and pre-natal genetic testing, important precursors to debates around genetic and social engineering. The second will look specifically at testing around ambiguous genitalia in newborn infants to understand how sex and gender discourses align with so-called bodily ambiguity. The discussions generated by these two forms of testing will feed into the researcher's larger interests in how class, race, and gender are both formative and transformed in the quest for future bodies free of defect and malfunction.

The aim of SARASWATI 2.0 is to identify best available and affordable technologies for decentralized wastewater treatment with scope of resource/energy recovery and reuse in urban and rural areas. Further, it addresses the challenge of real time monitoring and automation. The previous SARASWATI project has shown that a number of decentralized wastewater treatment plants in India do not perform properly and that there are few plants that would meet the more stringent standards as those proposed by the Indian Government in 2015. Thus, in many cases not even CATNAP (the cheapest available technology narrowly avoiding prosecution) has been applied, leading to high pollution levels. The SARASWATI project therefore proposed to adopt the principle of BAT (best available technologies) in a more flexible way, adapting the definition of BAT to the local context, based on complementing the treatment efficiency with the costs of the treatment technology and affordability, and local context in the location of application. This will allow to identify BATs with more stringent standards if required and suitable for the location. Thereby, ten pilot technologies in 7 Indian States demonstrating enhanced removal of organic pollution (BOD, TSS), nutrients (particularly Nitrogen), organic micro-pollutants and pathogens have been proposed (WP1). Further, all pilots allow for resource recovery contributing to the principles of a circular economy and will undergo a comprehensive performance assessment (WP2) complemented by an extended sustainability assessment informed by recent ISO standards (WP4). This will allow identification of BATs for the Indian context. In addition, suitable automation and control strategies will be tested and recommended, taking into account the presence of operators and their level of knowledge and expertise (WP3). Finally, WP5 is dedicated to dissemination and exploitation of results. The consortium is comprised of a well-balanced EU-Indian team of 17 partners.

RECLAIM is an innovative network to address complex problems and create sustainable, healthy, and liveable urban systems, resilient to climate-related hazards. RECLAIM will become an inclusive platform for continual exchange, and knowledge translation. Our network will connect and transform the 'forgotten cities' to be at the vanguard for environmental and economic advancement using participatory methods and green-blue-grey infrastructure (GBGI) to address societal and environmental challenges. Our vision for RECLAIM is to create a multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral network, which brings together multiple areas of scientific expertise (engineering, ecology, social science), artists, designers, business, city authorities, policymakers and community groups. RECLAIM will act as a hub to rapidly disseminate best practice on GBGI design which takes account of the social and economic context, and the needs of local residents as well as the latest scientific evidence on designing multi-functional GBGI solutions. The network will develop common language, goals and methodology to ease the communication, spreading, and replicability of GBGI. It will focus on the forgotten cities, especially the smaller and/or economically disadvantaged urban areas and communities which have mostly been ignored in the implementation and assessment of GBGI, and making them part of the solution using a participatory approach. The geographical scope is pan-UK, covering some larger cities where good practice is already established (e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow, Newcastle) with smaller cities and less well-off areas in the northeast of England, north Wales, the Midlands and south-east England to test, co-design, engage and learn with their most disadvantaged communities. Disciplinary scope aims to bridge engineering, modelling, atmospheric chemistry, hydrology including marine, green infrastructure, urban art, urban design, and social sciences including science and technology studies. The network has a central aim of addressing the levelling up agenda by incorporating both social justice issues and ecological quality into the design of multi-functional grey, green and blue space in cities, proposed as the means to ensure liveable cities which are sustainable and resilient to the future challenges. It will tackle this through six key objectives, which are delivered through a series of network actions: 1) Build a new multi-disciplinary network to share best practice and act as research leaders; 2) Undertake horizon scanning and knowledge synthesis to identify key gaps in knowledge and make recommendations to address them; 3) Conduct feasibility studies to comprehensively assess new and existing GBGI, and to address knowledge gaps; 4) Design, engage and learn with the public, fostering improved understanding of the wider benefits of green-blue-grey space, and educating the next generation on making our cities more sustainable and healthier places to live; 5) Train a new cohort of decision-makers and academics to embed multi-disciplinary thinking into future GBGI design, incorporating a mix of place-based approaches and scale-appropriate functional interventions; 6) Accelerate uptake of best practices by dissemination through activities designed to share best practice on urban planning and green and blue space design. Underlying this are four cross-cutting themes which thread through all the network activities: Multifunctionality and systems thinking, Embedding aesthetics and people's needs into GBGI design, Upscaling and outscaling, and Capitalising on existing initiatives.

EQUAMBI is designed to address Quality Assurance management to properly support the governance and decision making required for institutional advancement and enhancement. Based on a comparative exploration of current activities and planned objectives, against international best practice, this Project will provide a ‘benchmarking toolkit’ and a programme of capacity building / dissemination will provide guidance for Indian universities on how best to improve / enhance their governance and management of ‘quality’. Whilst underpinned by agreement on the shared bases and principles for ‘quality’, the project is targeted at three specific and critical areas: teaching and learning; research and innovation; internationalisation.