This project builds on research on the independent fast food sector in London which has explored the potential for businesses to adopt healthier menus and catering practices and the effectiveness of healthier catering initiatives in encouraging these. A key finding from the research is the role played by local socio-economic and cultural factors in influencing business practice and the ease with which businesses are able to adopt a healthier business model. In particular businesses operating in deprived areas are very price sensitive and owner managers are reluctant to introduce healthier menus which might result in price increases and/or deter customers. Businesses were also constrained in what they could sell by the nature of the supply chain with many suppliers not stocking healthier varieties or charging premium rates for them. Nudges, such as moving salt shakers behind the counter, worked in some settings, but more research is needed to identify the contexts in which feasible behaviour change strategies are acceptable and to identify financially viable healthier business models that could be promoted, particularly in deprived areas. The aim of this project is therefore to work with public sector health officials and policy makers who are at the forefront of developing interventions in this domain. These include the Chartered Institute for Environmental Health, the Greater London Authority Food Team, and a London-wide network of environmental health officers and nutritionists and their managers. The proposed Knowledge Exchange project is focused on addressing the following four key research questions as follows: 1) What type of healthier changes might fast food businesses adopt voluntarily and what are the barriers where a greater degree of intervention may be required such as legislation or intervention with supply chains? 2) What business models involving the sale of healthier fast food work for independent outlets - particularly in deprived areas? 3) How can businesses in the supply chain be encouraged to make changes to product formulation and marketing mixes that will promote healthier product varieties? 4) What behaviour change strategies can businesses (fast food outlets and suppliers) easily incorporate without risking loss of customers and profits? To address these questions the project will undertake the following activities: a) A telephone survey of healthy catering initiatives and work with suppliers conducted elsewhere in the UK to identify good practice and lessons learnt b) Detailed interviews with fast food outlets in London to provide examples of good practice and/or trial changes, nudges etc. to enable an in-depth understanding of the business to be developed including its products/menus, market and marketing strategy, as well as barriers to the introduction of healthier changes c) Work with suppliers to encourage product reformulation and new marketing strategies designed to encourage the promotion and sale of healthier varieties of products. Outputs from the project will include a number of resources for public sector practitioners including: i) The development of a number of case studies of businesses that have attempted to adopt new business models to include menu and product reformulation to offer financially viable healthier catering. ii) Suggested healthier behaviour change strategies or 'nudges' that businesses can be encouraged to adopt. iii) A guide for suppliers to include recommendations for product, packaging, and marketing strategies that are likely to lead to the sale and purchase of healthier products and portions. iv) A briefing paper on key recommendations for policy v) These all to form part of a web-based good practice toolkit located on the CIEH website Dissemination events, held in conjunction with the GLA, and the CIEH will promote the toolkit to practitioners and policy makers throughout the UK.

The Verbatim Formula (TVF) is an AHRC-funded participatory action research project based at Queen Mary University of London that brings together a range of partners from the children's care public sector, higher education and the arts to support young people entering and leaving the care of the state. Responding to the adoption into UK law of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1992, that 'corporate parents' are legally obliged to give due regard to children's wishes and feelings in matters affecting them, the project aimed to explore the extent to which creative practice can support better listening by adult professionals. Using verbatim theatre, a form which requires care-ful listening and performance of recorded testimonies, TVF works with care-experienced young people as co-researchers, whose knowledge of care and education qualifies them as 'experts'. The project's 'Portable Testimony Service' gathers testimonies for 'pop-up' events in arts centres, social services' and universities' offices, and in policy fora. TVF invites meaningful, face-to-face dialogue between young people and adults, aiming to create attentive and spontaneous dialogue in the increasingly transactional life of education and care. As participatory action research it aims to empower and support its participants, building platforms from which to define gaps in provision, expose structural inequalities, and advocate for change. Since the project began in 2015, various indicators show that the care system is under ever greater pressure due to a long period of austerity. Increased numbers are entering care, and there are insufficient foster carers who can provide the support that is needed for vulnerable young people. In 2017-8, more than 6000 young people experienced unplanned endings to their placements in foster care. Such instability exacerbates looked-after children's well-documented vulnerability to mental health problems and jeopardises the continuity needed for their educational and life success. In spite of the statutory requirement to hear children's voices, an over emphasis on procedures and paperwork blocks effective communication and hinders the trusting relationships with both foster carers and social workers that children need to project a positive future. In the course of TVF's AHRC research period its young co-researchers repeatedly testified to the detrimental effects of transactional relationships with social workers, and the need for more loving foster care. As one 15-year-old told TVF, 'Young people who go into care have been through a lot. Sometimes a hug goes a long way'. Since the outbreak of Covid-19, questions of isolation and the importance of social contact have become even more evident. This follow-on project will deepen engagement with young people in applying TVF's practices to enable foster carers and social workers to understand the affective aspects of their practices within their professional roles and to consider the consequences of these for relationships. In a new partnership with socially engaged arts circus company Upswing, and sound artist Ian Dickinson, the TVF research team will work with young people, social workers and foster carers from Wandsworth and Manchester in creative workshops that integrate accessible physical trust activities with caring and careful practices of listening. A range of outputs will support the work of third sector partners Coram Voice, in listening to young people's voices in the development of good practice, and the Fostering Network in recruiting foster carers. These include a performance at Battersea Arts Centre and in the Manchester International Festival with audience interaction that will generate press coverage; a series of films based on young people's real life experiences that combat the stigmatisation of social care; digital training materials centring young people's advice; and an interactive workshop ready to be offered to UK Local Authorities.

The current global fashion supply chain is characterised by its lack of transparency, forced labour, poor working conditions, unequal power relationships and overproduction caused by fast fashion. Lacking ethics, the global fashion supply chain is also highly polluting. The total footprint of clothing in use in the UK, including global and territorial emissions, was 26.2 million tonnes CO2 in 2016, up from 24 million tonnes in 2012 (equivalent to over a third of household transport emissions). The Textiles Circularity Centre (TCC) proposes materials security for the UK by circularising resource flows of textiles. This will stimulate innovation and economic growth in the UK textile manufacturing, SME apparel and creative technology sectors, whilst reducing reliance on imported and environmentally and ethically impactful materials, and diversifying supply chains. The TCC will provide underpinning research understanding to enable the transition to a more circular economy that supports the brand 'designed and made in the UK'. To enact this vision, we will catalyse growth in the fashion and textiles sector by supporting the SME fashion-apparel community with innovations in materials and product manufacturing, access to circular materials through supply chain design, and consumer experiences. Central to our approach is to enable consumers to be agents of change by engaging them in new cultures of consumption. We will effect a symbiosis between novel materials manufacturing and agentive consumer experiences through a supply chain design comprised of innovative business models and digital tools. Using lab-proven biotechnology, we will transform bio-based waste-derived feedstock (post-consumer textiles, crop residues, municipal solid waste) into renewable polymers, fibres and flexible textile materials, as part of a CE transition strategy to replace imported cotton, wood pulp and synthetic polyester fibres and petrochemical finishes. We will innovate advanced manufacturing techniques that link biorefining of organic waste, 3D weaving, robotics and additive manufacturing to circular design and produce flexible continuous textiles and three-dimensional textile forms for apparel products. These techniques will enable manufacturing hubs to be located on the high street or in local communities, and will support SME apparel brands and retailers to offer on-site/on-demand manufacture of products for local customisation. These hubs would generate regional cultural and social benefits through business and related skills development. We will design a transparent supply chain for these textiles through industrial symbiosis between waste management, farming, bio-refinery, textile production, SME apparel brands, and consumer stakeholders. Apparel brands will access this supply chain through our digital 'Biomaterials Platform', through which they can access the materials and data on their provenance, properties, circularity, and life cycle extension strategies. Working with SME apparel brands, we will develop an in-store Configurator and novel affective and creative technologies to engage consumers in digitally immersive experiences and services that amplify couplings between the resource flow, human well being and satisfaction, thus creating a new culture of consumption. This dematerialisation approach will necessitate innovation in business models that add value to the apparel, in order to counter overproduction and detachment. Consumers will become key nodes in the circular value chain, enabling responsible and personalised engagement. As a human-centred design led centre, TCC is uniquely placed to generate these innovations that will catalyse significant business and skills growth in UK textile manufacturing, SME fashion-apparel, and creative technology sectors, and drastically reduce waste and carbon emissions, and environmental and ethical impacts for the textiles sector.