Lot-NET considers how waste heat streams from industrial or other sources feeding into low temperature heat networks can combine with optimal heat pump and thermal storage technologies to meet the heating and cooling needs of UK buildings and industrial processes. Heating and cooling produces more than one third of the UK's CO2 emissions and represent about 50% of overall energy demand. BEIS have concluded that heat networks could supply up to 20% of building heat demand by 2050. Heat networks have previously used high temperature hot water to serve buildings and processes but now 4th generation networks seek to use much lower temperatures to make more sources available and reduce losses. Lot-NET will go further by integrating low temperature (LT) networks with heat pump technologies and thermal storage to maximise waste and ambient heat utilisation. There are several advantages of using LT heat networks combined with heat pumps: - They can reuse heat currently wasted from a wide variety of sources in urban environments, e.g. data centres, sewage, substation transformers, low grade industrial reject heat. - Small heat pumps at point of use can upgrade temperature for radiators with minimal electricity use and deleterious effect on the electricity grid. - Industrial high temperature waste can be 'multiplied' by thermal heat pumps increasing the energy into the LT network. - By operating the heat network at lower temperatures, system losses are reduced. Heat source availability is often time dependant. Lot-NET will overcome the challenges of time variation and how to apply smart control and implementation strategies. Thermal storage will be incorporated to reduce the peak loads on electricity networks. The wider use of LT heat networks will require appropriate regulation to support both businesses and customers and Lot-NET will both need to inform and be aware of such regulatory changes. The barrier of initial financial investment is supported by BEIS HNIP but the commercial aspects are still crucial to implementation. Thus, the aim of LoT-NET is to prove a cost-effective near-zero emissions solution for heating and cooling that realises the huge potential of waste heat and renewable energies by utilising a combination of a low-cost low-loss flexible heat distribution network together with novel input, output and storage technologies. The objectives are: 1. To develop a spatial and temporal simulation tool that can cope with dynamics, scale effects, efficiency, cost, etc. of the whole system of differing temperature heat sources, distribution network, storage and delivery technologies and will address Urban, Suburban and Exurban areas. 2. To determine the preferred combination of heat capture, storage and distribution technologies that meets system energy, environmental and cost constraints. Step change technologies such a chemical heat transport and combined heat-to-power and power-to-heat technologies will be developed. 3. To design, cost and proof of concept prototype (as appropriate) seven energy transformation technologies in the first two-three years. They consist of both electrically driven Vapour Compression and heat driven Sorption technologies. Priority for further development will be then given to those which have likely future benefits. 4. To determine key end use and business/industry requirements for timely adoption. While the Clean Growth Strategy and the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund initially support future implementation, innovative business models will reduce costs rapidly for products or services that customers want to buy and use. Thus, engagement with stakeholders and end users to provide evidence of possible business propositions will occur. 5. To demonstrate/validate the integrated technologies applicable to chosen case studies. The range of heating, cooling, transformation and storage technologies studied will be individually laboratory tested interacting with a simulated netw

The Horizon institute is a multidisciplinary centre of excellence for Digital Economy (DE) research. The core mission of Horizon has been to balance the opportunities arising from the capture, analysis and use of personal data with an awareness and understanding of human and social values. The focus on personal data in a wide range of contexts has required the development of a broad set of multidisciplinary competencies allowing us to build links from foundational algorithms and system to issues of society and policy. We follow a user-centred approach, undertaking research in the wild based on principles of open innovation. Horizon now encompasses over 50 researchers, spanning Computing, Engineering, Law, Psychology, Social Sciences, Business and the Humanities. It has grown a diverse network of over 200 external partners who are involved in ongoing collaborative research and impact with Horizon, ranging from major international corporations to SMEs, from a wide variety of sectors, alongside government and civil society groups. We have also established a CDT in the third wave of funding that will eventually deliver 150 PhDs. Our critical mass of researchers, partners, students and funding has already led to over 800 peer-reviewed publications, composed of: 277 journal articles, 51 books and book chapters, and 424 conference papers, in a total of 15 different disciplines. Over the years Horizon's focus has evolved from an emphasis on the collection and understanding of personal data to consider the user-centred design and development of data-driven products. This proposal builds on our established interdisciplinary competencies to deliver research and impact to ensure that future data-driven products can be both co-created and trusted by consumers. Core to our current vision is the idea that future products will be hybrids of both the digital and the physical. Physical products are increasingly augmented with digital capabilities, from data footprints that capture their provenance to software that enables them to adapt their behaviour. Conversely, digital products are ultimately physically experienced by people in some real-world context and increasingly adapt to both. This real-world context is social; hence the data is social and often implicates groups, not just individuals. We foresee that this blending of physical and digital will drive the merging of traditional goods, services and experiences into new forms of product. We also foresee that - just as today's social media services are co-created by consumers who provide content and data - so will be these new data-driven products. At the same time, we are also witnessing a crisis of trust concerning the commercial use of personal data that threatens to undermine this vision of data-driven products. Hence, it is vitally important to build trust with consumers and operate within an increasingly complex regulatory environment from the earliest stages of innovating future products. Our user-centred approach involves external partners and the public in "research-in-the-wild", grounding our fundamental research in real world challenges. Our delivery programme combines a bottom-up approach in which researchers are given the opportunity (and provided with the skills) to follow new impact opportunities in collaboration with partners as they arise (our Agile programme), with a top-down approach that strategically coordinates how these activities are targeted at wider communities (our Campaigns programme, with successive focus on Consumables, Co-production and Welfare), and reflective processes that allow us to draw out broader conclusions for the widest possible impact (our Cross-Cutting programme). Throughout we aim to continue to develop the capacity in our researchers, the wider DE research community and more broadly within society, to engage in responsible innovation using personal data within the Digital Economy.

While employment in Britain is at record levels, there is widespread concern many jobs are not of sufficient quality to maintain a healthy and thriving society. Growing public concern culminated in the government commissioning the 'Good work: The Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices' in 2017. A key recommendation of the Taylor Review was that the government should adopt a multidimensional definition of 'good work', among other recommendations. Building upon decades of academic research demonstrating their relationship with job-related wellbeing, the Taylor Review identified six dimensions as central to 'good work' (DBEIS 2017: 12) (wages, employment quality, education and training, working conditions, work-life balance, and consultative participation/collective representation). The overall objective of this SDAI project is to explore an occupational approach to mapping, understanding, and improving the quality of working life by applying insights from sociological theories of stratification which suggest that the capacity to achieve high job-related wellbeing is to a large extent determined by occupation-field of work. However, this issue has been scarcely researched. The extent to which job quality and job-related wellbeing are structured across the occupational structure are critical issues to understanding and developing pathways to improving the quality of working life, for instance, through occupational mobility or workplace practices that might moderate the effect of occupational environment. We propose creating a new Classification of Occupational Quality (COQ) for this purpose. This is because existing occupational classifications (such as the NS-SEC occupational class schema used by the ONS) were not intended to map job quality defined in a multidimensional way, and as such tended to focus on only a single job quality dimension. A more appropriate tool for the current academic and policy context is necessary. Moreover, the sparse existing research findings suggest that dimensions of job quality and measures of job-related wellbeing do not neatly map onto occupational classes in any case. The specific research questions motivating this proposal are: 1. What is the structure of 'occupational quality'? 2. How does occupational quality influence individuals' subjective wellbeing over the life course? 3. Is mobility across occupational quality structure an effective means of improving the quality of working life? 4. To what extent does the workplace moderate the effect of occupational quality on job quality and wellbeing? Using existing ESRC data, we will answer these questions through writing-up and submitting the results to four world-class academic journals. Emerging findings will be shared at, and feedback will be gathered from a range of national and international conferences, as well as specialist workshops with targeted academic experts to ensure maximum academic impact. A distinctive part of our SDAI project is its impact strategy beyond academia. With the support of the Dept BEIS (the department responsible for implementing the government's job quality strategy) and the CIPD (the professional body of the HR profession who have been a leading voice in the job quality debate), we will channel our findings to policy and practitioner audiences (see Letter of Support). This includes a series of policy and practitioner workshops, as well as plain English briefings of our research outputs, to be hosted on the project website (www.qualityofworkinglife.org). We will also enlist a design agency to prepare searchable and graphical presentations of occupational quality data we will produce from ESRC data. The project website will also host short video factuals which we will produce, summarising each paper. Collectively, these strategies will ensure maximum impact at a time when the issue of job quality has never been so pressing as well as maximising return on existing ESRC investments.

As a signatory to the December 2015 Paris Agreement, India is committed to joining the global community in stabilising global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Centigrade. Rapidly growing economies such as India are faced with the challenge of reducing emissions from the heavy industry and power sectors while ensuring continued economic growth. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), where CO2 is removed from flue gases and injected into deep geological formations for permanent disposal, is recognised by the IPCC as an essential technology for meeting climate goals at least cost. While high-level studies have identified some potential for CO2 storage in India, a perception remains that injected CO2 may migrate upwards from the intended storage reservoir towards the surface. Lack of fundamental research that addresses this issue prohibits detailed assessment of the potential for CCS to contribute to emission reductions in India. COMICS will establish an international partnership to understand the potential for safe and secure CO2 storage in India's sedimentary basins. The team comprises researchers from the British Geological Survey (BGS) and two leading Indian research institutes engaged in CCS, the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) and the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI). A new £0.5M project announced by the Indian Government's Ministry of Science and Technology 'A systematic large scale assessment for potential of CO2 enhanced oil and natural gas recovery in key sedimentary basins in India' is led by IITB. The project comprises research groups; Indian Institute of Management Ahmadabad, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, and industrial partners; Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, National Thermal Power Corporation, Essar Oil and Gas, and the West Bengal Power Development Corporation. COMICS will complement the new Indian-funded project, combining local knowledge and expertise of the Indian consortium with the experience of the BGS CO2 storage research team. BGS has been active in CO2 research for over two decades, and undertakes related research in overburden properties, fluid-migration process, and monitoring requirements, funded by combination of UKRI (such as the current NERC Migration of CO2 through North Sea Geological Carbon Storage Sites, UK Carbon Capture and Storage Research Centre 2017) and EC H2020 projects (such as SECURe and ENOS). Our current research portfolio is worth over £5M. The COMICS project will extend these endeavours to include Indian data acquired through the new partnership, bringing new insights to CO2 storage processes in a region recognised as being vital to meeting regional and global climate ambitions. The project will initially focus on the Cambay Basin, where the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation have proposed a pilot CO2 injection project for enhanced oil recovery. The assessment of CO2 containment risks and monitoring and conformance requirements imposed by the specific geological setting are critically important. Based on the scientific research undertaken by COMICS, recommendations for safe and secure CO2 storage in the region will be developed. The research will underpin future research and development activities, including the development of new pilot CO2 injection studies. The results will also support nascent policy and commercial development of CCS through collaboration with industrial partners and state-owned companies engaged in the parallel Government of India-funded project. Facilitating CO2 emission reductions in India through targeted research activities is a key aim of COMICS. The proposed activities are aimed at securing future joint research opportunities for UK-India collaboration through Mission Innovation, existing UKRI programmes, and transnational UK Government (BEIS) funding to foster research and innovation related to accelerating CCS technologies.

This study attempts to answer the following questions: 1. How do things like truancy, coming from a less affluent background, family breakdown and a range of other factors that pupils experience at school; lead to poor educational and labour market (employment and earnings) outcomes? 2. Do we see different impacts (for instance on the likelihood of securing good wages) when similar students attend different post-16 educational institutions, such as Further Education, Sixth Form College or School Sixth Form? Does it make any difference to a young person's prospects if they achieve the same level of qualification in these different institutions; and do we see children from rich and poor backgrounds making very different decisions from age 16 and above? 3. How accurately are we able to predict the employment and earnings outcomes for different students, using all the information on their background, learning and achievement in schools and colleges? At its heart the project seeks to analyse and assess the educational and labour market pathways followed by the half of young people who do not pursue university level education, and therefore contributes to the government's social mobility agenda; emphasised by David Cameron as a key priority for government in his Oct 2015 conference speech. The research proposed here will be of key interest to government and the Social Mobility Commission charged by the government to address Britain's poor record on social mobility. When we talk of social mobility, we are interested in the extent to which children born to poorer families can make the journey to high paid jobs and professional careers. More generally, a lack of social mobility is a situation where being born to poverty, riches or somewhere in between, means that you are likely to find yourself in the same position as your parents, no matter how hard you try and whatever your talents. Unfortunately, the evidence over recent decades has been that there is less social mobility in the UK than in other similar countries. The administrative data we will use to carry out this study is routinely collected by the parts of government that collect taxes (HMRC), deal with unemployment support (DWP), are responsible for Further Education (BIS) and learning in schools (DfE). This is a very important and useful resource, as it has the potential to overcome some of the limitations we face when using surveys (not least that we observe all people in the relevant populations, not just a relatively small sample). However, it is a complicated process to link these datasets and a large part of this project will be taken up with this process of linking. As well as finding out what impact truancy has on a young person's performance at school, up to the age of 15 when they get their GCSE results (and results from other equivalent qualifications); we will try to find out if this truancy continues to have an impact even when they leave school. Consider another example: we will shed new light on the extent to which disadvantaged young people, with a good set of educational choices facing them at age 15, are seen to make 'bad' choices; when compared to their more advantaged peers, facing the same choice sets. Similarly, the study will shed light on the choices made by young people from age 16+ who are from more advantaged backgrounds, who we see facing a more limited set of educational choices at 15; and how these differ to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds facing the same limited choices.