This knowledge exchange project builds on the best science from three areas, firstly flood risk science and management, secondly catchment source control (runoff attenuation, SuDS and other green infrastructure) and thirdly ecosystem services assessment and payment for ecosystem services markets. It will be undertaken by the Centre for Floods, Communities and Resilience and the Centre for Transport & Society at UWE, Bristol in partnership with Network Rail, South Gloucestershire Council and Somerset Council. The primary objective is to assess the potential for catchment source control to reduce flooding impacts to the railway assets and therefore increase the resilience of the network. In order to explore the benefits of this approach an ecosystem services approach will be used to assess these services which will be contextualised in relation to a component of the study which assesses the direct and indirect costs of network disruption. The potential of a payment for ecosystem services market to fund the catchment intervention will be explored.

This research will explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on child protection practice and service users and improve the capacity of social workers and other professionals to keep children safe in a period of institutionalised social distancing. Building on our existing research on the use of digital technology in everyday life (Pink et al, 2015; Pink et al, 2017) and effective child protection, especially the centrality of social workers getting close to children in their homes (Ferguson, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2020), we will identify areas of concern and advise on effective responses. Using digital ethnographic methods at four anonymised sites, the study will generate and rapidly disseminate in-depth knowledge of new challenges and social work practices developed in response to COVID-19, such as the novel use of digital technologies, and their impact on service users, social workers and social work organisations. Qualitative - interview, visual and digital - methods will be used to gather data from social work staff and service users about in-person and 'virtual home visits'. These insights will be used to rapidly inform child protection practice nationally. Engagement with participants and our collaborators the British Association of Social Workers and Research in Practice will shape recommendations for practice and coproduced guidance, and ensure national dissemination and impact. This will enhance the capacity of social workers nationally to keep children safe at a time of new and potentially increased risk, including of dometic abuse, and will also have future research use, such as informing the embedding of digital technologies into social work practice.

As European Green Capital 2015 and one of the Rockefeller 100 Resilient Cities, Bristol has challenged itself to transform by 2065 into a place where citizens 'flourish' by working together to create wellbeing, and achieve this equitably and sustainably. The Bristol Urban Area can legitimately claim to be in the vanguard of such urban transformation, and yet its development pathway remains characterised by paradox, and the need to deal with some stark realities and to challenge a 'business-as-usual' mind-set if progress towards aspirational goals is to be sustained. This proposal addresses a fundamental issue: what is stopping Bristol from bridging the gap between its current situation and the desired future as encapsulated in the City's various visions and aspirations? We have forged a partnership focused on the contiguous City of Bristol and South Gloucestershire urban area. We have secured the full backing of the two local authorities, Bristol Green Capital Partnership and Bristol Health Partners, the LEP, the local business community, citizen groups, and academics from across both Universities, with tangible commitments of support. Dissolving siloes through partnership, and a genuine interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral collaboration, is core to our approach, and hence both Universities have committed to share equally the financial resources with external partners in a three-way split. It is a key strength of this project that we are able to leverage extensively on internationally leading research assets, including: 'Bristol is Open', the FP7-funded Systems Thinking for Efficient Energy Planning (STEEP), the Horizon 2020 REPLICATE project, ongoing work at the £3.5m EPSRC/ESRC International Centre for Infrastructure Futures (ICIF) and co-produced and co-designed research such as the AHRC/ESRC Connected Communities and Digital Economy funded projects including REACT Hub, Tangible Memories and Productive Margins. We also have access to a wealth of highly valuable data sources including the 2015 State of Bristol Report, Bristol's Quality of Life Survey, and the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents & Children that has followed the health of 14,500 local families since the 1990s. We intend to build on the ICIF cognitive modelling approach which identifies the importance of challenging established mental models since these entrench a 'business-as-usual' mind-set. At the heart is co-creation and co-production, and an acknowledgement that citizen behaviour and action are essential to the delivery of desired societal outcomes such as wellbeing, equality, health, learning, and carbon neutrality. The work programme synthesises existing domain-specific diagnostic methodologies and tools to create a novel Integrated Diagnostics Framework. We believe strongly that unless an integrating framework is developed to bring together multiple viewpoints, the diagnosis of urban challenges will remain fragmented and understandings will potentially conflict. We will apply this framework in this pilot project to diagnosis complex problems across four 'Challenge Themes': Mobility & Accessibility, Health & Happiness, Equality & Inclusion and the 'Carbon Neutral' city. We have appointed 'Theme Leaders' who are all 'end users' of the diagnostics, ensuring that the process of investigation is cross-sectoral, interdisciplinary, participatory and grounded in real-world context and application. The legacy of the project will be threefold: firstly innovation in the diagnostic framework and methods needed to address urban challenges; secondly its application to the Bristol urban area and the resulting diagnostics synthesise across the four Challenge Themes; and finally the formation of an embryonic cadre of cross-sector city leaders with the capability to apply integrated diagnostics and challenge the prevailing 'business as usual' approaches.