Summary The National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Hub will be led by Co-Directors and joint PI's Professors Peter Hopkinson and Fiona Charnley to harness and scale-up the UK's leading research capabilities, providing the evidence base, inspiration and capacity to accelerate the transition towards a global circular economy (CE). To achieve this ambitious vision, the CE-Hub will deliver a User Engagement Strategy targeted to meet the differing needs of three user groups NICER Circular Economy Centre consortia 2) CE research Collaborators, Experts and End Users 3) CE Communities and Wider Society These objectives will be delivered through five pillars. Pillar One: CE-Observatory. We will develop and deliver the UKs first National CE-Observatory to create a systemic data and modelling framework for the NICER programme. The observatory will provide an evidence base to a) improve data quality and consistency across the NICER programme and wider policy initiatives b) improve modelling of resource flows across the UK relevant to CE system level interventions , c) quantify CE resource productivity, value creation and capture opportunities at scale, d) establish a common, agreed and consistent set of CE metrics and indicators and e) provide a source of evidence for a UK CE Road Map. Pillar 2: Knowledge Platform. We will develop a CE Knowledge Platform to coordinate programme outputs and a repository of national research, knowledge, practical demonstration and implementation tools and enablers. Outcomes and impacts of the CE knowledge platform include a) develop shared understanding of CE in theory and practice, principles and methods, b) improve the co-ordination, design and evaluation of CE case studies including detailed evidence of implementation pathways and opportunity c) generate knowledge and insight to inform key research, policy and industry solutions, d) identify UKRI and Innovate UK funding priorities, [c] create a gateway between the UK and International CE communities Pillar 3: Impact and Innovation. The CE-Hub will facilitate mechanisms of interdisciplinary, cross-value chain collaboration and solution innovation; contributing towards the co-creation of a UK CE Road map. Outcomes and impacts include a) increase the UK CE research and innovation capacity, b) build capability and experience of interdisciplinary CE collaboration c) create new CE value propositions, products, services and demonstrators capable of scaling and d) advance understanding of the pathways, enabling mechanisms and roadmaps to implementation. Pillar 4: Inclusive Community and Pillar 5: Capacity Building. The CE-Hub will build and coordinate an inclusive and capable CE community to enable CE transformation through collaboration and communication. It will identify CE capability and skills gaps and inform future funding and training opportunities. Outcomes and impacts include a) to embed multi-disciplinary understanding of CE principles, opportunities and pathways through a highly engaged community, b) the synthesis of evidence directed towards key stakeholder questions, c) to define CE skills, capacity requirements and career pathways d) to contribute to an increase in ECRs pursuing CE related careers and e) increase general consumer awareness of CE and influence informed behaviour and decision making.

High Performance Embedded and Distributed Systems (HiPEDS), ranging from implantable smart sensors to secure cloud service providers, offer exciting benefits to society and great opportunities for wealth creation. Although currently UK is the world leader for many technologies underpinning such systems, there is a major threat which comes from the need not only to develop good solutions for sharply focused problems, but also to embed such solutions into complex systems with many diverse aspects, such as power minimisation, performance optimisation, digital and analogue circuitry, security, dependability, analysis and verification. The narrow focus of conventional UK PhD programmes cannot bridge the skills gap that would address this threat to the UK's leadership of HiPEDS. The proposed Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) aims to train a new generation of leaders with a systems perspective who can transform research and industry involving HiPEDS. The CDT provides a structured and vibrant training programme to train PhD students to gain expertise in a broad range of system issues, to integrate and innovate across multiple layers of the system development stack, to maximise the impact of their work, and to acquire creativity, communication, and entrepreneurial skills. The taught programme comprises a series of modules that combine technical training with group projects addressing team skills and system integration issues. Additional courses and events are designed to cover students' personal development and career needs. Such a comprehensive programme is based on aligning the research-oriented elements of the training programme, an industrial internship, and rigorous doctoral research. Our focus in this CDT is on applying two cross-layer research themes: design and optimisation, and analysis and verification, to three key application areas: healthcare systems, smart cities, and the information society. Healthcare systems cover implantable and wearable sensors and their operation as an on-body system, interactions with hospital and primary care systems and medical personnel, and medical imaging and robotic surgery systems. Smart cities cover infrastructure monitoring and actuation components, including smart utilities and smart grid at unprecedented scales. Information society covers technologies for extracting, processing and distributing information for societal benefits; they include many-core and reconfigurable systems targeting a wide range of applications, from vision-based domestic appliances to public and private cloud systems for finance, social networking, and various web services. Graduates from this CDT will be aware of the challenges faced by industry and their impact. Through their broad and deep training, they will be able to address the disconnect between research prototypes and production environments, evaluate research results in realistic situations, assess design tradeoffs based on both practical constraints and theoretical models, and provide rapid translation of promising ideas into production environments. They will have the appropriate systems perspective as well as the vision and skills to become leaders in their field, capable of world-class research and its exploitation to become a global commercial success.