Grasping Data will change how we think about children and their personal data. We go beyond current emphases on privacy and protection by co-creating cutting-edge, child-centred tools and pedagogies with young children, helping them understand and directly benefit from their own data. We achieve this by advancing diverse research fields of early learning, cognitive psychology, child-centred design, data ethics, data visualization, and computer science to explore the potential of Data Physicalization for children in their early years (aged 3-8) to construct (with adults) physical representations of their personal data that they can touch, explore, talk about and learn with. Our focus on the youngest learners pushes the boundaries of helping all ages to understand and benefit from data in an increasingly digital world. This proposal is time sensitive. Artificial Intelligence is accelerating ways children's personal data is already captured and processed by others. Toothbrushes monitor their hygiene, smart toys capture their conversations, activity watches capture their movement, education platforms record their (mis)behaviour. Yet children's consent for this data is either acquired through adult caregivers (who themselves may not be confident about data), or not at all. Whilst there are efforts to improve children's understanding of data, research and educational initiatives tend to focus on older children and online protection. Yet, personal data is likely to be highly engaging for young children as it can reveal much about themselves: where they have been, what they said, how active or loud they are. By creating new forms of representation and activities, Grasping Data will enable us to tap children's interest to help them understand and value their personal data, before thinking about whether to give it to others. The aim of Grasping Data is to empower young children by enabling them to create, explore, understand, and directly benefit from their personal data. The project's objectives will create methods for measuring children's understanding of personal data then develop new approaches, physicalization designs, and activities to improve understanding. In doing so, the project will advance our knowledge of the benefits of physical interaction in learning as well as how best to work in partnership with children. These objectives are addressed by working with over 270 children and three organisational partners in three contexts: in schools, Edinburgh Zoo, and Glasgow Science Centre. Work progresses from children using everyday physical materials like Lego to represent simple data like age or preferences, to cutting-edge interactive physicalizations dynamically representing personal data such as activity, location, or loudness. This interdisciplinary project will contribute knowledge across disciplines and outputs that can scale impact beyond academia: from personal data physicalization toolkits for educators to 3D mementos and exhibits that enhance and extend visitor experiences. The project will change perceptions of children and their data, and accelerate research activity, teaching practices, policy and ethical approaches that recognise young children's potential to understand and benefit from how their data is captured. Grasping Data will advance technologies to extend how we represent data - from screens to physical spaces - and lead to more active roles for all users in design, starting with society's youngest. The greatest impact of this project will be for children, who will engage, enjoy, and understand their data-saturated world better, and have greater confidence that they should, and can, play a role in the design of their futures.

This project will build on our successful public engagement with senior secondary school classes and teachers across Scotland. We propose increased reach and depth of coverage through: - further school visits to deliver our curriculum-linked workshop for Higher Biology, Higher Human Biology and Advanced Higher Biology pupils; - national deployment of our recently developed workshop for younger pupils, taking National 4 and National 5 Biology; and - enrichment and further development of long-term relationships with schools. We aim to have directly impacted bioinformatics teaching in at least 70% of secondary schools in Scotland by the end of the project. We will deliver, refine and share whole-class activities in bioinformatics across Scottish schools for Biology students in S3-S6, as well as continuing professional development (CPD) for teachers in Scotland. Priorities will include schools remote from major centres of STEM activity, and schools with low progression rates to university. Bioinformatics is an example of Big Data - a topic central to STFC's mission. Big Data is at the heart of many aspects of modern life, including communications, design, business, finance, manufacturing, transport, engineering, recreation and marketing as well as science. We use curriculum-linked bioinformatics as an entry point to engage young people with computational science and Big Data. Computational science and Big Data provide career development opportunities, an ability to conduct and support internationally competitive research, and are a keystone to future economic growth and security. These subjects are typically taught within university science programmes. But for rapid progress, social inclusion and public understanding, acquiring these skills must be integrated at much earlier stages in education. Bioinformatics (computational biology) provides an excellent means to allow young people to gain computational skills and to demonstrate the pervasive relevance of computational science and Big Data. Computational thinking - and many computational skills - are transferable across Big Data and STEM including computer science, physics, astronomy, chemistry, statistics and applied mathematics. Bioinformatics underpins current and future progress in medicine, agriculture and environmental research, and many STFC science and technology projects have a bioinformatics component. In Scotland, an important leap forward was made with the new Curriculum for Excellence for Higher Biology and Higher Human Biology curricula, which explicitly include bioinformatics. However, the topic is usually taught without a practical component, and may be seen as distant from practice in schools. In reality, practical bioinformatics can be easily accessible to schools - requiring only free software and an Internet connection to access exactly the same tools, data and environment as used professionally. Whole-class activities in bioinformatics for biology students reach an almost entirely new audience for scientific computation, and off-set the strong male gender bias associated with computer science. Our whole-class activities have extensive advantages for diversity and inclusion. Our workshops will give a taste of practical university-level activities, link topics within the Biology curriculum and across Biology and computing, and increase understanding of Big Data. We will leave Scottish teachers self-sufficient in bioinformatics, and we will leave pupils with a better understanding of bioinformatics and an awareness of the central role of computational science and Big Data in modern research, industry and society. The materials that we will develop will be made freely available to all, online. This project follows a pilot project funded via the University of Edinburgh and a successful project part-funded by an STFC Public Engagement Large Award (ST/R000328/1).

This project aims to involve the public of all ages and backgrounds with the ground breaking discoveries of EPSRC-funded scientists in the field of solar energy generation. Through this project, our team of scientists at Edinburgh University and beyond will collaborate with a number of public engagement experts to enable school students and the public of all ages and backgrounds to explore, discuss and reflect upon the issues related to innovation in low-cost solar energy technologies and its pressing need for the future of our planet. This proposal brings together the expertise and scientific entrepreneurship provided by the scientists within the innovative EPSRC Supergen consortium on Excitonic Solar Cells, with the public engagement expertise of The UK Association for Science and Discovery Centres, The Scottish Schools Equipment Research Centre (SSERC), The science media centre, CLEAPSS and the National STEM centre. Bringing all these partners together will be a newly appointed public engagement leader with a PhD in the field of innovative low cost solar energy. The goal is for this specialist to provide the resources and embed partnerships between the researchers and science centres, science festivals, Beacons, schools networks and university outreach teams so that public engagement is an embedded part of the role of researchers in this area. Low-cost solar energy is arguably the most important challenge ever faced by mankind and the importance to 21st century society cannot be overstated. We will use the new and established partnerships to maximise engagement between the Consortium and the Public and deliver substantial benefit to both. This will be aimed at two outcomes: (i) energising and supporting the researchers within the network such that all contribute to ongoing engagement activities on behalf of the consortium and (ii) obtaining coverage through large media outlets. There has never been a time in human history when a scientific challenge, namely sustainable energy supply, has been more urgent or important in maintaining the wealth and cohesion of society. World energy use is predicted to double by 2050 and more than treble by 2100 but already at today's level, dangerous quantities of CO2 are building up in the atmosphere. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (www.ipcc.ch/) estimates that, without action, CO2 concentration will triple over historic levels by 2100 leading to very damaging climate change. Sustainable energy is unique as a scientific challenge as the status quo cannot be maintained and floods, droughts, mass migrations, economic disruption and wars may be the consequences of inaction. Solving the problem of climate change is a long-term issue that requires sustained commitment from scientists, governments and the public to make real change possible. This requires a commitment from researchers in the field to make their work accessible and to engage in dialogue with the public on the current science and the future directions of the field. Since everyone has a stake in this challenge, the public of all ages and backgrounds must be included in regular open and honest conversation with scientists, policy makers and industrial experts in a host of different ways, through events, family activities, media, dialogue opportunities, schools workshops, exhibitions, projects and festivals.

This CDT will create a cohesive, internationally-leading, cross-domain training and research community fusing algebraic, geometric and quantum methods across Algebra, Geometry and Topology, Mathematical Physics, and their Interfaces. The scientific aim of our CDT is no less than to develop new foundations unifying all three disciplines, and in the process to bolster and future-proof UK capability in mathematics. The breadth of mathematical mastery necessary to achieve these aims, on which our training programme is based, is of the highest international standard, and training students in this area requires both the deep focus and the wide scope which only the resources of a CDT can enable. Our three scientific areas Algebra, Geometry and Quantum Fields are established, flagship, internationally-leading areas of UK mathematical strength. Algebra: quite simply *the* language, and controlling structure, of symbolic computation and symmetry. Geometry: the mathematically rigorous foundations of our human spatial and visual intuition. Quantum Fields: the mathematical incarnation of our quantum physical reality. A hallmark feature of 21st century mathematics is the dramatically increased synergy and inter-dependence between these three fundamental disciplines. Whereas in centuries past mathematics and physics interacted primarily through analysis and calculus, the advent of quantum mechanics posits a fundamentally different, fundamentally algebraic, set of laws for the universe. Geometry enters irrevocably when we pose quantum mechanical laws in the presence of fields, such as the electro-magnetic and gravitational fields, which permeate throughout time and space. A surprising and thrilling discovery of 21st century mathematics has been that the mathematically rigorous study of quantum fields yields some of the most powerful predictive theories within algebra and geometry, even to questions with no a priori physical formulation. These fundamental scientific developments have had a vast and direct impact on our modern world, and on a remarkably short timescale. Algebra, geometry and quantum fields are the driving force behind key developments such as internet search, quantum computation, machine learning, and both classical and quantum cryptography. Society and industry need the students we will train. Our graduates' skills are both fundamentally transferable and widely applicable across many external partnerships and stakeholders. The Deloitte report, commissioned by EPSRC, attributed 2.8M jobs and £200BN of the UK economy to mathematical sciences research, highlighting R&D, computing/tech, public administration, defence, aerospace and pharmaceuticals as economic sectors requiring graduates with advanced mathematical training. Sustainable energy consulting has since emerged as a further industry requiring ever-advanced mathematical sophistication. Crucially a physical and mathematical powerhouse needs to be a diverse powerhouse, yet the traditional structure of training in these areas has inhibited diversity of entrants, both to career academia and to industry. Building on our track record, and equipped with the resources and flexibility only a CDT can provide, we will create a diverse and confident cohort, equipped with the mathematical skillsets needed for our tech-led future to flourish, and able to influence a wide range of people, sectors and institutions.