Doctoral Training Partnerships: a range of postgraduate training is funded by the Research Councils. For information on current funding routes, see the common terminology at https://www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/how-we-fund-studentships/. Training grants may be to one organisation or to a consortia of research organisations. This portal will show the lead organisation only.

Describe the research in simple terms in a way that could be publicised to a general audience. If awarded, this will be made publicly available, and applicants are responsible for ensuring that the content is suitable for publication.? 4000 characters, including spaces and returns Many office-based jobs follow a Monday-Friday 9-5 working pattern that matches up with the natural day-night, light-dark cycle. However, some jobs such as healthcare, farming, manufacturing, transport, and military, require different working hours, and 15-20% of working people in the UK work non-standard or shift work hours. Working in shifts and having to sleep and be awake at different times can mean lower quality sleep and struggles with alertness and concentration when awake. One in three shift workers are affected by insomnia symptoms. These symptoms include difficulty falling asleep, fatigue, excessive sleepiness when required to stay awake and emotional problems such as irritability. All of this has a big impact on shift-workers' mental and physical health and can impact wider safety factors such as contributing to more accidents at work or on the roads. In the UK, around 75% of adults are in employment and spend on average a third of their waking hours working, making the workplace a good place to deliver support. The objective of this study is to create a new sleep management intervention to prevent sleep problems developing. The intervention will be created with the help of people working shifts and their employers and will be delivered through the workplace to new starters or current staff. The programme will be for all staff working shifts, whether they have existing problems with mental health and sleep or not. The intervention will aim to provide them with the skills and knowledge to manage their sleep and prevent problems developing. Research shows that women, older people, and people from socially or economically challenged backgrounds are more likely to have insomnia. We will ensure that those we recruit to help us with this work are diverse so that project outputs are relevant and can benefit all those affected. To create the programme, we will develop a theory of change to describe what it is about shift work that actually impacts sleep. We will define the ways in which the intervention can impact those factors, and the things we will measure in order to see if the intervention has worked in the way we expected. We will recruit shift workers and employers to help us create the intervention from those we already work with in the Midlands Engine region of the UK. Our team's experience in creating and delivering sleep interventions (e.g., for people with chronic pain, and people working non shift hours) will be combined with existing evidence about the behaviours that affect sleep health to produce the intervention with our partners. We will create the content with shift workers during several workshops. Different groups of workers will be asked to review the content created to make improvements and make sure the intervention is easy to understand and follow. To make sure the final intervention is practical for employers to offer, we will also discuss delivery challenges with both employers and staff. A focus group and interviews with employers will aim to improve their awareness of how best to address mental health and sleep problems for shift-work employees. A training handbook will also be developed for employers, which will help guide the delivery of the programme after the research development has finished.

Women in labour experience uterine contractions that occur with remarkable regularity and force. Myometrial (muscle of the womb) contractions generate periodic increases in intrauterine pressure, which is the clinical hallmark of adequate labour. With pressure increases, the cervix dilates and the baby is delivered. Abnormal (premature or too weak) contractions of the uterus can lead to serious and sometimes life threatening complications (e.g. preterm labour, dysfunctional labour, post partum uterine atony, etc). It is therefore important to unravel the mechanisms responsible for the initiation and timing of uterine contractions. The contraction of the uterus is triggered by an increase in the concentration of calcium ions in the cytoplasm of the cell, while relaxation occurs when cytoplasmic calcium level decreases. The rises in cytoplasmic calcium are triggered by an electrical excitation event at the cellular membrane called an action potential. This proposal investigates a protein (Kir 7.1) that affects the process of electrical excitation in uterine muscle cells. During gestation we propose Kir7.1 is important in reducing excitation and therefore stopping the uterus from contracting whilst the baby in developing. As the time for delivery approaches Kir7.1 would normally decrease and the excitability of the uterus increase to allow the contractions needed to deliver the baby. During this proposal we will characterise in detail the actions of the protein Kir7.1 and investigate whether premature loss of its function leads to babies being born prematurely. We will also investigate whether too much activity of Kir7.1 at the time of labour leads to poor contractions of the uterus during delivery. During the course of the study we will investigate a novel drug aimed at inhibiting Kir7.1 which may lead to new treatments for these devastating conditions. We should also increase our knowledge of the labour process itself.

Core modules taken: MA930-15 Data Analysis and Machine Learning MA931-50 Individual Research Project MA932-40 Group Research Project MA933-15 Stochastic Modelling and Random Processes MA934-15 Numerical Algorithms and Optimisation MA999-15 Topics in Mathematical Modelling

MIBTP students undertake a period of training during their first year. This includes compulsory taught modules in statistics, programming, data analysis, AI and mini research projects.