The Climate Change Committee's third Risk Assessment (CCRA3) set out a comprehensive analysis of climate-related risks. In response, UK Government published the Third National Adaptation Programme (NAP3). However, there is a large gap between what we need to be doing to protect the wellbeing of the environment, people and the economy in the UK and what we are doing. Further, we should be looking to leverage the co-benefits of action to improve wellbeing outcomes through adaptation. The Maximising UK adaptation to climate change hub (the Hub) will help catalyse existing knowledge, especially that existing in the Devolved Administrations, to advance progress in the UK towards the Government's adaptation programme. The Hub links UK national and regional adaptation networks and knowledge exchange organisations with multidisciplinary researcher expertise across eight HEIs, to produce a UK-wide research network on adaptation, and to deliver rapid policy- and practitioner-responsive research. This powerful new science-policy mechanism will be a new national capability for an effective and transformational programme of adaptation. Key to the Hub is leveraging the activities, networks and knowledge of existing adaptation partnerships and knowledge exchange organisations who are already doing the work. These organisations identified five priorities, based on their current bottlenecks and frustrations: Assess and address barriers to awareness and engagement with adaptation; Explore the efficacy of Welsh and Scottish approaches to wellbeing and future generations for adaptation for UK wide justice-oriented approaches; Increase understanding of system complexity by establishing an inter-sectoral community of practice; Address aspects of policy, legislation and regulation that hold back the adaptation vision proposed in the NAP; Enhance the accessibility and understanding of climate model results for decision-makers. Working in teams of universities and knowledge exchange organisations throughout the UK will carry out activities that can help increase levels of capacity and knowledge to address these challenges. We will: Carry out training and capacity building on adaptation as the means to network and bring different communities of practice together; Generate more useful data by integrating different risk and exposure models together, and working with end users to provide the data they need; Funding collaborations of researchers and practitioners to trial transformational adaptation in order to collect data on what works; Address policy challenges in real-time, supporting UK governments to accelerate adaptation; Bring together adaptation researchers who will be funded under the same research programme to improve how we do, and communicate, adaptation research. Research related activities will involve: i) place-based research in each of the Hub's spokes (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales); ii) the delivery of a programme of grants, across the sector, through a Flexible Fund, encouraging academic and practitioner collaboration on climate adaptation at local and national scale, and focusing on implementation projects to generate insight into what works, and projects that analyse, so as to overcome, institutional and policy barriers to action; and iii) coordination with UKRI's wider transformative adaptation programme, to synthesise findings from research and maximise their translation into actionable insights. At the end of the three years, we will have produced integrated sectoral pathways to a well-adapted UK, a better understanding of the policy landscape and new advisory mechanisms to support policymakers, accelerated action on adaptation by starting projects that were in the pipeline, and better ways of embedding vulnerability and justice-oriented approaches into adaptation priorities.

This project aims to establish the Enterprise and Diversity Alliance (EDA) as the United Kingdom's leading knowledge exchange network for entrepreneurship and minority businesses (that is, small enterprises owned by ethnic minorities, women and young people). It brings together researchers, corporations, the finance sector and professional bodies in order to pursue one central ambition: to 'make diversity and enterprise everyone's business'. The EDA is the culmination of extensive research and practitioner activity. It has had a successful first year, marked by growing interest from corporations and the development of innovative support initiatives for minority business owners. A further year's support from the ESRC would enable the EDA become: the 'go-to' body for guidance on research and practice on minority enterprise; larger in scale; and fully self-financing. It is also is well-placed to fill the policy vacuum that has arisen in the business support world. The profound changes to business support policy mean that the there is a real danger that the learning accumulated from previous initiatives to support minority enterprise will be lost. The EDA will guard against this possibility, and will ensure that insights from research and practice are applied to new initiatives. Three strands of work will be undertaken to ensure that knowledge on minority enterprise is shared widely with relevant stakeholders. First, two innovative peer mentoring initiatives with minority entrepreneurs will be launched. They build on the successful 12/8 network, and will be supported by A. F. Blakemore & Son Ltd and National Grid. Minority business owners will receive direct and high level support for their growth ambitions. Minority entrepreneurs across the UK will also be the target for a regular electronic newsletter on key developments and sources of business support. Second, the project will integrate knowledge on diversity and enterprise in the practices of large organisations. This activity will focus on the EDA's new members, A. F. Blakemore & Son Ltd., National Grid and Leicester City Council. The proposers will ensure that key initiatives (for example, the leadership development programmes of A. F. Blakemore & Son Ltd., National Grid, and procurement practices at Leicester City Council) apply the knowledge gained from EDA research and practice on diversity and enterprise. Finally, knowledge and insights from the implementation of the EDA project will be shared with the wider peer, professional and policy networks of partner organisations. In effect, EDA members will be ambassadors for diversity and enterprise amongst their peers. This provides an opportunity for the EDA to influence major national initiatives. For example, our finance sector partners will work with the British Bankers' Association to ensure that diversity issues are integrated in key areas, notably data-gathering and the implementation of the national mentoring proposition. Business in the Community will introduce its corporate members to the benefits of supporting peer mentoring networks with minority business owners. Good practice in relation to diversity and procurement will be promoted by CIPS and Leicester City Council. The 16th Annual Ethnic Minority Business Conference, scheduled for October 2012, will be dedicated to highlighting the impact of the EDA.

The aim of this project is to understand how people communicate multilingually across diverse languages and cultures. We define 'translation' as the negotiation of meaning using different modes (spoken/written/visual/gestural) where speakers have different proficiencies in a range of languages and varieties. When speakers do not share a common language they may rely on translation by professionals, friends or family, or by digital means. Such practices occur in 'translation zones', and are at the cutting edge of translation and negotiation. We view 'cultures' not as fixed sets of practices essential to ethnic groups, but rather as processes which change and which may be negotiable. In our previous research in multilingual communities we found speakers are not confined to using languages separately, but rather they 'translanguage' as they make meaning. We will look closely and over time at language practices in public and private settings in Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds, and London. We will investigate how communication occurs (or fails) when people bring different histories and languages into contact. Outcomes will impact on policy on economic growth, migration, health and well-being, sport, cultural heritage, and law, by informing the work of policy-makers and public, private and third sector organisations. The aims of the research are to: 1. understand translanguaging as communication in public spaces; 2. understand translanguaging as communication in private spaces; 3. understand translanguaging as communication in digital and social spaces; 4. understand local histories of communicative practices; 5. develop transformative, interdisciplinary approaches to researching translanguaging as communication; 6. develop the capacity of researchers to conduct high quality research in the arts and humanities; 7. inform local, national, and international policy in relation to superdiverse community settings. This study takes an interdisciplinary approach to understand communication in and beyond community settings, focusing on interactions between people engaged in legal advice centres, migrant business, sport, and libraries and museums. These community sites are selected because they are contexts in which multiple languages and varieties are in daily use in superdiverse cities. 'Superdiversity' refers to the interweaving of diversities, in which not only 'ethnicity', but other variables intersect and influence the composition and trajectories of urban centres. Multilingual speakers who have institutional roles and make regular use of digital and online technologies will be selected as key participants (librarians, solicitors, migrant business people, sports coaches). They will provide access to other multilingual speakers, and to communication in private and digital spaces. Ethnographic fieldwork will be conducted by researchers in four superdiverse wards in Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds, and London. Key participants will be 'shadowed' in their workplace by researchers. In each site initial observation will be followed by audio recordings, interviews, and online and digital data collection. Photographing of the linguistic landscape of each ward will continue for 26 months to map the changing cultural and linguistic environment. A succession of published reports and working papers will follow a series of research events including: thematic workshops, network assemblies, city seminars, public engagement showcase events and conferences. A full and differentiated training programme for practitioners, research assistants, early career and doctoral researchers is put in place for capacity building, which will be a key feature and legacy of the project.

Languages are currently valued mainly as practical tools for basic transactions in monoglot contexts. Yet language use is a creative act. Languages evolve in interaction with the needs of individuals who acquire and shape their linguistic resources in interaction with multiple intersecting communities. They change and mingle as cultural constellations shift, and they rapidly turn new technical possibilities into communicative innovations. The crisis of Modern Foreign Languages in UK schools, with its serious consequences for higher education, business, and diplomacy, has its roots in globalisation, the expansion of English as global lingua franca, and diversifying electronic media dominated by English. Arguably it also marks the failure of UK policy-makers and the educational sectors to address these challenges with the necessary understanding, imagination, and unity of purpose. This programme exploits the crisis as an opportunity to engage stakeholders in a collaborative process of rethinking the identity of Modern Languages from the ground up. It will seek to dismantle assumed oppositions between 'vocational' and 'academic' purposes, and develop a concept of languages that responds to the multi-faceted needs of individuals and communities in the contemporary world. Researchers from Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester, Reading, SOAS (London), and Pittsburgh will pool their expertise in some 40 languages to unlock the subject's creative and connective potential by investigating how languages and creativity interact in processes involving more than one language. Research in seven interlocking strands will analyse how we turn thoughts into language-specific metaphors (strand 1), deploy the resources offered by our language to name the elements of our environment (strand 2), and negotiate language 'barriers' to intelligibility across related languages (strand 3). They will seek to capture the creative stimulus generated by multilingual theatre and music (strand 4), identify the creative processes initiated by multilingual literature (strand 5), and explore the creation of multiple meanings in the act of translation (strand 6). Empirical research will compare functional and creative methodologies in language learning and establish benefits of creative activities for the literacy, motivation, and confidence that are key factors in take-up and progression (strand 7). In order to understand multilingual creativity, we need to engage with a variety of contexts and exchange knowledge with practitioners. Partners from beyond academia will contribute to focus groups, workshops, conferences and specialised projects. To take just a few examples, the British Council will enhance opportunities for engagement with policy-makers and involve learners across the world. Work on community languages within the UK will be augmented by a window onto linguistic communities across over 120 countries opened up by BirdLife International. Collaboration with Sputnik Theatre Company, Punch Records, the Ashmolean Museum and cultural festivals will facilitate cross-language projects with actors and musicians, an exhibition, a 'Linguamania' celebration and a Multilingual Music Fest for primary school children. English PEN will provide opportunities to find out about multilingual experiments by creative writers. Meanwhile language experts from GCHQ and ING Media will give insights into the creative language skills used in intelligence and PR. Teachers and learners in schools will interact with the research throughout, culminating in an interactive schools Roadshow. The programme will transform research in Modern Languages by invigorating the subject from the grass-roots up to blue-sky research. By putting creativity at the heart of languages, it will reconnect languages with the arts and humanities while allowing their innovative force to become productive across disciplines and communities.

The decarbonisation of industrial clusters is of critical importance to the UK's ambitions of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. The UK Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge (IDC) of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) aims to establish the world's first net-zero carbon industrial cluster by 2040 and at least one low-carbon cluster by 2030. The Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre (IDRIC) has been formed to support this Challenge through funding a multidisciplinary research and innovation centre, which currently does not exist at the scale, to accelerate decarbonisation of industrial clusters. IDRIC works with academia, industry, government and other stakeholders to deliver the multidisciplinary research and innovation agenda needed to decarbonise the UK's industrial clusters. IDRIC's research and innovation programme is delivered through a range of activities that enable industry-led, multidisciplinary research in cross-cutting areas of technology, policy, economics and regulation. IDRIC connects and empowers the UK industrial decarbonisation community to deliver an impactful innovation hub for industrial decarbonisation. The establishment of IDRIC as the "one stop shop" for research and innovation, as well as knowledge exchange, regulation, policy and key skills will be beneficial across the industry sectors and clusters. In summary, IDRIC will connect stakeholders, inspire and deliver innovation and maximise impact to help the UK industrial clusters to grow our existing energy intensive industrial sectors, and to attract new, advanced manufacturing industries of the future.