To exemplify how data from satellites can provide valuable insight into challenges here on Earth, increasing the scientific awareness of key stage three students, teachers, and their families. Through providing an opportunity to find creative and innovative solutions to real life problems, this project will give examples of how science and business, industry and academia can work together to innovate for a better world, powered by satellites. The Spark Award will provide the funding to develop a standalone game which allows participants to experience the role of a satellite architect, in a reusable and entertaining manner, to directly engage students into undertaking STEM careers, in an inclusive manner. We also intend to release the game as a PDF 'print and play' version, to ensure it is accessible to audiences in digital poverty and promoting group usage and team working. The Space Skills Alliance Census schooling figures show that people from less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds appear to be under-represented in the space sector and this under-representation is regionally invariant. These data suggest that people who attended state non-selective schools are under-represented by nearly 25% compared to the general UK population. According to the 2019 Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), 10 of Oxford's 83 super output areas (SOAs) are among the 20% most deprived areas in England. These areas, which are in the Leys, Rose Hill, Littlemore, Barton and areas of the city, experience multiple levels of deprivation - low skills, low incomes, and relatively high levels of crime. As Satellite Applications Catapult is in Oxfordshire, we aim to target key stage three (KS3) school students, their teachers, and their families in these locations to support their STEM development and help overcome their under-representation in the space sector. As the resource will be digital or printable and openly accessible, we aim to encourage science discussions within the families, advancing the science capital of family members who might not otherwise have chosen to engage with STEM subjects. In addition, using our network, we aim to increase the reach of the resource beyond the local Oxfordshire region, through to other areas of the UK with high IMDs such as: the West Midlands, North East England, North West England, and Yorkshire. We aim to increase awareness of the space industry's ability and application to solve pressing global issues. In particular, we aim to improve understanding around climate challenges and ways they can be tackled using satellite data, which is closely related to the Satellite Applications Catapult's net zero and COP 26 initiatives. In addition, because of the Catapult's unique position in empowering the commercialisation of space innovation, the resource is also uniquely positioned to demonstrate how STEM and business can be combined. After playing the game, the audience should come away with: - An understanding of 3 major types of satellites and their real-world applications. - An understanding of which subjects and skills are relevant to space careers - A feeling of value and accomplishment for solving a relevant environmental crisis. - A feeling of inspiration and aspiration to pursue a STEM and/or space sector career. - An ability to effectively work as part of a team (where the pupils play as part of a team; they can also play solo). These outcomes will be achievable regardless of whether the resource is used in-person or online. In addition, the game will build on applicable KS3 topics: - Introduction to space science and satellite applications. - Principles of gravity/orbital physics that dictate satellite coverage and revisit rate. - Principles of light wave physics that enables imaging in the visible light spectrum and beyond. - An understanding of radio wave communication through ground segment capabilities (this also highlights STFC's ground segment capabilities).

Projections suggest that, without further action, the availability of water for irrigation will become a serious limiting factor to agricultural production and quality, particularly for growing cereals and potatoes. Many of the most productive regions of Great Britain at present, such as Kent and the East Anglia fens, are also where projections of both soil aridity and water scarcity are severe [1]. The Climate Change Risk Assessment Evidence report clearly specifies the need for a more coordinated action to achieve the ambitious reductions in water demand and to find solutions for future agriculture. This research proposal is to address this particular issue by developing a novel concept of hyperspectral imager to remotely map the moisture content in crops and soil. At a time where scarcity of fresh water stocks is becoming an issue worldwide, the research will lead to an instrument offering precise feedback on the crop's water requirement and potential savings to farmers or communities. The proposed research will develop the next generation of space or airborne instrumentation for advanced sustainable agriculture, with a focus on strengthening resilience to environmental crises. In the last decades, technological progress made in the field of Earth Observation instrumentation has revolutionised agriculture. Nowadays, hyperspectral technologies provide both valuable and essential information to modern agriculture by removing cost uncertainties from agricultural assets and by helping to prepare for and mitigate the effects of natural disasters. hyperspectral imaging techniques offer an accurate spatial and spectral snapshot of cultivated areas, helping in particular to monitor: - water-stress, disease, insect attack, invasive species mapping and overall plant health - seed sustainability, with remote measurement of the germination efficiency hyperspectral instrumentation uses the spectral information in the image to reveal particular details about biology, mineralogy and chemical content, therefore providing valuable feedback regarding agriculture, earth science and environment. Two novel instrumentation concepts will be developed and put together in this research to offer a step change in the hyperspectral capability, at the service of UK advanced sustainable agriculture. The first concept, capitalises on the use of an Integral Field Spectrometer integrating a slicer mirror (array of small thin slices of mirror) in a hyperspectral imager, and the second concept uses novel optical elements: Freeform gratings. Freeform surfaces are novel and revolutionary optical elements with no particular axis of rotation or symmetry. Traditionally, gratings are machined as flat or as lightly curved spherical surfaces because of limitations in the machining capability. Progress made in the field of ultra-precision machining can potentially enable the machining of complex, curved gratings to further improve the instrument compactness, image quality or modularity. Freeform optics are therefore promising components for space-based hyperspectral imagers for their ability to reduce the overall dimension, and therefore mass, of the satellite's payload, which is a critical parameter in space imaging systems. [1] Committee on Climate Change, "Climate Change Risk Assessment evidence report - Synthesis report: priorities for the next five years." 2017.

STFC Food Network+ (SFN 1.0 hereafter) brought together STFC researchers and facilities with research and industry in the agri-food sector (>700 members with >80 non-academia). The network has built an interdisciplinary community including NERC, ESRC and BBSRC-funded researchers, working to provide a sustainable, secure supply of safe, nutritious and affordable high-quality food using less land, with reduced inputs, in the context of global climate change and declining natural resources. SFN 1.0 has kick-started innovative interdisciplinary projects providing key opportunities for the research community, industries and policy makers, making a meaningful contribution to the food system. It has supported over 40 small projects covering areas such as forecasting crop yields using SENTINEL data, radio astronomy; investigating the microstructure architecture of snacks and arsenic in rice using Diamond and ISIS facilities; assuring the authenticity of fruit juices and high value products such as avocadoes, packaged salads through Raman Spectroscopy and Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; predicting successful cattle pregnancy through IR Thermography and the application of Blockchains for food safety and cryogenics to food supply chains to reduce food waste. STFC Food Network+ Extension (hereafter SFN 2.0) offers exceptional value to the STFC by building on and substantially extending existing investments on SFN 1.0 that have proven themselves highly capable of wide-ranging user engagement with STFC CAPABILITIES in (a) data science, (b) technology and (c) facilities for better understanding and addressing food challenges in via THEMES of (i) Sustainable production, (ii) Resilient supply chains and (iii) Improved Nutrition and Consumer Behaviours. Over the life of the SFN 2.0, it will galvanise the research community in the UK and beyond to deliver new models of interdisciplinary, co-designed, user-engaged research through a GIVE framework: Globalisation: While continuing to have focus on STFC core capabilities in the UK, the SFN 2.0 would aim to create an impact by globalising STFC capabilities across the targeted international countries and widening Network+ membership and partnerships of SFN with global partners. Impact-led projects: Leveraging on the innovative project initiation by SFN 1.0 (14 of which included industry participation) and its relations with multiple policy and business stakeholders, SFN 2.0 will provide platform to further realise impact on ground by co-developing and perhaps also co-funding impact-driven projects of national importance with non-academic beneficiaries. SFN 2.0 will also focus on new area of research in all the food themes including but not limited to smart farms, palm oil, aquaculture, permaculture, insects, cultured meat, innovative production systems such as hydroponics, vertical farming and food for space stations, food safety, transparency, diets for healthy ageing population, acceptance of new healthy/ innovative products, alternative proteins whilst reducing waste and demands on land, energy and water. Visibility: While continuing to focus on increasing its visibility within the UK, SFN 2.0 would aim to highlight the core capabilities of STFC by leveraging on its expertise in high speed computing, thermal engineering, big data analytics, sensor technologies, Blockchain and other disruptive technologies internationally through regular knowledge exchange activities, partner visits, and STEM activities. Early Career Enhancement: SFN 2.0 will engage early career researchers from STFC and food research to build capacity for long-term sustainability of SFN. Involve existing STFC Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) as well as with food industry/ policy/ international organisations for providing secondment or internship opportunities to early career researchers (PhDs/ Post-doc/ Lecturers - both UK and international) in one of the SFN themes.

Horizon is a multidisciplinary centre for Digital Economy (DE) research and impact. We balance the development of new technologies to capture and analyse human data, with explorations of how these can be used to deliver powerful experiences to people, with an awareness and understanding of the human and social values that must underpin these. We follow a user-centred approach, undertaking research in the wild based on principles of open innovation. In its first phase, Horizon has established a core team of over 50 researchers and has reached out to build a wider network of 35 academic and 200 industry, public and third-sector partners. We have established a Centre for Doctoral Training and inaugurated the DE All Hands series of conferences and national DE CDT Summer School. World-class scientific outputs in diverse disciplines have been balanced with economic, cultural and societal impact. This proposal builds on this critical mass to enable a step-change in Horizon's translational research and impact. We respond to the changing nature of the digital economy as it matures, as the social, physical and digital become blended and as human data becomes an increasingly valuable asset. We offer a vision in which human data enables the creation and delivery of highly personal experiences. We propose to address three major challenges. The first is to establish new technologies that collect and interpret our human data in a more transparent way. The second is to be able to better understand and design new kinds of experiences that employ these technologies to promote the values of personal fulfilment, wellbeing and sustainability. The third is to address key ethical challenges around design for privacy and new models of ownership. We will work closely with a range of external partners whose interests span: computing and analytics; social policy; and diverse sectors of the DE including creative industries, retail, fast moving consumer goods, finance, energy, transportation and healthcare. We will engage these through a programme of agile translational research projects. These will be integrated into an overarching strategic impact campaign that revolves around three flagships. In turn, these will be supported by two further programmes; one targeted at sustaining the wider DE community and the second at developing the capacity of our researchers to deliver translational research and impact.

National infrastructure provides essential services to a modern economy: energy, transport, digital communications, water supply, flood protection, and waste water / solid waste collection, treatment and disposal. The OECD estimates that globally US$53 trillion of infrastructure investment will be needed by 2030. The UK's National Infrastructure Plan set out over £460 billion of investment in the next decade, but is not yet known what effect that investment will have on the quality and reliability of national infrastructure services, the size of the economy, the resilience of society or its impacts upon the environment. Such a gap in knowledge exists because of the sheer complexity of infrastructure networks and their interactions with people and the environment. That means that there is too much guesswork, and too many untested assumptions in the planning, appraisal and design of infrastructure, from European energy networks to local drainage systems. Our vision is for infrastructure decisions to be guided by systems analysis. When this vision is realised, decision makers will have access to, and visualisation of, information that tells them how all infrastructure systems are performing. They will have models that help to pinpoint vulnerabilities and quantify the risks of failure. They will be able to perform 'what-if' analysis of proposed investments and explore the effects of future uncertainties, such as population growth, new technologies and climate change. The UK Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium (ITRC) is a consortium of seven UK universities, led by the University of Oxford, which has developed unique capability in infrastructure systems analysis, modelling and decision making. Thanks to an EPSRC Programme Grant (2011-2015) the ITRC has developed and demonstrated the world's first family of national infrastructure system models (NISMOD) for analysis and long-term planning of interdependent infrastructure systems. The research is already being used by utility companies, engineering consultants, the Institution of Civil Engineers and many parts of the UK government, to analyse risks and inform billions of pounds worth of better infrastructure decisions. Infrastructure UK is now using NISMOD to analyse the National Infrastructure Plan. The aim of MISTRAL is to develop and demonstrate a highly integrated analytics capability to inform strategic infrastructure decision making across scales, from local to global. MISTRAL will thereby radically extend infrastructure systems analysis capability: - Downscale: from ITRC's pioneering representation of national networks to the UK's 25.7 million households and 5.2 million businesses, representing the infrastructure services they demand and the multi-scale networks through which these services are delivered. - Upscale: from the national perspective to incorporate global interconnections via telecommunications, transport and energy networks. - Across-scale: to other national settings outside the UK, where infrastructure needs are greatest and where systems analysis represents a huge business opportunity for UK engineering firms. These research challenges urgently need to be tackled because infrastructure systems are interconnected across scales and prolific technological innovation is now occurring that will exploit, or may threaten, that interconnectedness. MISTRAL will push the frontiers of system research in order to quantify these opportunities and risks, providing the evidence needed to plan, invest in and design modern, sustainable and resilient infrastructure services. Five years ago, proposing theory, methodology and network models that stretched from the household to the globe, and from the UK to different national contexts would not have been credible. Now the opportunity for multi-scale modelling is coming into sight, and ITRC, perhaps uniquely, has the capacity and ambition to take on that challenge in the MISTRAL programme.