The infrastructure systems that support our urban systems and serve citizens, society and cities, have developed over centuries. They have been variously superseded, extended and supplemented as populations have grown, technology has developed and contexts have changed. This presents challenges of maintenance (keeping the older parts going) and integration (of the new with the old) as expectations of ever better service inexorably rise. REPLENISH is focusing on the 'urban metabolism' - the flows of resources, goods and people into, around and out of cities. When the infrastructure systems underpinning this 'urban metabolism' work uninterrupted and unencumbered by excessive demand or lack of affordability, they work well and citizens are happy. This is the expectation. However there several factors combine to compromise the efficacy of these systems and materially damage citizen mental and physical health and wellbeing (H&WB): - Many infrastructure systems are not run primarily for the benefit of the citizenry they serve. Where (e.g. many utility) services are provided by private companies, their primary responsibility is to their shareholders and profit is an overriding imperative. Regulation is a mechanism for acting for the common good, but can only be invoked using incontrovertible evidence. - Our infrastructure systems are highly interdependent - a failure or need for major intervention in one will often have significant adverse consequences on many others. - Rapidly-growing demand often outstrips supply, with effects most keenly felt in mobility systems. Congestion, delays, uncertainty of travel times and plotting of routes to 'beat the competition' lead to angst and stress ('commuter rage', cf. 'road rage', in the extreme) and compromised mental health. - Infrastructure systems deteriorate with age, repeated use and due to environmental factors. Maintenance, refurbishment and replacement fails to keep pace with system-wide deterioration, causing failures and emergency repairs, and often major disruption. Disruption to the urban metabolism due to streetworks, arising from the physical interdependency of multiple buried pipes and cables beneath roads, is a prime example. - Serious side effects of current mobility systems include engine exhaust emission and airborne particulates from vehicle breaks and tyres. - Wealthier citizens can sometimes avoid such problems by using some of their wealth, whereas poorer citizens cannot. This results in H&WB inequalities. Moreover, the solution to some of these 'urban metabolism' problems offer potential for physical exercise. Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and chronic lung disease, are collectively responsible for almost 70% of all deaths worldwide. Radical changes to the quality of the urban environment and the way we move around cities would manifestly improve this situation. Our infrastructure systems, as currently constituted, are therefore one of the major upstream determinants of NCDs and compromised mental H&WB, and contribute hugely to direct costs (e.g. to the NHS) and indirect costs (e.g. loss of productivity) to the UK's economy. REPLENISH contends that if our infrastructure systems and their associated cityscapes were designed with positive H&WB outcomes as the primary design criterion, huge social and economic benefits would result. REPLENISH therefore proposes, by adopting systems thinking and systems engineering (or 'doing'), to: - create the evidence base to prove the extent of the damage to citizen H&WB and the benefits of change, - rethink and redesign our engineered infrastructure systems and cityscapes, - create alternative business models that would prove the value of investment in making such change, and amended forms of governance that control their efficacy, - prove the concepts via demonstrator projects in association with the Design Council, Sustrans and other user partners.

The Dust Bunny project will apply design methods coupled with microbiological analyses to address issues of home-based infections in Ghana, particularly those carrying antimicrobial resistance, resulting in a reduction of infection and in positive increase of health outcomes. Bacteria found in the natural and built environment (e.g. homes, schools, hospitals, etc.) are building up a resistance to drugs -changing to protect themselves against antibiotics. What this means is that in the not-too-distant future, something as simple as a minor cut infection could become life-threatening. This is such a concern that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is now considered a global health crisis, far surpassing outbreaks of diseases such as Ebola and as real as climate change. This is even more evident and critical in developing countries in Africa, such as in Ghana, where there are a great number of deaths from infectious diseases. Bacteria are made up of pathogens (bad germs) and non-pathogens (good germs) and are generally scattered across the home. Most surfaces in the home are covered to a certain degree with bacteria, but unlike fixed surfaces such as kitchen work surfaces and furniture, dust can move more easily around different parts of the home and therefore presents a major route for human exposure to bacterial infections. Despite being clear evidence for microbial exposure and infection transmission within the home, there has been less research effort invested in understanding the home environment, due to difficulty of conducting detailed studies. Although the transmission routes by dust in the home environment are well known, what has not been studied is how to prevent bacterial infection at home and thereby reduce resistance. Particularly in developing countries, such as Ghana, social inequalities mean a range of different quality and types of homes; this combined with often poor levels of domestic hygiene that is influenced by a number of economic, educational and religion factors, contributes to the spread of infectious diseases. Although there are hygiene guidelines available for preventing infection in the home environment, these are targeted at hygiene professionals and do not reach the everyday household in Ghana. There is therefore a much-required and unmet need to identify, understand and develop domestic hygiene practices that are relevant to different home environments, educational and cultural backgrounds in developing countries, such as in Ghana, in order to reduce exposure to bacteria pathogens and thereby exposure to resistance forms. Within this context, the Dust Bunny project aims at developing an understanding of the home as a source of infection of bacteria, resistant to antibiotics, found and carried by dust. This will be done by exploring hygiene practices across different home environments in Ghana, with the ultimate aim to reduce bacterial infection in the home environment thereby reducing AMR. Understanding the hygiene practices in the household and interactions with airborne AMR bacteria will serve as a first step to designing appropriate education/information dissemination materials for various sections of the Ghanaian population as well as other low- and middle-income countries in Africa. Dust Bunny, uniquely combines design research and microbiology to provide an informed assessment of societal practices in domestic cleanliness and novel solution to reduce infections in the home. The project team includes Imagination@Lancaster -an internationally leading research institution in design research- and the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research -a research centre of excellence and the prime biomedical research institution in Ghana, involved with the Ghana Health Service and Ministry of Health in providing the evidence to effect policy changes.

Driven by the growing recognition of the importance of design in national innovation, design policy is an emerging subject of research interest. Design policies are 'sets of rules, activities, and processes to support design through the reinforcement of design capabilities at all levels of the policy cycle' by DeEP. Governments in countries where design and innovation are considered core competitive advantage actively seek to implement policies to create encouraging environments for the prosperity of design innovation. Research into design policy in this context will focus on the relevance and effectiveness of government intervention within the design industry. There is an imperative to advance thinking through collaboration and to share experience. Networking and research in this subject has attracted growing investment. However, collaboration with partners outside of the EU is underdeveloped. A fast changing technology base and novel innovation models allows 'underdeveloped' countries to leap-frog conventional development patterns, with significant impact on the global innovation landscape. Each region can no longer consider its innovation policies in isolation. Collaboration with these countries is as important as with EU partners. This is especially relevant in the case of China, one of the biggest trade partners with EU and the largest R&D investor after the US. China now aims to transform its economy away from a reliance on low-skill and resource-intensive manufacturing, and has recognised the necessity of design innovation in achieving structural transformation of industries. However, these policies and their execution remain unclear outside of China and research in this field is still scarce. In the UK, design is viewed as an important and integral dimension of innovation policy. As one of the largest innovation exporters, it is strategically important for the UK's policy makers to gain knowledge of China, thus enabling them to contextualise their relevance to the UK's design industry and economy, and capture opportunities afforded by transformation in China. Moreover, no consideration has been given to how the UK might best develop policies which capitalise on the opportunities. The study aims to develop a UK-China network in design policy to facilitate interactions between UK and China, and between researchers and policy makers. This network is aimed at professional, educational, and government organizations which might contribute to the development and management of initiatives to either grow business or design capability and capacity. Through a series of workshops and seminars, the project will develop partnerships to share good practices in design policy development and to stimulate discussions on this topic. This project will also help build capacity in design policy research, and will inform the future development of the research networking theme. The project will conclude by undertaking a mapping exercise to understand the focuses and principles of policy making in each country; and from this, identify differences and similarities in the approaches taken by each country in supporting design innovation. This will in turn provide the basis for a generic model of design policy which will be disseminated at a final event to be held in London, and will be used to inform national and regional policies supporting the design sector.

This project aims to create an interactive online tool to enhance the viability of small maker enterprises in the form of an Interactive Viability Roadmap. This tool will contribute the future viability of small maker enterprises through a personalised, design-based approach that provides tailored strategies for product development, process improvement and promotion effectiveness. The tool will assist enterprises in making decisions about future strategies that are in line with their values and priorities and also with the principles of sustainability. All the strategies suggested to an individual enterprise will be based on a) information supplied by the enterprise and b) successful 'real world' examples. The data visualised by this tool will also provide regional economic development and policy advisory organizations, such as the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Craft, with aggregate information about the values and priorities of small maker enterprises so that economic and other forms of support, and policy development decisions, can be better aligned with their needs. In recent times, there has been renewed interest in the provenance of the products we consume. This ranges from the foods available in supermarkets to the ingredients of restaurant menus, and from local craft beers to handmade objects. The research base for this present project was tangible goods, but the concept can be extended to include other kinds of goods. Notwithstanding the renewed interest, however, the viability of enterprises that produce these kinds of goods is often precarious - as indicated by the UK's Radcliffe Red List of Endangered Crafts and, at the international level, UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) Programme, both of which aim to support these cultural practices and raise awareness of their importance and value. While the UK presently does not subscribe to the UNESCO ICH Programme, it has been enthusiastically embraced in China at the national, regional and municipal levels. We have also seen considerable work in this area in the USA. Hence, this is a global issue and the potential use and impact of the proposed Interactive Viability Roadmap is international. Evidence demonstrates that there is a need for better understanding of how small maker enterprises can contribute to a vibrant creative economy through effective support that is respectful of their values and often has deep cultural roots. This project addresses this issue in two ways. First, it allows individual enterprises to adopt new strategies that are aligned with their declared values and priorities and with sustainable principles. Second, it enables regional economic development and policy advisory organizations to ensure that support and policy take into account the values and priorities prevalent among small maker enterprise owners, to ensure appropriate provision. TradeCraft will generate benefits for enterprise owners and other stakeholders, including designers working in the field, Craft Council, Design Council, North West Craft Network, Heritage Crafts Association, and regional tourist organizations; regional economic development organizations such as Local Economic Partnerships; policy advisory groups such as the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Craft; and researchers working in this field. In addition, the work will be of interest to groups internationally, such as Craft-ACT, Australia, the International Folk Arts Museum, Santa Fe, and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing. The extent to which COVID-19 will have a long-term negative effect on the cultural industries and tourism is too early to say. However, whether planning for resumption or for entirely new ways of appreciating and ensuring the resilience of small maker enterprises, this Interactive Viability Roadmap will allow enterprises and economic development and policy advisory organizations to make better-informed decisions about appropriate strategies and support activities.

This project addresses unforeseen pathways to impact by sharing insights and findings arising from the AHRC Leadership Fellow Bid, 'Bio-Inspired Textiles (BIT)' with new design communities and non-academic product design audiences. The overall aim of the BIT project has been 'to determine if biomimetic principles can be drawn upon: to advance sustainable textile design and production processes; to positively contribute to the circular economy; and to consequently develop an accessible framework as a template for the wider dissemination of biomimetic textile design practices as state of the art (SoA)'. The BIT framework connects information from a comprehensive review of Biological Structural Design Elements (BSDE) led by Naleway (2015), intended for a material science audience, with processes and techniques specific to the textile disciplines using communication design and storytelling. Our research has demonstrated the value of this approach and opportunities to widen impact beyond textiles. We have also found that the BIT framework supports a model of sustainable design for resource (material and energy) efficiency, longevity and recovery (RELR). We evidence both these outcomes via the analysis of the practice of 14 funded textile makers and 38 Masters level textile students and a wider study of 134 textile practitioners. Our research has also highlighted that mind-set, lack of access to specialist knowledge and practical examples constitute the key obstacles preventing textile designers from accessing information from biology and ultimately advancing the sustainability and/or circularity of their practice. Our communication activities designed to share our practice-based outcomes with the textile design community via social media have stimulated significant unexpected interest from the broader design community leading to a subsequent additional study of a wider range of design practices. We found significant alignment between the obstacles reported by the textile and broader design practitioner samples. The proposed activities build on the outcomes of BIT to mitigate these issues and respond to the need for practical design methodologies that enable concepts from biology to inform product and broader design disciplines. The project is guided by two key aims: a. Share insights pertaining the BIT framework and model of sustainable design (RELR) with the product design community of practice b. Enable stakeholders to access and investigate the positive impact of the expanded BIT renamed Bio-Inspired Design (BID) framework and sustainable design model RELR. (Stakeholders to include representatives from product design industry, primary and secondary education (KS1-4) as well as interested public, i.e. individuals interested in a career in design, those seeking to understand how sustainable and/or circular models can be implemented via design practice). .