Sustainable urbanisation requires the provision of secure energy for health and comfort. Key to planning sustainable energy services is an understanding of how energy demand changes over time and space and tools to help plan for its reduction. iNUMBER is a research programme to develop: 1. A building stock and municipal service energy model to help plan a secure energy supply for urban populations to be thermally comfortable and healthy (via the provision of clean water and sanitation). The model will estimate total and disaggregated (in use, time and space) energy demand. Plus, assess the impacts of different mechanisms (e.g. shading, occupant behaviour and insulation) to reduce energy demand and the capacity to provide locally generated clean energy. 2. Linked new and existing data sets. Developing models is relatively simple, the challenge is acquiring the data to input and test the validity of models. iNUMBER tackles this challenge head on by developing state of the art data collection and analytic methods to overcome this challenge in a range of scenarios with different data availability. 3.Tools to help support the urban energy management process iNUMBER supports Indian municipalities and local partners to develop a data-driven intelligent urban model for built environment energy research and municipal planning. It supports India's deep decarbonisation pathway by mapping current and future energy demand reduction opportunities in the built environment. It will diagnose urban energy problems, test solutions, verify progress, and improve policy decisions utilising state of the art monitoring, data science and analytics. iNUMBER primarily focuses around meeting the India/UK Newton research topic "Integration of information, communication and renewable energy technologies at building, community, and city level interventions." and will also meet elements of the other two areas of the call "peak demand reduction" by contributing new high resolution data and "city and community technologies" by providing guidance to urban planners iNUMBER will: -Undertake innovative research into: urban data collection (e.g. laser ranging combined with IR and visible images from unmanned vehicles), big data analytics, and innovative modelling. -Promote the economic development of and welfare of developing countries, as required by Newton funding, by helping India to transition to a smart sustainable energy system which is critical to economic development. -Engage users of different types. Our initial project partners include urban local bodies, energy software developers, energy meter hardware suppliers, residential construction companies, architectural firms, and user experience experts. Beyond these immediate partners, we will coordinate and collaborate with other research groups in the field, engage with policymakers, and benefit the public. -Leverage Newton and DST funding by ~£1m, with support from host universities and project partners who will provide data, test sites, equipment, and provide sector expertise. -Demonstrate usable solutions: online energy information systems; benchmarking backed up by large data sets; low-tech "smart-er" retrofits for electricity meters and sub-meters; reduction strategies for energy and the energy-water nexus tailored to cities of different shapes and sizes. -Build a collaborative India/UK interdisciplinary research project: This proposal builds on the strengths of India in Information Technology and the strengths of the UK in energy epidemiology to build a best with the best collaboration. The team includes leading academics from engineering, data science, information technology, energy analysis, architecture, building science, urban science, urban planning, energy management from leading institutions in India and the UK. All work packages will be delivered via teams from both UK and India and many work packages involve interdisciplinary collaboration.

India faces tremendous societal and ecological challenges. Cities are growing which is accompanied by an increase in population and consequently traffic. Transport in India's cities plays an important role in air pollution and a large volume of road traffic fatalities. At the same time, while India's forest cover is on average increasing, it is not clear how much of this is due to plantation in contrast to natural forest, a knowledge gap that is possibly endangering biodiversity of India's forests. Standardly collected remote sensing data of India offers a great opportunity for quantifying the status quo of these factors and turning them into ecological and health models that can inform new government policies to help tackle these challenges. In this project, we will develop novel mathematical methods that can unlock the wealth of information contained in remote sensing data, with a focus on improving upon two of India's challenges: traffic management and forest conservation. We will focus on the development of novel image analysis methods for quantifying traffic volume stratified with respect to traffic mode, i.e. car, bus, tuk tuk, lory, bicycle, pedestrian etc. Our analysis will focus on some of the most populated and polluted cities in India such as Dehli, Mumbai and Bengaluru, using image data obtained from satellites combined with more localised traffic camera data. Algorithms developed in the project as well as associated statistics drawn from the data will be made available to the general public as well as communicated to relevant stakeholders in India. In the context of forest conservation, our project will develop new algorithms for mapping different tree species from India's forests from satellite data. Supported by an interdisciplinary project team of researchers and stakeholders from academia and industry, and from India and Cambridge, and by tightly combining the development of novel mathematical methods for remote sensing data with knowledge transfer, our project aims to provide a step change towards improved decision making in traffic and forest policies in India

The 2019 Energy Progress Report shows the need to step up efforts to link on-grid and off-grid strategies to facilitate access to electricity (EIA et al, 2019). According to the report, eight of the twenty countries with the largest deficits in access to electricity are in East Africa, including Ethiopia, Malawi, and Mozambique. In countries facing such significant gaps in energy access, the rapid adoption of renewable energy may help to deliver access to energy sustainably. The growing availability of renewable technologies in East Africa's countries suggests that such a transition is possible. However, technology alone will not solve the challenge of energy access. A transition to sustainable energy needs to prioritise the social needs of excluded and disadvantaged groups. Responding to people's energy needs requires institutional, organisational, and financial models of energy delivery that prioritise social benefits over profits. New models of energy delivery have been developed to involve communities in the design and management of off-grid systems. While the size and technologies used vary, all Community Energy Systems (henceforth CESs) incorporate the perspectives of beneficiaries on electricity generation and distribution through collaborative mechanisms for decision-making. CESs can provide additional capacity to existing grids, provide off-grid services where the grid is absent, and bridge on-grid and off-grid systems. The project CESET brings together researchers from political science, human geography, engineering and technology providers to understand the role of CESs in advancing a just sustainable energy transition that will bridge the energy access gap in East Africa. Our focus is in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Mozambique, three countries where there is considerable local enthusiasm about CESs. Proponents of CESs argue that they can foster deep structural transformations in countries facing large electricity deficits. First, by giving ownership to communities, CESs challenge the political economy of energy and reveal energy-related inequalities. Second, by demonstrating new modes of service provision, CESs can diversify the institutional landscape of energy delivery. Third, by incorporating the concerns of the more disadvantaged populations in the design and management of energy services, CESs can respond to their needs directly and generate innovations tailored to those needs. There is little evidence of how CESs work in practice and their impacts in East Africa because of the shortage of data on CESs, and energy systems more generally. There is a need to renew policy and practice. Research and interventions often rely on technological blueprints that do not fit the institutional and material conditions in which CESs operate. Moreover, conceptualisations of communities as harmonious, homogenous units obscure the multiple forms of exclusion that influence energy access and infrastructure management. There is already an international consensus about the need for disaggregated data to understand the gender gap in energy access. CESET advocates going beyond by considering the intersection of gender with multiple social characteristics that may also lead to exclusion from energy services (such as age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, place of origin). CESET will produce three outcomes to address this challenge. CESET's theoretical framework will recognise the variety of CESs models and how they interact with multiple variables of community diversity. CESET will also characterise the landscape of operation of CESs in East Africa at three scales: local, national, and regional. Further learning will happen with the activation of a Community Energy Lab in Mozambique to compile evidence of what works in practice. CESET's efforts will lead to the creation of a Regional Energy Learning Alliance to deliver a long-term research programme and support trans-sectorial learning on CESs in East Africa.

GALLANT's vision is to develop whole-systems solutions for a just and sustainable transition delivered at the city scale. Corporate and political leaders are committing to carbon neutrality locally and globally, often without detailed strategies in place or coordination. This will likely lead to delays and suboptimal outcomes when we need rapid, impactful transformation. Cities are increasingly seen as drivers of a carbon neutral future (e.g., Carbon Neutral City Alliance) because through shared policy and knowledge exchange it is possible for successful action in one city to be adopted by others, creating scalable and rapid change. Glasgow is a model city to lead innovation because it has the UK's most ambitious carbon neutrality target of 2030; has challenging social and environmental inequities that will need to co-benefit from proposed solutions; and is due to host COP26 in 2021. Making meaningful, lasting change requires a commitment to the environment that embeds sustainability across major policy decisions and empowers communities as stewards of their local places. In GALLANT, we seek to work with local partners and communities to transform the city into a thriving place for people and nature. Our overarching goal is to implement a systems-based science approach to solve five environmental problems that will accelerate Glasgow's ability to adapt to and manage climate change. The approach integrates natural science and social science disciplines, putting data at the heart of decision-making. We will create the Glasgow Living Lab, delivering a framework that will be readily deployable to solve emerging environmental problems that show how academic, public and private sectors can act together to make progress. The five environmental solutions that we have prioritised with Glasgow City Council are: 1. Working to transform urban river-edge land-use governance to create functional floodplains and new accessible green spaces for community use. 2. Working to deliver biodiversity benefits from green infrastructure throughout Glasgow, restoring and connecting habitats using nature-based solutions, and matching ecosystem service demand with provision. 3. Working to turn vacant, derelict, and polluted land into spaces for carbon sequestration and pollution remediation that can be returned to communities in line with local needs. 4. Working to make the most of current and planned infrastructure by understanding community perceptions of active and safe travel, use these to increase inclusive urban active travel and mobility improving air quality and reducing CO2 emissions . 5. Working to maximise the value of Glasgow green-blue-grey spaces as a Smart Local Energy System that bring heat to some of the most deprived areas of Glasgow.