Rufopoly is a participatory learning board game enabling players to undertake a journey through a fictitious rural urban fringe called RUFshire, answering questions and making decisions on development challenges and place-making; those answers then inform each player's vision for RUFshire. The encountered questions are determined by the roll of a die and based on primary data collected for a Relu project (2010-2012) about Managing Environmental Change at the Rural Urban Fringe. Rufopoly has been used extensively in early stages of projects and plans such as the pioneering Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership spatial plan and has been used by government, EU project groups, local authorities, business, community groups, universities and schools. It has exposed audiences to issues associated with the delivery and trade-offs associated with planning and environmental issues at the fringe but crucially without the use of complex jargon. We believe that the full potential and impact of Rufopoly has yet to be fully realised. There are several reasons for this: 1. Rufopoly was developed towards the end of our Relu project as an unplanned output for a conference run by Relu in 2011 on 'Who Should run the Countryside?'. Its success prompted its inclusion as an output. 2. There were insufficient funds for it to be successfully tested and integrated with policy and practice communities to maximise its utility as a learning tool as this was never the original intention of the project. 3. It is currently presented as a one size fits all board game of a hypothetical place. More time is needed to explore the potential of Rufopoly to become a generic platform for stakeholders wishing to develop their own versions of the tool to meet their own needs and to fill a widely recognised gap in the effectiveness of participatory tools for improved decsion making. This knowledge exchange project addresses these deficiencies by drawing together the shared knowledge and previous experiences of designers and users of Rufopoly. This informs a series of interactive workshops in Wales, England and Scotland to identify how this kind of game-format can be enhanced into a more effective and multifunctional tool. This will help extend and embed the impact for a range of policy and practice partners in the form of a Rufopoly Resource Kit. By working collaboratively with end users we can identify how Rufopoly can be reconfigured across different user groups and organisations in tune with their agendas and needs. There are four stages to this project: WP1: Review and learn lessons from previous Rufopoly experiences. This involves (1) an assessment of the actual results and findings from past games that were written up and the results analysed. (2) critical assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of Rufopoly from facilitators and core participants. We will draw priamirly from our UK experiences but are also able to secure insights from the international adaptations of Rufopoly from Nebraska (November 2013) and Sweden (2014). WP2: Conduct a series of interactive workshops with different policy and practice audiences. These workshops will be held in England, Scotland and Wales using members of the research team and other participants. The purpose of these workshops is to (1) share results of WP1; (2) assess how the tool could be reconfigured to address the principla needs and challenges facing participants; and (3) prioritise feasible options for a Rufopoly Resource Kit. WP3: Using WP1 and WP2 outcomes, we will design and trial (across our team) the Rufopoly 'Mk2' resource kit and associated materials/guidance. WP4: Launch the Rufopoly Resource Kit and guidance in a live streamed global workshop event. This would; reveal the basic resource kit as co-designed by the team and enable testers of the resource kit to share their experiences maximising knowledge exchange and its range of potential applications.

Climate change is projected to have a significant impact upon buildings, infrastructure and utilities. The EPSRC funded programme of research called Building Knowledge for a Changing Climate (BKCC) has over the last three years advanced knowledge of the impacts of climate change on urban drainage, engineered slopes, the electricity supply industry, the aviation industry, historic buildings and infrastructure and the urban environment more generally. It has also developed specialised climate and socio-economic scenarios for impacts assessment studies. Substantial research challenges remain in areas not addressed in the BKCC programme and in more systematic examination of the design and implementation of options for adaptation to climate change. An enthusiastic group of end users from industry and government has been assembled as part of the BKCC programme and have played an active role in the design, monitoring and dissemination of the research results.The Sustaining Knowledge for a Changing Climate will build upon the progress that has been made in BKCC and sustain the community of researchers and end users that has been assembled during BKCC. It will synthesise the results from all of the BKCC projects and present them in a high quality report that will be distributed widely to industry and at a high profile conference aimed at end users. It will continue research in areas of broad interest to industry particularly on problems that only received limited attention during BKCC. Specifically it will, through scoping and pilot studies, work shops and publications progress thinking on (i) use of probabilistic climate scenarios in planning and managing the built environment and infrastructure; (ii) adaptation options that can be beneficial in a range of sectors; (iii) impacts and adaptation in existing and new building stock and (iv) integrating adaptation and solutions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Finally, SKCC will, through stakeholder and researcher workshops develop a coherent user-led plan for future research into the impacts of climate change on the built environment and infrastructure and development of adaptation solutions. This will prepare for major new research proposals in the field of climate impacts and adaptation.

High-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) and afterschool-care (ASC) services are crucial for children's equal opportunities, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. They are also crucial for supporting parents' ability to work and families' financial security. The closure of schools and childcare facilities and other social distancing measures in the wake of Covid-19, while important policies to reduce the spread of the virus and its burden on healthcare systems, created a national 'childcare crisis' with potentially severe effects on families' livelihoods and wellbeing, particularly for families in vulnerable circumstances. Since Covid-19 and its impacts are likely to be persistent, there is an urgent need for crisis-resilient solutions of high-quality childcare provision reaching all families beyond key workers. We know that community-based co-production can lead to more sustainable and effective local solutions than top-down policy-implementation, particularly for hard-to-reach groups. This project has two objectives: firstly, it will collate an evidence-base providing the most comprehensive picture on how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected families' childcare arrangements and wellbeing in the short and longer term. This will include collection of rich new data (in-depth interviews with parents and stakeholders) identifying the specific childcare needs and challenges of families in different circumstances (including socio-economic background, protected characteristics and geographical area), and its triangulation with secondary analysis of a wide range of data-sources on Covid-19 impact (including nationally representative surveys and convenience samples). Secondly, in partnership with local and national stakeholders and policymakers, the project will develop a co-produced policy-toolkit providing community-based implementation and practice pathways to support Local Councils' crisis responses and local communities in developing effective and sustainable childcare solutions during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond. This childcare-toolkit will draw lessons from two local co-production labs (in a rural and an urban setting), from mapping exercises of diverse childcare contexts, and the collation of evidence on specific access problems and needs of different groups of families, particularly those in vulnerable circumstances. The innovative project-design combining a comprehensive array of data analysis with a collaborative co-production strategy for local service solutions will be pioneering in designing resilient childcare provision that protects family wellbeing during this pandemic and beyond. Our extensive analysis of a wide range of data will allow us to identify gaps in the existing data on experiences of families with young children during the Covid-19 pandemic and to make recommendations to policy-makers and data-collectors on what further data is required and what questions should be included in future data-collection. Our close collaboration with a wide range of project-partners in policy-making and civil society (e.g. Scottish Government, The Improvement Service and advocacy organisations such as Child Poverty Action Group, Close the Gap, One Parent Families Scotland, and Children in Scotland) helps ensure that our policy-toolkit is useful and applicable for a wide range of ongoing national and regional Covid-19 activities (e.g. 'CHANGE: Childcare and Nurture'; 'Access to Childcare Fund'-projects; 'Caring Community'- and 'Resilient Community'-projects; 'Critical childcare for vulnerable children'-programmes), and secondly, that it is widely disseminated by our partners across the country and different sectors

Decision-making and planning in rapidly growing urban centres require integrated assessment tools to determine impacts on environmental exposure, health and well being and inequalities. However, there is a lack of practical tools of sufficient spatial detail with which to determine current and future integrated exposure and health risks and to evaluate public policy options. In particular, despite the increasing availability of data, environmental datasets are limited to a few urban monitoring sites and information rich health microdata usually have restricted access (for confidentiality reasons). Moreover, spatio-temporal risk models are required to link exposure and health data to health outcomes and hence determine changes in risk from different policy and planning options. The overall aim of this project is create an interactive data platform, for Glasgow as an example urban environment that integrates geographically specific environmental exposure and health data and modelling: "QCumber-envHealth" to be used to quantify environmental exposure and health risks under different policy scenarios. This project brings together researchers from Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants (CERC), and from the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Strathclyde. CERC has extensive experience in software development, modelling and analysing city data, including environmental exposure modelling and the innovative "QCumber" data platform. The Universities have extensive research expertise in environmental exposure, human health and inequalities, including comprehensive high density measurement capabilities, the development of novel synthetic data estimation techniques for information rich health microdata and spatio-temporal health risk modelling. Close engagement with identified end-users at Glasgow City Council, Transport Scotland, Future cities Glasgow, Health Protection Scotland and NHS Glasgow, will commence at the onset of the project and be maintained throughout. The new "QCumber-envHealth" data platform will be customized by CERC to create a spatio-temporal database and interactive mapping tool for Glasgow integrating a wide range of existing and accessible datasets including health behaviour data available from the research team and linking with environmental modelling of air quality and noise (key innovation). Comprehensive measurements of air quality will be carried out to evaluate and improve existing Q-cumber exposure modelling capabilities with a focus on determining exposure along transport routes (key innovation). Key health micro datasets will be identified in collaboration with end users and synthesised (key innovation) for integration into the QCumber-envHealth platform. Health risk models will be developed for small area and micro data and integrated into QCumber-envHealth (key innovation). Working with end users, several relevant public policy scenarios associated with changing environmental (e.g. air or noise pollution, green space) or social (e.g. smoking prevalence, transport route) factors will be selected and health outcomes within the complex urban environment quantified (new innovation). The platform tool will be developed for use in Glasgow, but its methods and models will be fully transferable to other cities in the UK and worldwide. A commercialisation plan and timeline to market QCumber-envhealth to identified wider users across the UK: small authorities and larger local authorities, public bodies and commercial companies will be rolled out commencing with a dissemination workshop in the later stage of the project and presentations at national conferences e.g. Environmental Protection UK. In summary, this project will combine leading research, innovative technological developments and insights from end users to deliver the new QCumber-envHealth platform for integrated exposure and health assessment to enable decision-making and planning in urban centres, fulfilling a longstanding market need.

The Centre for Climate Change Transformations (C3T) will be a global hub for understanding the profound changes required to address climate change. At its core, is a fundamental question of enormous social significance: how can we as a society live differently - and better - in ways that meet the urgent need for rapid and far-reaching emission reductions? While there is now strong international momentum on action to tackle climate change, it is clear that critical targets (such as keeping global temperature rise to well within 2 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels) will be missed without fundamental transformations across all parts of society. C3T's aim is to advance society's understanding of how to transform lifestyles, organisations and social structures in order to achieve a low-carbon future, which is genuinely sustainable over the long-term. Our Centre will focus on people as agents of transformation in four challenging areas of everyday life that impact directly on climate change but have proven stubbornly resistant to change: consumption of goods and physical products, food and diet, travel, and heating/cooling. We will work across multiple scales (individual, community, organisational, national and global) to identify and experiment with various routes to achieving lasting change in these challenging areas. In particular, we will test how far focussing on 'co-benefits' will accelerate the pace of change. Co-benefits are outcomes of value to individuals and society, over and above the benefits from reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These may include improved health and wellbeing, reduced waste, better air quality, greater social equality, security, and affordability, as well as increased ability to adapt and respond to future climate change. For example, low-carbon travel choices (such as cycling and car sharing) may bring health, social and financial benefits that are important for motivating behaviour and policy change. Likewise, aligning environmental and social with economic objectives is vital for behaviour and organisational change within businesses. Our Research Themes recognise that transformative change requires: inspiring yet workable visions of the future (Theme 1); learning lessons from past and current societal shifts (Theme 2); experimenting with different models of social change (Theme 3); together with deep and sustained engagement with communities, business and governments, and a research culture that reflects our aims and promotes action (Theme 4). Our Centre integrates academic knowledge from disciplines across the social and physical sciences with practical insights to generate widespread impact. Our team includes world-leading researchers with expertise in climate change behaviour, choices and governance. We will use a range of theories and research methods to fill key gaps in our understanding of transformation at different spatial and social scales, and show how to target interventions to impactful actions, groups and moments in time. We will partner with practitioners (e.g., Climate Outreach, Greener-UK, China Centre for Climate Change Communication), policy-makers (e.g., Welsh Government) and companies (e.g., Anglian Water) to develop and test new ways of engaging with the public, governments and businesses in the UK and internationally. We will enhance citizens', organisations' and societal leaders' capacity to tackle climate change through various mechanisms, including secondments, citizens' panels, small-scale project funding, seminars, training, workshops, papers, blog posts and an interactive website. We will also experiment with transformations within academia itself, by trialling sustainable working practices (e.g., online workshops), being 'reflexive' (studying our own behaviour and its impacts on others), and making our outputs and data publically available.