We are trying to make semiconductor lasers for the mid-infrared (2-5 um) spectral range for a variety of practical applications including; chemical process control, environmental monitoring of atmospheric pollution and free space optical communications. At present it is impossible to obtain laser emission at room temperature due to low internal efficiency within the active region of the device. One way of minimising the unwanted processes that compete with the light generation is to arrange for this to take place inside a very small volume of material which is called a quantum dot . Recently at Lancaster we have successfully produced some quantum dot structures which emit light, but to be effective for use in a laser we need to make a sheet containing a large number of small quantum dots. The proposed fellowship seeks to build on our recent successful results and to obtain expert assistance from Dr. Solov'ev from the Ioffe Institute in Russia who is a world-leading authority in this area. Dr. Solov'ev's group has produced a dense array of self-assembled InSb quantum dots having a mean diameter of ~ 2.5 nm and a sheet density of ~ 10^12 cm-2 using a special technique to produce the InSb quantum dot nanostructures in the sub-monolayer thickness range. Dr. Solov'ev has developed a strong international lead by demonstrating room temperature light emission from his InSb quantum dot nanostructures and is enthusiastic to collaborate with us to develop a room temperature mid-infrared laser which contains these quantum dots in the active region.

Design practices and methods, and professional designers, are increasingly visible in public policy processes in national, regional and local government as well as in broader policy ecosystems in particular public service design. The outcomes, consequences and implications of this development are as yet little discussed. In design research, and in political science, recent research has attempted to bridge this divide with nascent research communities in the form of special interest groups and conference panels. This 18-month network brings together these two academic constituencies in a systematic way to identify the tensions and resistances between the two domains, identify potential where capacities of design can be more effectively leveraged, and map out an agenda for future research and knowledge exchange. The network complements other initiatives in academia and practice by critically examining the concepts and methodologies at the intersection of design and political science, as well as identifying untapped potential for using design in public policy. By building capacity across and within these research communities, alongside practice, new understandings as well as new projects can be developed. This is relevant and timely as social and public policy issues require new forms of public administration practice, changes to institution design, ways of engaging with publics and forms of democratic debate. Over 31 people including established researchers, ECRs and PhD students, as well as practitioners working in government departments, think tanks, consultancies and civil society organisations, have expressed interest in being part of the network. Organised through 4 interactive workshops (two in London at UAL, two at Manchester, both blended to allow face to face and online participation), the network will also exist through threaded online discussion on digital platform Slack. Through invited provocations at three workshops with leading researchers and practitioners (with video and transcripts made available on a blog), alongside creative, participatory activities, the network will consolidate and articulate a shared understanding of the potential, consequences and implications for design in public policy processes, informed by research in several fields (design research, the humanities, political science and policy studies). A fourth workshop will allow the network to synthesise understanding of key debates and also to sketch out designs for future collaborative research projects. These insights will form the basis of a public report co-authored by the PI, CI and Steering Group and materials for a public blog to disseminate findings to academics and practitioners. Finally through two events, one aimed at the UK Civil Service co-organised with Policy Lab and Department of Work and Pensions, and one public event, co-organised with the Policy Institute at King's, key findings and directions for future research and knowledge exchange will be disseminated. The network organisers anticipate that members, including the steering group, will build on the outcomes to collaboratively craft new, cross-disciplinary research projects (e.g. for UKRI or Horizon Europe), as well as continuing dialogue through scholarly communities, as well as via fora such as Slack.

This project will develop an operationally and technically viable approach to cargo threat investigation. The main aim of the project is to provide a real-time dynamic passive profiling technique to assist Border Control Agencies and has the potential to improve hit rates; i.e. to improve targeting the people that carry contraband and hence ensure less is entering the UK.To be specific, the real-time dynamic passive profiling technique will be based on the modelling of facial expressions, eye movement and pupil changes in both the visual and thermal domains and link these to malicious intent and physiological processes (such as blood flow, eye movement patterns, and pupil dilation). To facilitate this process, one of the initial aspects of the project will be the collection, analysis and development of the dataset used to model the baseline of facial imagery behaviour of the general population against which physiological behaviours in people with malicious intent would need to be detected. Both the baseline and the dynamic profiling will be based on the response to a series of questions. The developed techniques will be evaluated in operational trails at border control points. The multi-modal facial analysis will provide additional information to the current profiling and the developed techniques will have a wider remit into other domains. It is envisioned that this will be easily integrated into the current process.There are three main challenges:a) to determine the facial/eye features, in combination with psychological profiling, to provide robust baselines that can be linked to malicious intent,b) to develop and combine the various dynamic real-time facial models (visual expression, thermal, eye movement) related to intent, andc) to evaluate the developed system within different environments, ranging from airport to port based border control points.

Women who work in the lap dancing industry are stigmatised and often exploited by unregulated working environments making the work precarious, unstable and potentially unsafe. Aside from moral opinions regarding how they earn money, thousands of women each night in the UK are taking part in exotic dance to earn a living. The conditions under which they work are mostly unregulated, as current regulation focuses on the premises and the external aspects of regulation such as fire regulations, door security and selling alcohol. How the dancers experience their jobs is currently not considered a regulatory concern. In a recent ESRC project involving a large scale survey of 200 dancers and follow up interviews with 30 dancers and 60 other people involved in the industry (club managers, owners, door staff, 'house mums', health and safety officers, police, licensing officers etc), we exposed the motivations for dancing and their experiences as self employed independent contractors. This research is innovative as it moves away from the existing literature on lap dancing which focuses on the identities and emotional management strategies of the dancers and their relationships with the customers. For the first time, this research project examines the dancers experiences as workers. Two important themes came out of the research. First, that the status of 'self employed' is misleading. Financial exploitation from management was a concern expressed by participants: fees paid to work in the club were often high, along with random fines, internal tipping systems, and the threat of instant dismissal. Safety inside the clubs, especially in private closed-off spaces was another concern for some participants. Working long hours throughout the night with few facilities or a space to rest and refresh were the kinds of issues that dancers felt made their jobs difficult. Secondly, the majority of dancers were young, single women under 30 years of age, and were also in other forms of low paid jobs (such as retail, beauty, and bar work) and/or were also studying. The group who mainly used dancing as their sole income were migrant women. For all of the participants, dancing was considered a highly flexible job but at the same time could not be relied on due to the volatile and unstable nature of the industry. Therefore dancing was used strategically to manoeuvre out of precarious employment prospects and to build a more secure and financially stable future. The researchers believe that these two findings can be acted upon and made relevant to policy and practice in an attempt to improve the working conditions for the women who work in the clubs. This proposed project comes at a time when there has been some new laws introduced in 2010 to govern the way in which lap dancing clubs operate and change how they are licensed. This programme of work will take key research findings forward to a non-academic audience made up of policy makers, licensing practitioners, unions and industry members who can act upon them and improve standards through the licensing processes. The project will work with the HM Revenue & Customs to provide education and workplace rights information to dancers regarding paying tax and the benefits of doing so. Information in an accessible form will be given to unions and representative groups who can take forward this campaign for better working conditions. Partnership work will also be conducted with West Yorkshire Police Community Safety Team to develop safety information and a clear line of reporting incidents. To do this we will write five bespoke briefing papers and create two visual summaries so that the findings from the research can be understood without dense text and statistics. In all of our activities dancers will be consulted and integrated into the planning and delivery of the activities to ensure that their input shapes the materials created. A website will allow these materials to be permanently available.

Our project will examine a crucial question for ageing societies: how inequalities across the life course relate to paid work in later life in the UK. This issue is of growing importance since the UK, in common with many other governments across the world, is rapidly extending the working lives of older adults through the postponement of State Pension Age (SPA) and other measures. These policy reforms affect millions of people, yet their implications for health and wellbeing are unknown. Do these policies harm, benefit or have little effect on the population? To answer this, we need to understand the lifelong drivers affecting the complex relationship between paid work in later life, health and wellbeing. Our project extends an existing UK-Canadian collaboration that is examining lifecourse influences on later life work trajectories and their implications for health and wellbeing across five countries (including the UK). We will build on this work to address the implications for health and wellbeing of undertaking paid work up to and beyond SPA in the UK. This is important because comprehending what distinguishes those who work beyond SPA from those who retire at or before SPA is key to understanding the extent to which there is scope to extend SPA without exacerbating social inequalities. In industrial societies, near universal retirement from paid labour linked to the provision of state pensions has been heralded as a significant advance in older people's wellbeing. It is increasingly clear, however, that as longevity increases social welfare systems face significant fiscal challenges. In response, many countries, including the UK, have implemented retirement reforms such as abolishing mandatory retirement and raising state pension ages. These changes have fostered tension between the desire by individuals for a funded retirement at the normative age (e.g. 60 or 65) and the perceived economic need for populations to work longer in the context of societal ageing. Moreover, there is increasing concern that these policies may have disparate effects on different segments of society. However, most prior research in this area has focused on the effect of early retirement on health. We already know something of the characteristics of those who retire early and those who work beyond SPA. For instance, in Britain, ill-health and disability are the most important reasons for early retirement. Those who work beyond SPA are more likely to be better educated, in good health and have a partner in paid work but they are also more likely to be self-employed, to work part-time and, among women, to be in low skill jobs. However, to our best knowledge, nobody has addressed the consequences for health and wellbeing of working up to or beyond SPA. We also know little about the life course trajectories that influence who works up to or beyond SPA; or how they shape the relationships between later life work and health or economic resources. There is also little understanding of the underlying biological mechanisms that might link paid work and physical and psychological health outcomes. Last, by defining how the relationship between SPA and health has changed over time, and across cohorts, we will be better placed to inform debate on the potential impact of future policy decisions. Understanding these issues is critical to the development of policy that minimizes how inequalities may be perpetuated through the lifecourse. Our interdisciplinary team will tackle these issues in projects that cover three major areas: i) a comprehensive assessment of the lifecourse determinants and consequences for health and wellbeing of working up to and beyond SPA; ii) an evaluation of whether (and how) these relationships have changed for different cohorts and over time; and iii) modelling of the financial consequences of working up to and beyond SPA for those with different lifecourse trajectories.