Despite the financial crisis, the UK remains committed to spending 0.7% of its gross national income (GNI) on official development assistance, a target it expects to reach in the 2013-2014 financial year, and which the coalition government has recently reiterated a desire to enshrine into law. Internationally the UK's commitment to international development has led it to take on the role of Co-Chair of a panel, set-up by the United Nations (UN), to look at a successor framework to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) which expire in 2015. Such a period of reflection provides a particularly good opportunity for new issues to be highlighted, in an effort to ensure future development objectives and the strategies that are formed to meet them, are as effective as is possible. In this context this seminar series seeks to investigate the relationship between maritime insecurity and sustainable development facilitating increased maritime domain awareness. At its most basic the maritime domain is defined as the sea, navigable waterways and all activities associated with them. While a security challenge such as piracy, specifically off the Horn of Africa, has increasingly been the subject of news coverage, such reports tend to focus on the number of incidents or on the fate of British hostages seized. An assessment of the impact such challenges have on the populations of developing countries themselves and the impediments maritime insecurity can have on development efforts remains understudied. Beyond piracy, the maritime domain is also exploited by those involved in Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing, the dumping of toxic waste, and in the trafficking of illegal drugs, to name just three examples, illustrating the breadth of the challenges faced. In beginning the process of addressing this gap in knowledge by discussing further the relationship between activities at sea and on land, this seminar series will make a significant contribution building a new research network of both academic and non-academic participants, highlighting new research opportunities to be pursued, and by making policy proposals that can feed in to development efforts. The involvement of academics from multiple disciplines, at different stages in their careers, based in both the UK and internationally, alongside policy makers and practitioners, will ensure different insights are shared and new relationships forged. The Royal Navy and the Nautical Institute are principal external partners for the seminar series. The process of investigating the relationship between maritime insecurity and sustainable development will contribute to the emergence of development efforts that are even more responsive to the needs of populations. The seminar series consists of six seminars delivered over a two year period (2013-2015), three of which examine specific cases of maritime insecurity in waters off African countries, a continent where development efforts have long been focused. Each seminar is structured so as to facilitate participant discussion, with an accompanying website and mailing list, alongside periodic publications, utilised to ensure the research is as widely available to interested parties as is possible. Seminar 1 (November 2013 - Coventry University): Setting the Scene - Concepts, actors and an emerging research agenda. Seminar 2 (April 2014 - Coventry University, London Campus): Environmental Degradation: IUU fishing and toxic waste dumping. Seminar 3 (September 2014 - HMS President, London): Transnational Crime: Illegal Drugs Trafficking. Seminar 4 (December 2014 - Nautical Institute, London): Organised Violence: Piracy. Seminar 5 (April 2015 - Coventry University): Fostering Sustainable Development: The impediments posed by maritime insecurity. Seminar 6 (September 2015 - Coventry University): Future Pathways: Enhancing trust, transferring knowledge.

Discussions between NOC, dstl(Ministry of Defence), the Royal Navy and Chelsea Technologies Group (CTG) have highlighted what can be gained from hull-mounted underway instruments and where a lack of appropriate formal communication is failing to exploit UK research and development. Advances in the scientific understanding of the marine environment through real-time underway monitoring are not yet being integrated with traditional operational training. And the operational tools needed to exploit these advances need research and development, the outputs of which will benefit both UK operators and UK business exports. It is vital that operational requirements are efficiently fed back to industry, with the knowledge based interaction of research organisations, such that complex measured parameters are provided in a simple visual user interface. The OBS programme seeks to address these problems through a number of formal routes for knowledge exchange. Royal Navy vessels including submarines carry a wide range of underway environmental monitoring instruments. Many vessels are equipped with underway instrument packages which, in addition to temperature and salinity, also measure chlorophyll fluorescence, a biological degradation product known as Gelbstoff or 'yellow substance', trace hydrocarbons and luminescence. Some training is provided for mariners and submariners in physical oceanography to maintain a level of understanding of the impact of the sound velocity characteristics of a water column on the ability to detect and be detected acoustically. However, both the RN and DSTL have a keen interest in establishing and exploiting the use of non-acoustic indicators that provide information on the operating environment for UK strategic advantage. The data from biogeochemical environmental sensors are currently poorly understood by operators. There are no mechanisms currently in place to provide the sustained knowledge transfer necessary for the routine interpretation of these data streams for operational environmental advantage. Currently the numbers and units provided by the fluorimeters (chlorophyll, gelbstoff and hydrocarbons) and the luminescence sensors mean nothing to the operator without the incorporation of suitable training in the mariner and sub-mariner curriculum. And, the multi-variable interpretation of these data streams is where the real added value for environmental advantage could arise. This requires the development of tactical environmental prediction firmware for the real-time guidance of operations. For example a coincident increase in gelbstoff fluorescence with decreasing chlorophyll(a) fluorescence would suggest a possible change towards a dinoflagellate dominated phytoplankton population and the likelihood of significant vessel wake-driven luminescence at perhaps the 40% risk level. If we further combine this with a knowledge of oceanographic characteristics then perhaps this risk might be reduced to 20% or increased to 70%. The overall OBS programme has three parts, for which this exchange project OBS(1) will form the foundation first part. OBS(1) is a collaborative fact-finding mission to catalogue the current state of operational ability, technical procurement, mature research knowledge and operational requirements. The most important overall objectives of OBS(1) are firstly to set the details for the incorporation of long term biogeochemical operational training in the mariner and sub-mariner syllabus, to be provided by front line researchers supported by the Royal Navy under OBS(2). Secondly OBS(1) will set out the framework for the research and development of operational environmental prediction tools under OBS(3); involving close interaction with research organisations and industry. This component will develop the operator interface of the future and will be supported by dstl.

This is the first major study of amateur dramatics. Amateur theatre has an active place in the social and cultural life of many communities, despite receiving little intervention from funding councils, charities, local authorities and professional theatre. Moreover, the term 'amateur' is often used disparagingly; professional actors continue to deride amateur dramatics for their production values, often vociferously, despite many performers having started their careers as amateurs. For theatremakers on the political Left, the perceived conservatism of 'am drams' has been seen an obstacle to community theatre. Academics have often been conspiciously silent on the subject of amateur dramatics, favouring forms of theatre that are more palatable to radical politics and more in tune with metropolitan taste. Yet for the participants in amateur dramatics themselves, the choice of repertoire, the craft of performance and the production values are deeply important. This study will take the social and artistic intentions of amateur dramatic companies seriously. It will consider systems of apprenticeship and leadership, how casts and crew refine and develop their craft, and how their commitment to rehearsal, production, competitions and festivals shapes their skills as theatre-makers. The study will consider the social aspects of amateur dramatics: how participation fosters friendship and romance, weathers conflict and fall-outs, and sustains family involvement and community participation across generations. It will examine how amateur dramatics is viewed by audiences and valued as heritage, and the contribution made to productions by the wider communities in which they are situated. The research will focus particular attention on amateur dramatics in constructed communities, that is communities conceived to fulfil particular social and institutional functions (military bases, naval ships), or designed as utopian imaginaries of urban life (Garden Cities/ post-war New Towns and suburbia) and rural villages constructed in the transition from organic communities to commuter dormitories. By researching cultural activity in non-metropolitan communities, it will address questions of international significance by asking how and if amateur dramatics contributes to sustaining and revitalising communities; whether amateur theatre companies resist change or adapt to new circumstances; why people give time to amateur dramatics; how participation enhances wellbeing and raises the quality of community life. This research will be conducted with and by members of amateur dramatic companies, who will share their insights and local knowledge. It is significant that this research is proposed in a context in which creativity is recognised as valuable commodity in globalised, knowledge-based economies and State funding for the professional arts has been cut. In times of austerity and recession, funding for participatory arts as a means of promoting social cohesion has been eroded. Nonetheless, there is a widespread cultural anxiety that although we may be increasingly globally networked, many people scarcely know their neighbours, leading to loneliness and social isolation. This makes questions about the practice of amateur arts all the more pressing. There is urgent need to understand the social, cultural and economic significance of amateur dramatics - as one of the most social, sociable and durable cultural practices. The project will culminate in a research festival that will bring together amateur and professional theatremakers, academics and cultural policy-makers to share practice and experience, and consider future possibilities. The outcomes will be of interest to cultural policy, voluntary arts organisations, Naval and military institutions, local authorities and heritage groups, as well as to the amateur dramatic companies themselves. By studying amateur dramatics in the past and present, this research will inform the future.

In today's society, the massive deployment of smart devices, the popularity of online services and social networks, and the increasing global data traffic, makes the ability to process large data volumes absolutely crucial. Demand for Artificial Intelligence (AI) has therefore exploded, fuelled by an increasing number of industries (e.g. energy, finance, healthcare, defence) heavily relying on the efficient processing of large data sets. Nonetheless, the ever-growing data processing demand creates a pressing need to find new paradigms in AI going beyond current systems, capable of operating at very high speeds whilst retaining low energy consumption. The human brain is exceptional at performing very quickly, and efficiently, highly complex computing tasks such as recognising patterns, faces in images or a specific song from just a few sounds. As a result, computing approaches inspired by the powerful capabilities of networks of neurons in the brain are the subject of increasing research interest world-wide, and are in fact already used by current AI platforms to perform these (and other) complex functions. Whilst these brain-inspired artificial neural networks (ANNs) are supported to date by traditional micro-electronic technologies, photonic techniques for brain emulation have also recently started to emerge due to their unique and superior properties. These include very high speeds and reduced interference, among others. Remarkably, ubiquitous photonic devices such as vertical-cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs), the very same devices used in supermarket barcode scanners, computer mice and in mobile phones for auto-focus functionalities, can exhibit responses analogous to those of neurons but up to 1 billion times faster. VCSELs are also compact, inexpensive and allow practical routes for integration in chip modules with very low footprints (just a few mm2) making them ideal for the development of ultrafast photonic ANNs using ultrafast light signals instead of electric currents to operate. This permits exploring radically new research directions aiming at exploiting the full potential of light-enabled technologies for new paradigms in ultrafast AI. This Fellowship project will focus on this key challenge to develop transformative photonic ANNs using VCSELs as building blocks capable of performing complex computational tasks at ultrafast speeds, using data rates below 1 billionth of a second to operate. These will include the ultrafast prediction of complex data signals, of interest for example in meteorology forecasting, to very high speed data classification of interest in green-energy systems (e.g. analysis of wind patterns in off-shore wind-energy farms). The research milestones of this programme are: (1) the design and fabrication of photonic ANNs using coupled VCSELs as building blocks, emulating the operation of the human brain at ultrafast speeds; (2) the development of chip-scale modules of VCSEL based photonic ANNs; (3) the demonstration of complex data processing tasks with photonic ANNs at ultrafast speeds (at data rates below 1 billionth of a second); (4) the delivery of photonic systems for AI, tackling key functionalities across strategic UK economic sectors (e.g. energy, defence). In summary, by bringing together the hitherto disparate fields of brain-inspired computing and photonics, this programme proposes unique pioneering research in photonic ANNs for future ultrafast AI technologies.