We will train a cohort of students at the interface between the physical and computer sciences to drive the critically needed implementation of digital and automated methods in chemistry and materials. Through such training, each student will develop a common language across the areas of automation, AI, synthesis, characterization and modelling, preparing them to become both leader and team player in this evolving and multifaceted research landscape. The lack of skilled individuals is one of the main obstacles to unlocking the potential of digital materials research. This is demonstrated by the enthusiastic response toward this proposal from our industrial partners, who span sectors and sizes: already 35 are involved and we have already received cash support corresponding to over 27 full studentships. This proposal will deliver the EPRSC strategic priority "Physical and Mathematical Sciences Powerhouse" by training in "discovery research in areas of potential high reward, connecting with industry and other partners to accelerate translation in areas such as catalysis, digital chemistry and materials discovery." The CDT training programme is based on a unique physical and intellectual infrastructure at the University of Liverpool. The Materials Innovation Factory (MIF) was established to deliver the vision of digital materials research in partnership with industry: it now co-locates over 100 industrial scientists from more than 15 companies with over 200 academic researchers. Since 2017, academics and industrial researchers from physical sciences, engineering and computer sciences have co-developed the intellectual environment, infrastructure and expertise to train scientists across these areas. To date, more than 40 PhD projects have been co-designed with and sponsored by our core industrial partners in the areas of organic, inorganic, hybrid, composite and formulated materials. Through this process, we have developed bespoke training in data science, AI, robotics, leadership, and computational methods. Now, this activity must be grown scalably and sustainably to match the rapidly increasing demand from our core partners and beyond. This CDT proposal, developed from our previous experience, allows us to significantly extend into new sectors and to a much larger number of partners, including late adopters of digital technologies. In particular, we can now reach SMEs, which currently have limited options to explore digitalization pathways without substantial initial investment. A distinctive and exciting training environment will be built exploiting the diverse background of the students. Peer learning and group activities within a cross-disciplinary team will accelerate the development of a common language. The ability to use a combination of skills from different individuals with distinct domain expertise to solve complex problems will build the teams capable of driving the necessary change in industry and academia. The professional training will reflect the diversity of career opportunities available to this cohort in industry, academia and non-commercial research organizations. Each component will be bespoke for scientists in the domain of materials research (Entrepreneurship, Chemical Supply Chain, Science Policy, Regulatory Framework). External partners of training will bring different and novel perspectives (corporate, SMEs, start-ups, international academics but also charities, local authorities, consultancy firms). Cohort activities span the entire duration of the training, without formal division between "training" and "research" periods, exploiting the physical infrastructure of MIF and its open access area to foster a strong and vital sense of community. We will embed EDI principles in all aspects of the CDT (e.g. recruitment, student well-being, composition of management, supervisory and advisory teams) to make it a pervasive component of the student experience and professional training.

Internal communication does more than transfer information, it infuses organizations with meaning. This 3-year research programme traces the history of internal communication in the UK. As a specialized activity internal comms originates from company magazines in the late 19th century. Since then magazines have morphed into complex systems of intranets, emails, internal social media, company newsletters, road shows, briefing groups, huddles, blogs and roadshows. It is estimated that around 45k professionals are currently engaged in internal communication. The history of internal communication will be studied through the archives of 14 prominent organisations, where research access has been secured: BBC; Boots; British Airways; British Army; British Rail; Cadbury; GlaxoSmithKline; HSBC; John Lewis; National Coal Board; Prudential Insurance; Royal Mail; Shell; and Unilever. In addition the archives for 5 professional bodies and a leading consultancy will be used: AB Communications, which provides internal comms for prominent global and UK organisations; Chartered Institute of Marketing; Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development; Chartered Institute of Public Relations; Institute of Internal Communication; and the Industrial Society. The British Library, which has extensive historical holdings of internal comms, has also agreed to assist with disseminating findings from the research. The changing form and content of internal comms will be mapped, tracing the transformation of the magazine format into the contemporary system of internal comms that aims at enhancing employee engagement, voice, and corporate identity. Discussions about the role of communication will be examined in documents such as minutes from board meetings and reports. Internal comms practitioners and company archivists theorise their own practices. The discourses of practitioners and their relation to actual practices will be examined through communications produced by professional bodies and consultants. Historians accept that nations have been imagined as communities through national newspapers and television channels. Corporations can also be seen as communities that have been imagined through internal comms. Three discourses of imagined communities have legitimated both organisations and the role of internal comms: esprit de corps, where the corporation is imagined as an extended family or military unit; brand community, where employees are imagined as part of community with consumers; and democratic polity, where the employees are imagined as citizens with internal comms as a free press holding government to account. The discourse of brand communities is now predominant, but the interplay between these discourses will be examined throughout the 20th century. Management scholars refer to the instrumental use of the past by corporations as "rhetorical history", which is usually studied in relation to uses of the past in the present for external marketing communication with customers. But references to the past featured in company magazines almost from the outset. The research will produce an account of how rhetorical history has been used in the past both to legitimate organisations to their employees, and to legitimate the role of internal comms. This research program will produce a theoretically informed history of internal comms as a reference point for contemporary debates, such as the response of organisations to the coronavirus pandemic. Company archivists will be interested in how their work informs internal comms, and how internal comms constitutes archives. The internal comms profession will be enhanced by historical debate, and organisations will be interested in finding out what made for effective internal comms in the past. As the wider public consists of many current and former members of large organisations, there will be general interest in remembering how these bodies communicated with their members in the past.

Human beings have always worried about ageing, with special worry reserved for premature ageing. Consequently, we have tried numerous different methods to try and achieve rejuvenation - a state of renewed youth or the appearance of youth. The everyday methods with which we are perhaps most familiar - skin care products, dietary and exercise regimes - have long histories but were transformed in the decades following the First World War, when a wealth of scientific research and new anti-ageing products appeared to promise the ability to prolong youthfulness, fertility and vitality. This Fellowship sets out to examine the impact of the most widespread methods of rejuvenation - injection and application of hormones, using electricity on the body, skincare products, specific diets and exercise regimes - on post-WWI Britain. We already know from previous historical work that the unique socio-political context of interwar Germany precipitated the rise of eugenic ideals about race and biology, as well as beauty and ugliness, whilst at the same time the rising consumer-culture context of the United States enthusiastically embraced technological and scientific developments linked to human ageing. However, Britain in this period has remained largely unstudied, and consequently we risk overstating the significance of developments elsewhere. Concerns about the overall fitness (and fertility) of the population were increased by Britain's participation in the two World Wars, and it is clear that the perceived need for rejuvenation of both individuals and society became a topic of intense debate both in medical and scientific circles and in the wider public sphere. Especially prior to the NHS, manufacturers and entrepreneurs attempted to exploit this fascination, and they claimed that a number of existing therapies had rejuvenating properties, as well as trying to introduce new devices and products. The domestication of electrical lighting and the increasingly wide reach of cinema and photography also placed added pressure on the British public, and particularly women, to look at their best. The Fellowship will explore why rejuvenation was such a prominent matter of public interest in this period, and it will show in what ways the methods used to slow, stop or even reverse ageing helped to define some of the most fundamental elements of what it means to be human. The principal goals are to (i) explain the diversity of approaches to rejuvenation, (ii) examine the different advertising and marketing strategies and their relationship with contemporary scientific perspectives on ageing, and (iii) uncover how everyday habits were changed by anti-ageing products, procedures and lifestyles. Allied to this, the Fellowship will explain how manufacturers of rejuvenation preparations and devices attempted to convince British publics of the efficacy of their products, and show to what extent the target audiences of these products were persuaded by such claims. The Fellowship seeks to explain how and why this period in Britain became such a fruitful environment for different rejuvenation strategies. Drawing on a wide range of archival materials, including the papers of manufacturers and retailers of rejuvenation-related products (such as Boots, Pond's and Elizabeth Arden), newspaper and periodical sources, objects, specialist scientific and medical texts, personal accounts and fictional representations of rejuvenation, the project will link together histories of the body, ageing, the limits of biomedical explanation, everyday medical practice, the impact of global conflict on health and wellbeing, and the medical marketplace, amongst other themes. The Fellowship will consequently deepen our understanding of the historical body and the human condition by demonstrating that ageing and rejuvenation were intimately connected with a wide range of medial, social, cultural and economic factors, including beauty, gender, class, race, warfare, and eugenics.

It is now clear that our health depends largely on the microbes that exist in and on our bodies i.e. the microbiome. Skin is no exception and we now know that bacteria living on our skin provide us with many essential functions such as combatting infections and helping to enhance the role of skin as a barrier. The skin and its microbiome are unique in that they are regularly exposed to sunlight. For a long time it has been known that sunlight can damage the DNA of skin cells. DNA damage is associated with 'sunburn' which is perhaps, along with tanning, the most well known response of skin to sunlight. However, even exposure which does not cause a sunburn can be sufficient to damage DNA but usually, the skin cells are able to repair this damage very quickly. However, any damage that is too bad to repair is dealt with by the cells undergoing a process called 'apoptosis' which is a very controlled way of the cells dying. This process is essential to stop cells with damaged DNA from multiplying and is part of the skin's defence against forming tumours. How exposure to sunlight affects our skin microbiome is not really known. However, we have shown that there is a particular bacterium on our skin which promotes apoptosis in skin cells that have been exposed to sunlight. This bacterium does this by producing a molecule in response to sunlight that induces apoptosis in skin cells. This shows that our skin microbiome produces molecules that alter how our skin cells work following sunlight exposure. In this project we will be investigating this more. Our first question is: 'Does the presence of the microbiome affect the sunburn response in humans?'. We will answer this by removing the microbiome (by cleaning with alcohol) from an area of skin in 10 volunteers and then exposing them to several doses of 'simulated sunlight'. We will be looking at how the sunburn develops in areas of skin without the microbiome compared to with the microbiome. We will take a 'biopsy' - a small piece of their skin which has been sunlight exposed and we will perform experiments in the laboratory to determine whether cells in this piece of skin have undergone apoptosis. Successful completion of this work will answer a fundamental question as to the role of the skin microbiome in the sunburn response in humans. Our second question relates to the molecule produced by the bacterium that promotes apoptosis. At present we have data as to its effects in isolated skin cells. We now want to look at this in actual skin. We are able to obtain skin from elective plastic surgery procedures and we have methods already established to keep this skin 'alive' in the laboratory. We will be using this to investigate the effects of the molecule in real human skin. We also aim to purify the molecule from the bacterium and try to identify what it is. We will also be studying how the molecule causes apoptosis in skin cells. Successful completion of this work will shed light on the possible role of bacteria in protecting skin against the multiplication of damaged skin cells. Our final question is: 'Are there other bacteria in the skin microbiome that can protect against DNA damage following exposure to sunlight or promote DNA repair?'. We have already (in a previous project) isolated over 150 types of bacteria from healthy humans. We will be testing these bacteria to find out whether any of them can reduce DNA damage or speed up repair of damaged DNA. Successful completion of this work will identify bacteria that could be used as novel sunscreens or 'after sun' treatments for skin. This project benefits from having Walgreen Boots Alliance (aka 'Boots the Chemist') and Croda PLC (a global leader in the manufacture of speciality chemicals) as project partners. A better understanding of the ways in which the microbiome protects skin against sunlight will be beneficial in helping these project partners develop new ways to help consumers protect their skin.

Internal communication does more than transfer information, it infuses organizations with meaning. This 3-year research programme traces the history of internal communication in the UK. As a specialized activity internal comms originates from company magazines in the late 19th century. Since then magazines have morphed into complex systems of intranets, emails, internal social media, company newsletters, road shows, briefing groups, huddles, blogs and roadshows. It is estimated that around 45k professionals are currently engaged in internal communication. The history of internal communication will be studied through the archives of 14 prominent organisations, where research access has been secured: BBC; Boots; British Airways; British Army; British Rail; Cadbury; GlaxoSmithKline; HSBC; John Lewis; National Coal Board; Prudential Insurance; Royal Mail; Shell; and Unilever. In addition the archives for 5 professional bodies and a leading consultancy will be used: AB Communications, which provides internal comms for prominent global and UK organisations; Chartered Institute of Marketing; Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development; Chartered Institute of Public Relations; Institute of Internal Communication; and the Industrial Society. The British Library, which has extensive historical holdings of internal comms, has also agreed to assist with disseminating findings from the research. The changing form and content of internal comms will be mapped, tracing the transformation of the magazine format into the contemporary system of internal comms that aims at enhancing employee engagement, voice, and corporate identity. Discussions about the role of communication will be examined in documents such as minutes from board meetings and reports. Internal comms practitioners and company archivists theorise their own practices. The discourses of practitioners and their relation to actual practices will be examined through communications produced by professional bodies and consultants. Historians accept that nations have been imagined as communities through national newspapers and television channels. Corporations can also be seen as communities that have been imagined through internal comms. Three discourses of imagined communities have legitimated both organisations and the role of internal comms: esprit de corps, where the corporation is imagined as an extended family or military unit; brand community, where employees are imagined as part of community with consumers; and democratic polity, where the employees are imagined as citizens with internal comms as a free press holding government to account. The discourse of brand communities is now predominant, but the interplay between these discourses will be examined throughout the 20th century. Management scholars refer to the instrumental use of the past by corporations as "rhetorical history", which is usually studied in relation to uses of the past in the present for external marketing communication with customers. But references to the past featured in company magazines almost from the outset. The research will produce an account of how rhetorical history has been used in the past both to legitimate organisations to their employees, and to legitimate the role of internal comms. This research program will produce a theoretically informed history of internal comms as a reference point for contemporary debates, such as the response of organisations to the coronavirus pandemic. Company archivists will be interested in how their work informs internal comms, and how internal comms constitutes archives. The internal comms profession will be enhanced by historical debate, and organisations will be interested in finding out what made for effective internal comms in the past. As the wider public consists of many current and former members of large organisations, there will be general interest in remembering how these bodies communicated with their members in the past.