Understanding the transformative power of multilingualism is vital. Over half of mankind daily speaks more than one language, and multilingualism brings advantages for community relations, business, and global understanding. Yet the linguistic landscape is changing fast, with English increasingly the lingua franca. In the UK, many schools are highly multilingual, despite falling numbers learning languages, and almost 1 in 5 primary school pupils have a first language other than English. Equally integral to a multilingual UK are the regional (minoritized) languages (e.g. Irish, Scottish Gaelic). The decline in pupils taking language GCSEs/A-levels and the number of children with English as an additional language are often portrayed negatively, and the value of community and minoritized languages is underestimated. The aim of this interdisciplinary project is to reflect critically on multilingualism and to transform attitudes through greater understanding. Our approach is holistic, exploring individuals, communities and nations. We analyse the situations giving rise to multilingualism, its social implications and creative possibilities, and relationships between languages, cultures, identities and standards. We explore why individuals/societies choose (consciously or not) to be multilingual, the potential of multilingualism as 'mental gymnastics', ways to optimize language learning, and the benefits of multilingualism for community and international relations. Our research questions: 1. What is the relationship between the multilingual individual and the multilingual society? What does it mean to be multilingual in a monolingual/multilingual society? Or monolingual in a multilingual society? 2. What are the opportunities and challenges presented by multilingualism? How might multilingualism benefit individuals, enhance communities, enrich cultures and foster social cohesion? To what extent might multilingualism disadvantage individuals, divide communities, dilute culture or fragment societies? 3. What is the relationship between multilingualism, diversity and identity? How does this play out at the individual, local, regional, national and international level? 4. What is the relationship between multilingualism and language learning? Who can/should learn additional languages, and in what contexts? How do age and other factors affect motivation, achievement and well-being? 5. How can we influence attitudes towards multilingualism? How can we change the attitudes of individuals and societies, and inform language policy? 6. How can we re-energise Modern Languages research? Can we reinvigorate the discipline by broadening its scope and developing new interdisciplinary methodologies? Intersecting research strands (S1-6) offer powerful case studies for understanding multilingualism: literature, film and culture in a globalized context; the role of standard languages; linguistic identity, diversity and social cohesion; the influence of multilingual identity on foreign language learning; language learning across the lifespan; the cognitive benefits of multilingualism. The project spans major languages traditionally or newly studied in the UK (French, German, Mandarin, Spanish), minoritized languages in Europe (Catalan, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Ukrainian), and community languages (e.g. Cantonese, Polish, Punjabi). We seek to break down barriers between high/low status and home/learnt languages. The project will have transformative outcomes for individuals, for education, health and social policy and practice, and for international relations. Our partners (community groups, educational, cultural and policy bodies, drama and creative writing groups, business) will help shape the research and disseminate outcomes. Placing language-led research at its heart, literary-cultural studies are integrated into an exciting new interdisciplinary programme to show how Modern Languages can respond to key issues of our time.

For the first time in 50 years the UK has 'sovereignty' over its trade policy. It must now decide, for example, how to configure its free trade agreements, its regulations for imported food and digital trade and its trade and climate policies. Simultaneously, income distribution has become highly sensitive in the UK, policy-making power is devolved over several UK entities and the world trading system is beset by a range of tensions such as digitisation and Chinese growth. How UK policies respond to this, and who is involved in making and scrutinising them, will shape economic outcomes for generations and affect all parts of society and all regions of the UK. The Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy (CITP) will undertake INNOVATIVE, INTERDISCIPLINARY research at the frontier of knowledge, to help understand these challenges and opportunities and contribute to providing the UK with a modern trade policy. As well as being INTERNATIONAL in its approach, the CITP is designed to deliver IMPACT through targeted communications and sustained engagement with a wide range of non-academic stakeholders. Above all, our research responds to the view that trade policy should be INCLUSIVE in OUTCOMES for the people and regions of the UK, and in the FORMULATION OF POLICY by considering the views of all those affected. These five "I's" are core to the work of the CITP. Trade involves exchange and agreement between sovereign states and is thus at the interface of economics and international law; these disciplines form the core of the CITP, together with political science, international relations and business. CITP research is organised into three interrelated themes: 1. People, Firms and Places: focusses on the differential impact of trade (policy) across locations, firms and individuals (as consumers and workers) in the four nations of the UK. In this theme we will address how changes in trade barriers have differential impacts on productivity, the structure of supply chains, local labour markets and regions, and how knowledge of this can make trade policy more efficient and inclusive. 2. Digitisation and Technical Change: addresses the drivers and consequences of digitisation on geographical boundaries transforming what is produced and traded, how, where and by whom. Key here is how this impacts on trade practices and the rules governing them and the interaction between technical change, regulatory autonomy and international cooperation. 3. Negotiating a Turbulent World: considers the way that challenges to the trading system are testing the cooperation and trust that underpins open trade. CITP addresses these issues as well as regulatory coherence in trade agreements and how this may impact on domestic regulation. It will also focus closely on the stresses that trade policymaking is inducing between national and devolved administrations in the UK. Through the themes run genuine interdisciplinarity, the development of innovative methods (including in the economic modelling of trade, especially intra-UK trade), the creation of new data (e.g. on jobs in trade), major stakeholder and public engagement (citizens' juries) to identify what the UK as a whole seeks from trade policy, an Innovation Fund to encourage earlier career researchers to propose new trade research, and a commitment to communication and engagement to achieve impact and ultimately generate change. The CITP builds on the proven research and impact successes of its component Universities - Sussex, Nottingham, Strathclyde, Queens (Belfast), Cardiff, Cambridge, the European University Institute, Berkeley, Tel Aviv and Georgetown (USA). Each partner brings a distinct and complementary element to the CITP, extending its research expertise and its geographical reach and creating new synergies to establish an international centre of excellence for trade policy research.

The aim of TAPESTRY is to investigate, develop and demonstrate transformational new technologies to enable people, businesses and digital services to connect safely online, exploiting the complex "tapestry" of multi-modal signals woven by their everyday digital interactions; their Digital Personhood. In this way we will de-risk the Digital Economy, delivering completely new ways of determining or engendering trust online, and enabling users and businesses to make better decisions about who they trust online. Online fraud and scams cost the UK economy £670m each year; crimes often perpetrated through false identities. It is difficult to make good decisions about who to trust when the digital identities of people and services are presented through pseudonyms or addresses. How can we trust that the identity we are interacting with today wasn't created out of thin air yesterday to pull a scam? Or whether the service we are registering our personal data with is trustworthy? In an era of users curating multiple digital identities that evolve over their physical lifespan, and the coming ability to migrate identities between providers (most of whom reside outside the EU), there is an urgent need for decentralised technologies to enable proofs of trust between people and services wishing to interact safely within the Digital Economy. TAPESTRY will co-create and evaluate prototype services with end-users to determine how online behaviour and attitudes to trust could evolve in the presence of a trusted decentralised technology to prove the veracity of online identities. TAPESTRY proposes to collect, on an opt-in basis, digital trails of users' interactions (photos shared, comments left, posts 'liked', IoT devices interacted with) as encrypted trust evidence within a decentralised database (blockchain). Users grant third parties access to trust evidence for a given time period and at a given granularity, in order to prove trustworthiness of their identity via their digital personhood. For example, a crowd-funder might invite new backers to submit 2 years' history of regular social media interactions to guard against fraudulent pledging from transient identities. Community forums are becoming increasingly important for emotional support and well-being. A similar check could safeguard against trolling, or an identity posting advice could collect positive ratings within their blockchain, enabling vetting of their reputation. Deviations from behavioural norms could also be detectable within TAPESTRY to alert users to their digital identity being hacked. From a technological standpoint, the project will develop the decentralised infrastructure necessary to make sense of the vast number of digital interactions using multimodal signals aggregated via machine learning from social media and IoT interactions. Additionally, new cryptographic strategies will be needed to secure the privacy of trust evidence and to disseminate access on a granular basis. From a HCI and co-design perspective, the development of trust services and the shift to use of the digital personhood and interaction history as trust evidence will break new ground, fundamentally altering the way users think about identity and interaction online. To undertake this adventurous and ambitious project we have formed a strategic multi-disciplinary partnership uniting world-leading groups in multi-modal signal processing and machine learning (CVSSP), a BIS/GCHQ recognised centre of excellence for Cyber Security (SCCS), the UK's first and only 5G test-bed for next-gen mobile and IoT (ICS/5GIC), and reflecting the importance of co-designing and evaluating technology in tight integration with end-users, two leading UK groups for socio-digital interaction (DJCAD) and interaction design (UNN). End-user partners participating in the co-design and evaluation of TAPESTRY span the technology, legal, social reform, health and well-being and commercial sectors.

The project is going to investigate how internationally operating small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) see linguistic and intercultural barriers affecting their ability to trade abroad or with international clients. The team of researchers, from the University of Surrey, the University of the West of England, Bristol and the University of Wales, Newport, will work in collaboration with the Surrey and Bristol and South Wales Chambers of Commerce and a sample of SMEs in southern England and South Wales. The project will also explore how businesses and universities can collaborate to apply academic research into practice and meet the needs of SMEs in relation to intercultural trade. Previous investigations on language skills and intercultural competence for businesses have shown that businesses loose trade because they lack language expertise or do not have the necessary intercultural competence and awareness. This has a marked impact on economic growth: it has been estimated that as much as 21 billion pounds annually are lost annually because UK SMEs are unable to engage fully in foreign markets, and that adopting a corporate policy emphasizing these skills could result in businesses achieving 44.5% higher export sales. A survey and interviews with SME managers will be carried out to explore in detail the barriers to international trade UK SMEs feel they face in relation to language and intercultural communication skills, what existing corporate strategies they have in place to deal with them and what support they need to meet training needs. Moreover, we will also attempt to differentiate markets in which English poses a barrier to trade from those in which it does not. The findings of this research will be used to identify areas in which SMEs need support and ways in which universities can collaborate with SMEs. The research team with their empirical expertise in the study of intercultural communication and languages are uniquely suited to offer that support. The results of this survey will be fed back to the public and the business community through a dedicated website, a twitter feed and a networking event that will bring together SMEs, business intermediaries (e.g. Chambers of Commerce etc.) and researchers in business studies, language and intercultural studies. They will also feed into the development of the Export Communications Review (ECR) and the training programme for language consultants working with UK export SMEs. Moreover, we will engage with the media and with schools to ensure that the public is made aware of the personal, economic and societal value of intercultural awareness and language learning.