What Works Scotland will be a collaborative centre bringing together staff from the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, other academics and key non-academic partners. Its aim is to support the use of evidence to plan and deliver sustained and transformative change based on agreed outcomes at all levels with a particular focus on the local. There is a particular focus on promoting the systematic use of evidence in the design, reform and delivery of public services. Examination of what works and what does not will take place in the context of the Scottish model, an approach to policy development that, while not unique, differs considerably from elsewhere in the UK. The team has adopted a demand led and collaborative approach and will work with a range of third sector organisations, different levels of central and local government and with Community Planning Partnerships to generate an evidence culture involving feedback, improvement methodology and expert support. The Christie Commission identified a range of problems facing Scotland including demographic change, economic and fiscal challenges, inter-institutional relationships and endemic long-term 'wicked issues'. It has also been estimated that in Scotland over 40 per cent of public service expenditure is the result of preventable issues. The Scottish model of public service delivery aims to ensure that services are designed for and with communities. This 'deliberative public policy analysis' demands that communities and those who design services are aware of best practice and evidence. The Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs) are key to the delivery of these services with a focus on 'voice' through participatory, collective, decision-making, planning and delivery in the context of targets set by National Government. A key challenge for each CPP is to articulate its Single Outcome Agreement and relate this to both the outcomes set out in the National Performance Framework. However, a common criticism of the CPPs is that the implementation of the model so far has been limited and patchy. The focus of WWS will on the four key questions identified in the call: - How can we take what we know from individual projects and interventions and translate this into system-wide change? - What is working (or not working), and why, at the different levels of delivery and reform and at the interface between those levels? How do we identify actions which can be taken in communities, at CPP and the national levels to improve impact? - What does the evidence (including international) say about large-scale reform programmes that have succeeded or failed and the impact they had in a system-wide context? - Why do results vary geographically and between communities, and how can we balance local approaches with ensuring spread of what works? A wide range of methods - qualitative and qualitative - will be employed. The capabilities approach will provide the overarching framework. Originally developed by Amartya Sen, capabilities are in widespread use across the globe and underpin the work of a variety of organisations. It is a useful corrective to top down economic evaluations and fits well with the Scottish deliberative approach. We will develop the Capabilities framework and combine it with the outcomes-based National Performance Framework, ensuring that the Scottish model is intellectually grounded and contributes to broader international debates on these matters. We will have 3 workstreams: evidence into action; outcomes and capabilities; and spread, sustainability and scaling up. We will employ a range of methodologies including case studies collaborative action research, contribution analysis, elite interviews and content analysis, cost effectiveness and evaluation. WWS will focus on four case studies of key CPPS and work with them to help them change their core business processes within priority areas in four CPPs and will aim to achieve lasting impact.

The Centre for Doctoral Training MAC-MIGS will provide advanced training in the formulation, analysis, and implementation of state-of-the-art mathematical and computational models. The vision for the training offered is that effective modern modelling must integrate data with laws framed in explicit, rigorous mathematical terms. The CDT will offer 76 PhD students an intensive 4-year training and research programme that equips them with the skills needed to tackle the challenges of data-intensive modelling. The new generation of successful modelling experts will be able to develop and analyse mathematical models, translate them into efficient computer codes that make best use of available data, interpret the results, and communicate throughout the process with users in industry, commerce and government. Mathematical and computational models are at the heart of 21st-century technology: they underpin science, medicine and, increasingly, social sciences, and impact many sectors of the economy including high-value manufacturing, healthcare, energy, physical infrastructure and national planning. When combined with the enormous computing power and volume of data now available, these models provide unmatched predictive tools which capture systematically the experimental and observational evidence available. Because they are based on sound deductive principles, they are also the only effective tool in many problems where data is either sparse or, as is often the case, acquired in conditions that differ from the relevant real-world scenarios. Developing and exploiting these models requires a broad range of skills - from abstract mathematics to computing and data science - combined with expertise in application areas. MAC-MIGS will equip its students with these skills through a broad programme that cuts across disciplinary boundaries to include mathematical analysis - pure, applied, numerical and stochastic - data-science and statistics techniques and the domain-specific advanced knowledge necessary for cutting-edge applications. MAC-MIGS students will join the broader Maxwell Institute Graduate School in its brand-new base located in central Edinburgh. They will benefit from (i) dedicated academic training in subjects that include mathematical analysis, computational mathematics, multi-scale modelling, model reduction, Bayesian inference, uncertainty quantification, inverse problems and data assimilation, and machine learning; (ii) extensive experience of collaborative and interdisciplinary work through projects, modelling camps, industrial sandpits and internships; (iii) outstanding early-career training, with a strong focus on entrepreneurship; and (iv) a dynamic and forward-looking community of mathematicians and scientists, sharing strong values of collaboration, respect, and social and scientific responsibility. The students will integrate a vibrant research environment, closely interacting with some 80 MAC-MIGS academics comprised of mathematicians from the universities of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt as well as computer scientists, engineers, physicists and chemists providing their own disciplinary expertise. Students will benefit from MAC-MIGS's diverse network of more than 30 industrial and agency partners spanning a broad spectrum of application areas: energy, engineering design, finance, computer technology, healthcare and the environment. These partners will provide internships, development programmes and research projects, and help maximise the impact of our students' work. Our network of academic partners representing ten leading institutions in the US and Europe, will further provide opportunities for collaborations and research visits.

THE PROBLEM There is strong evidence that the social and economic conditions in which we grow, live, work and age determine our health to a much larger degree than lifestyle choices. These social determinants of health, such as income, good quality homes, education or work, are not distributed equally in society, which leads to health inequalities. However, we know very little about how specific policies influence the social conditions to prevent ill health and reduce health inequalities. Also, most social determinants of health are the responsibility of policy sectors other than "health", which means policymakers need to promote health in ALL their policies if they are to have a big impact on health. SIPHER will provide new scientific evidence and methods to support such a shift from "health policy" to "healthy public policy". OUR POLICY FOCUS We will work with three policy partners at local, regional and national level to tackle their above-average chronic disease burden and persistent health inequalities: Sheffield City Council, Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Scottish Government. We will focus on four jointly agreed policy priorities for good health: - Creating a fairer economy - Promoting mental wellbeing - Providing affordable, good quality housing - Preventing long-term effects of difficult childhoods. OUR COMPLEX SYSTEMS SCIENCE APPROACH Each of the above policy areas is a complex political system with many competing priorities, where policy choices in one sector (e.g. housing) can have large unintended effects in others (e.g. poverty). There is often no "correct" solution because compromises between different outcomes require value judgements. This means that to assess the true benefits and costs of a policy in relation to health, policy effects and their interdependencies need to be assessed across a wide range of possible outcomes. However, no policymaker has knowledge of the whole system and future economic and political developments are uncertain. Ongoing monitoring of expected and unexpected effects of policies and other system changes is crucial so failing policies can be revised or dropped. We propose to use complex systems modelling, which has been developed to understand and make projections of what might happen in complex systems given different plausible assumptions about future developments. Our models will be underpinned by the best available data and prior research in each policy area. Our new evidence about likely policy effects across a wide range of outcomes will help policy partners decide between alternative policies, depending on how important different outcomes are to them (e.g. improving health or economic growth). We will develop support tools that can visualise the forecasts, identify policies that achieve the desired balance between competing outcomes and update recommendations when new information emerges. Whilst new to public health policy, these methods are well-established in engineering and climate science. We will 1. Work with policy partners to understand the policy systems and evidence needs 2. Bring together existing data and evidence on each policy system (e.g. links between policies and outcomes, interdependencies between outcomes) 3. Explore citizens' preferences for prioritising when not all outcomes can be achieved 4. Link policies and their health and non-health effects in computer models to analyse benefits and costs over time 5. Build an interactive tool to help policy decision-making, inform advocacy action and support political debate. SIPHER's MAIN OUTCOME We will provide policymakers with a new methodology that allows them to estimate the health-related costs and benefits of policies that are implemented outside the health sector. This will be useful to our partners, and others, who want to assess how scarce public sector resources can be spent to maximise the health and wellbeing benefits from all their activities.

Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century. The more we ignore the climate emergency the bigger the impact will be on health and the need for care with poor environmental health contributing to major diseases, including cardiac problems, asthma and cancer. Many of the actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change and improve environmental sustainability also have positive health benefits; the Lancet Commission has described tackling climate change as "the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century". The challenges faced present an incredible opportunity to do things differently - to take a design-led approach in designing and making through high-reward demonstrator projects to help transform the health ecosystem. Through wider public engagement we aim to advance societal understanding of design's impact, and the opportunities, barriers, behaviour changes and tools needed to transition to a green approach. This research will unite a wide range of disciplines, research organisations, regional and local industry, and other public sector stakeholders, with policy-makers. The Design HOPES Green Transition Ecosystem (GTE) Hub will sustain a phased long-term investment to embed design-led innovation, circularity, sustainability and impact for the changing market, across product, service, strategy, policy and social drivers to evolve future design outcomes that matter to the people and planet. Our research is organised around seven core Thematic Workstreams, based on the NHS Scotland Climate Emergency and Sustainability Strategy (2022-2026). Design HOPES will be delivered and managed by interdisciplinary teams with significant expertise in design and making, co-creation, health and social care, with professionals with a sustainability remit, and businesses working in the design economy. Design HOPES encompasses a rich disciplinary mix of knowledge, skills, and expertise from a range of design disciplines (i.e., product, textile, interaction, games, architecture etc.) and other disciplines (computer science, health and wellbeing, geography, engineering, etc.) that will be focused on people and planet (including all living things), from the micro to macro, from root cause to hopeful vision, from the present to the future, and from the personal to the wider system. Design HOPES will design and make things and test them to see how they work, which will help more ideas and things emerge. The Hub will be an inclusive, safe, collaborative space that will bring in multiple and marginalised perspectives and view its projects as one part of a wider movement for transformational change whilst not overlooking existing assets and how we can re-use, nurture and develop these sustainably. Design HOPES aims to be an internationally recognised centre of excellence, promoting and embedding best practice through our collaborative design-led thinking and making approaches to build a more equitable and sustainable health and social care system. We will create new opportunities to support both existing services and new design-led health innovations in collaboration with NHS Boards across Scotland, the Scottish Government, patient and public representatives, health and social care partners, the third sector, academia and industry. Our seven Thematic Workstreams and associated projects will deliver a rich mix of tangible outcomes such as new innovative products, services, and policies (e.g., sustainable theatre consumables, packaging, clothing, waste services, etc.) during the funded period. With award-winning commercialisation and entrepreneurial support from the collaborating universities, we will also look to create new "green' enterprises and businesses. We will achieve this internationally recognised centre of excellence using design-led thinking and making to build a more equitable and sustainable health and social care system.

In the past few decades, there has been a surge of international interest in the role of the arts and culture in healthcare, public health and health promotion, on an individual and community level. However, the vast majority of research studies have focused on the effects of targeted, time-limited arts interventions on particular patient groups. Yet, much of the arts and cultural engagement across the UK is not confined to specific interventions but involves a more general, ubiquitous participation that can be harder to measure through experimental studies. A select number of public health studies have found associations between cultural participation (including attending concerts, museums and galleries) and self-reported health, as well as inverse associations between cultural participation and mortality risk. However, important questions remain, and to date, there have been no large-scale public health studies examining the impact of the arts in the UK. This project is led by the Centre for Performance Science, an internationally distinctive partnership of the Royal College of Music and Imperial College London, with an extensive track record in arts, health and social research. It explores the effect of (i) activities that involve actively 'doing' (e.g. music, dance, art, photography and drama) and (ii) activities that require physical attendance (e.g. attending concerts, monuments, museums, galleries, cinemas, heritage archives and theatre); (iii) 'home-based' activities (e.g. listening to the radio, watching TV, reading, storytelling, using arts-based apps, digital arts experiences, online music co-production). Our research questions identify the impact of the arts and culture on individual, social and economic measures of health and wellbeing, as well as explore how associations vary between different socioeconomic, geographical and ethnic populations within the UK. To explore these questions, the project is organised into four work packages. Work package 1 will involve assessing existing data including undertaking a meta-analysis of previous studies and exploring a UK cohort study that includes some questions on the arts. However, recognising the limited data currently available, work packages 2 and 3 are based on a large-scale national survey to be carried out during our study. Open to all adults in the UK, the survey will target the general population as well as participants diagnosed with one of four major health conditions facing the UK: mental health, cancer, cardiovascular disease and chronic respiratory diseases. These conditions have all previously been researched in smaller arts-in-health intervention studies but not at a public health level, and their inclusion will facilitate understanding of the relationships between culture and the individual, social and economic facets of health and wellbeing. A total of 25,000 participants will be recruited to complete an anonymous online questionnaire consisting of demographic questions, validated psychological scales and economic metrics, assessments of arts and cultural participation and self-reporting of health. Work package 2 will explore the questions with a cross-sectional analysis of these data with nested case-control studies; work package 3 will monitor a sub-section of the sample as a cohort for the following year with 6-monthly updates to track longitudinal change in arts engagement. Recognising the complexity of cultural engagement and health, work package 4 will add context to the survey data, with a sub-sample of survey participants taking part in qualitative telephone interviews to explore motivations for, and experiences of, arts engagement across the UK and how this is reported to intersect with health behaviours, perceptions and outcomes. Through the extensive epidemiology methods proposed, an ambitious sample size and nested qualitative data, the findings promise to redefine the value of the arts and culture for public health in the UK.