'De-localising Dialect' (DLD) is an interdisciplinary research network of international academics, artists, critics, linguists and writers. Its aim is to develop new creative and critical practices for and about vernacular language art, with a focus on dialect viewed and deployed against its own deep associations with geographic locality and social rootedness. The network will address pre-conceived notions about the sited nature of dialect (i.e. that dialect cannot 'travel' as critical language but instead may only occur meaningfully in specific localised instances), and challenge how dialect "has been historically devalued and marginalised, especially in educational settings, as a central part of an ideology of language standardisation" (Ahmad: 2011). DLD is aligned with the current AHRC theme of 'Translating Cultures', actively engaging with the theme's first key strategic objective, "to develop knowledge of the nature of translation as a process that occurs across different languages, cultures, generations, media, genres and sectors. This permits in particular an emphasis on exploration of the cultural dynamics of translation, as well as on analysis of its distinctiveness in relation to other processes of interpretation, transfer, imitation, transformation and exchange". The network will run for 12 months, starting in April 2018. We will meet on three occasions across the 12-month period. Each network event will be led by the P-I and the Co-I, with three invited speakers from each of the interdisciplinary fields of art, literature and sociolinguistics - and will take place in three different non-academic locations, as follows: The Common Guild, Glasgow The Metropolitan Arts Centre, Belfast The British Library, London The network activities will employ a multi-disciplinary methodology. Each of the three workshops will take as its starting point the main methodological approach of one of the three disciplinary fields (i.e. art, literature, sociolinguistics) and apply it to one chosen item of study (which might be an art work, a text, a sound recording). The expert speaker from that field will lead a practice-based workshop which will equip participants in this method, thereby sharing knowledge and practical research methods. This process will be recorded, along with relevant additional materials will be made available via the project's website. Each workshop will be documented in video form and these files will be made available on the website (via Vimeo), so that the methodological processes of the workshop is made visible and utile for other user-groups. The findings in an accessible manner, through the website and associated -emailouts from the partner organisations. Whilst the workshop attendees will be comprised of guest speakers and locally-based researchers, all network members will be in continued contact across the year-long project: this will be facilitated by the PI and Co-I.

'De-localising Dialect' (DLD) is an interdisciplinary research network of international academics, artists, critics, linguists and writers. Its aim is to develop new creative and critical practices for and about vernacular language art, with a focus on dialect viewed and deployed against its own deep associations with geographic locality and social rootedness. The network will address pre-conceived notions about the sited nature of dialect (i.e. that dialect cannot 'travel' as critical language but instead may only occur meaningfully in specific localised instances), and challenge how dialect "has been historically devalued and marginalised, especially in educational settings, as a central part of an ideology of language standardisation" (Ahmad: 2011). DLD is aligned with the current AHRC theme of 'Translating Cultures', actively engaging with the theme's first key strategic objective, "to develop knowledge of the nature of translation as a process that occurs across different languages, cultures, generations, media, genres and sectors. This permits in particular an emphasis on exploration of the cultural dynamics of translation, as well as on analysis of its distinctiveness in relation to other processes of interpretation, transfer, imitation, transformation and exchange". The network will run for 12 months, starting in April 2018. We will meet on three occasions across the 12-month period. Each network event will be led by the P-I and the Co-I, with three invited speakers from each of the interdisciplinary fields of art, literature and sociolinguistics - and will take place in three different non-academic locations, as follows: The Common Guild, Glasgow The Metropolitan Arts Centre, Belfast The British Library, London The network activities will employ a multi-disciplinary methodology. Each of the three workshops will take as its starting point the main methodological approach of one of the three disciplinary fields (i.e. art, literature, sociolinguistics) and apply it to one chosen item of study (which might be an art work, a text, a sound recording). The expert speaker from that field will lead a practice-based workshop which will equip participants in this method, thereby sharing knowledge and practical research methods. This process will be recorded, along with relevant additional materials will be made available via the project's website. Each workshop will be documented in video form and these files will be made available on the website (via Vimeo), so that the methodological processes of the workshop is made visible and utile for other user-groups. The findings in an accessible manner, through the website and associated -emailouts from the partner organisations. Whilst the workshop attendees will be comprised of guest speakers and locally-based researchers, all network members will be in continued contact across the year-long project: this will be facilitated by the PI and Co-I.

People with long-term mental health problems face profound social exclusion. They also die much younger than the general population from preventable causes. Despite a considerable body of research highlighting much higher rates of the main chronic and life-limiting diseases, later detection, and sub-optimal and fragmented care for people with severe mental illness (SMI), these inequalities appear stubbornly entrenched. Social exclusion for this population is characterised by an invisibility at policy and social levels and the challenges in meeting these complex needs with primary and secondary care services are immense. Using participatory approaches with stakeholders and experts by experience (stage 2), we identified the key challenges for implementation of social prescribing for people with SMI. These include: (1) diffusion of service responsibility and fragmentation of care; (2) limited (or absent) psychosocial support towards community engagement; (3) public and self-stigma leading to over-reliance on in-house (institutional) care; (4) policy confusion and neglect on SMI; (5) uneven distribution and ephemerality of community assets. Although social prescribing (SP) offers a potential solution by encouraging access to health-supporting amenities and resources and interagency collaboration, there is scant SP research for this population. The health and social care needs of this population require imaginative and nuanced models of health care that can accommodate their various and intersecting medical, social, and psychological needs while simultaneously influencing the environmental contexts in which they exist. The Challenging Health Outcomes/Integrating Care Environments (CHOICE) coalition has co-designed a delivery model which enhances interagency cooperation while providing more capacity at the community level to assess, appropriately prescribe, and provide flexible, sustained support to use a wide range of resources (assets, e.g., arts, leisure, and sports). In stage 3, Community Navigators based in our partner organisations will be trained in behaviour change techniques to encourage, guide and support people with SMI to use these resources. We will also extend the use of peer-support. This approach is intended to facilitate, incrementally, a virtuous cycle of improved self-esteem, self-efficacy, and social inclusion that enhances quality of life and wellbeing. Because research of this type has not been done before, our multi-disciplinary research team will undertake an adaptive mixed methods research programme to examine: (1) the outcomes of this approach; (2) the barriers and facilitators in implementing the CHIOCE model, such as the real-world issues of interagency cooperation and communication; (3) the needs and challenges of the voluntary and community partners; (4) the contextual and structural factors that might influence how the project works. Importantly, we will seek to gain a deeper understanding of CHOICE through our experts by experience who have a powerful and central role in the coalition and in the research process. Due to the embeddedness of all the key stakeholders in the CHOICE coalition, the findings will have a major impact on research, policy and practice in social prescribing, social inclusion, and health of people with SMI.

In the UK and elsewhere, people with severe mental illness die prematurely, up to 20 years younger than the general population, a mortality often associated with modifiable medical risk factors. The substantial costs to the health system and the wider economy caused by smoking, obesity, physical inactivity, alcohol misuse and substance abuse are well established. For example, smoking rates among people with a mental illness are three times higher than among the general population. However, while smokers living with severe mental illnesses are just as likely to want to quit as the general population, they are generally more addicted, and face greater barriers to quitting. Similarly, weight gain and obesity are major problems for people with mental health problems, increasing the risk of developing diabetes or cardiovascular diseases, all contributing to low quality of life and exacerbating psychiatric symptoms. Other interwoven and modifiable risk factors associated with the poor physical health of people with mental health problems include low self-esteem, unemployment, loneliness, the low expectations of others, and social exclusion. For a range of social and psychological reasons, including the damage done by stigma, people with mental health problems have relatively limited access to local cultural and natural resources which could improve their physical and mental health. In recent years, greater attention has been focussed on the physical health of people living with mental illnesses but services remain fragmented and uncoordinated. This disconnect may be particularly true in the relationship between statutory health and social care services, and the community and voluntary sector organisations. Moreover, many lifestyle interventions exist that are of potential benefit to people with SMI these are seldom implemented in community settings and there is a lack of evidence on the development of effective interventions to help people with SMI. The CHOICE project aims to build a community coalition of agencies and people across Northern Ireland to maximise the resources, skills and knowledge held collectively. We will use Community-Based Participatory Research (CPBR), a powerful 'bottom-up' approach which uses innovative and inclusive approaches to empower disadvantaged communities and populations in the co- design and implementation of solutions to address health disparities. CBPR helps bridge research and practice by engaging the community to tackle disparities in population health and has been used in diverse and disadvantaged settings as an efficient means of challenging power imbalances. Importantly, our coalition will assist in identifying and exploiting all the assets and resources that exist in our communities but remain generally underused. Working with the experts by experience, we will use arts-based approaches to highlight the experience of living with mental illness, and the relationship between exclusion and physical health. By the end of the project we will have developed a strong community coalition and an agreed strategic plan to improve the lives of people living with mental illness.

It is claimed that Art for Reconciliation (AfR) produces work that reflects, represents, or responds to multiple forms of political conflict in ways that encourage conflict transformation. This claim is reflected in international political and financial support for the growth in AfR. We question the validity of this claim - not because it is untrue, but because as noted in the AHRC Cultural Value report, "long-term evaluations of arts and cultural initiatives in post-conflict transformation have rarely if ever been attempted". Without such an 'attempt' we face a series of problems. Firstly, the various outcomes of AfR are not adequately understood. AfR can potentially replicate the divisions of conflict. Or, it can enable processes of healing, witness testimony and inter-community engagement. It can be transformational and stimulate positive relational change between communities in conflict. If we do not research these differing forms and outcomes then AfR will not possess the definitional robustness required to adequately understand how positive reconciliatory outcomes can be realized. Secondly, we do not possess proper evaluative forms which measure how AfR achieves a shift out of and away from conflict. Evaluations are often tied to audience reaction as opposed to more in-depth and grounded techniques that measure positive relational change between communities in conflict. Thirdly, we do not know how funding practice, community response and the management and production of art affect the landscape of AfR. Fourthly, without robust techniques and grounded research the value of AfR cannot be adequately disseminated. Finally, when we locate art as conflict transformation it is generally non-transferrable. Better knowledge production concerning AfR will aid wider dissemination. In solving these problems we will develop a co-produced research project that grounds its methods in interaction with funders, policy makers, arts managers, artists and communities engaging in AfR. Through a focused study of funded AfR our research project aims to: 1. Determine if AfR initiatives do, or possibly could, affect meaningful conflict transformation; 2. Share evidence regarding art as conflict response beyond the arts community and communicate its value to those who are currently unaware; 3. Develop ways in which transformative AfR can be achieved through better evaluation, auditing and articulation; 4. Create an evaluation mechanism that promotes deeper understanding of what is actually taking place within AfR to all sectors involved in designing and delivering this work; 5. Develop a dissemination strategy to share information about creative arts engagements and interactions which respond to conflict and aim for meaningful reconciliation; 6. Contribute to effective knowledge that highlights the value of art as a facilitator of conflict transformation. Knowledge transfer is important not only to develop social science and arts/humanities engagement, but to develop and show how art may play a role in broader conflict transformation processes. Current frameworks, typologies and methodologies, both in academia and amongst communities of practice (i.e. funders, policymakers, artists and arts managers, and community support professionals) do not always reflect or adequately evaluate transformative outcomes. Ultimately, we seek to address these aims in ways that can have direct, meaningful and purposeful impact on the work of funders, communities of practice and the public. The project will speak to how communities respond to conflict and work to better explain, understand and appreciate how their lived experiences of harm and injustice, inform that response. The dissemination strategy will be used by groups involved in different types of reconciliation projects to sustain and develop conflict transformation activity.