Resilience against an array of traditional and unconventional terrorist threats is increasingly important to the way towns and cities are designed and managed. This is particularly the case with regard to crowded public places such as public shopping areas, sports stadia, covered malls, hospitals and theatres, as well as on systems of transit such as light-rail or tram systems, which are seen as particularly vulnerable targets for terrorist attack.This project draws on recent work by the proposers in examining the impact of surveillance and territorial control measures in reducing the perceived risk of terrorist attack in cities; the impact of new forms of managing the terrorist threat through resilience forums at all tiers of governments; the increased use of non-conventional terrorist tactics against crowds; the potential of engineering solutions to reduce the impact of terrorist attack on the railway system; the social impact and acceptance of counter-terror measures upon urban society; and how of disaster management expertise is being incorporated into the creation of sustainable built environments.Through the examination of case-study examples drawn from major UK provincial cities, the research will develop a decision-support framework for use by a wide range of stakeholders that are (or should be) involved with the planning, design, construction, operation and management of public places. Such a framework will be developed through an understanding of both the acceptability and effectiveness of current anti-terrorism measures which are being, or could in the future be, adopted and utilised by local and national governments, and other bodies, involved in the design and regulation of public places. Such a decision-support framework will improve resilient planning and design by making available information and giving alternative choices to all 'actors' which are involved in counter-terrorist design and management in crowded public places In short, this research will aim to: a) Understand the competing uses and function of public places and how a variety social, economic, aesthetic, managerial factors impact upon the production and maintenance of places that can respond, prepare for, and recover from, terrorist attack i.e. improve place-based resilience;b) Develop a decision-support framework and associated guidance to assist key stakeholders in the design of resilient places. Such a framework should include a range of perspectives, for example from blue light agencies, urban designers, emergency planners and citizens, and be developed not just on the basis of how effective they might be, but in accordance with how acceptable such interventions might be;c) Conduct specific studies to evaluate the methodology and decision support framework in busy shopping areas and for light rail systems in a number of UK case studies (Newcastle and Nottingham) although ideas and procedures will be collated from other UK 'core cities' and internationally;d) Draw attention to what these findings mean for the creation of public spaces that are increasingly seen as 'self organised'. This approach employs collaborative and reflexive problem-solving and encourages building adaptability and flexibility into the design of the physical, communicative and management systems required to deal with the fluid nature of the threat of terrorism;e) Establish a research 'road map' for exploring emerging issues and any identified gaps in knowledge. Lessons from this work will be fed into evolving policy processes linked directly resilient planning but also wider urban, social and transportation policies or procedures.

Resilience against an array of traditional and unconventional terrorist threats is increasingly important to the way towns and cities are designed and managed. This is particularly the case with regard to crowded public places such as public shopping areas, sports stadia, covered malls, hospitals and theatres, as well as on systems of transit such as light-rail or tram systems, which are seen as particularly vulnerable targets for terrorist attack.This project draws on recent work by the proposers in examining the impact of surveillance and territorial control measures in reducing the perceived risk of terrorist attack in cities; the impact of new forms of managing the terrorist threat through resilience forums at all tiers of governments; the increased use of non-conventional terrorist tactics against crowds; the potential of engineering solutions to reduce the impact of terrorist attack on the railway system; the social impact and acceptance of counter-terror measures upon urban society; and how of disaster management expertise is being incorporated into the creation of sustainable built environments.Through the examination of case-study examples drawn from major UK provincial cities, the research will develop a decision-support framework for use by a wide range of stakeholders that are (or should be) involved with the planning, design, construction, operation and management of public places. Such a framework will be developed through an understanding of both the acceptability and effectiveness of current anti-terrorism measures which are being, or could in the future be, adopted and utilised by local and national governments, and other bodies, involved in the design and regulation of public places. Such a decision-support framework will improve resilient planning and design by making available information and giving alternative choices to all 'actors' which are involved in counter-terrorist design and management in crowded public places In short, this research will aim to: a) Understand the competing uses and function of public places and how a variety social, economic, aesthetic, managerial factors impact upon the production and maintenance of places that can respond, prepare for, and recover from, terrorist attack i.e. improve place-based resilience;b) Develop a decision-support framework and associated guidance to assist key stakeholders in the design of resilient places. Such a framework should include a range of perspectives, for example from blue light agencies, urban designers, emergency planners and citizens, and be developed not just on the basis of how effective they might be, but in accordance with how acceptable such interventions might be;c) Conduct specific studies to evaluate the methodology and decision support framework in busy shopping areas and for light rail systems in a number of UK case studies (Newcastle and Nottingham) although ideas and procedures will be collated from other UK 'core cities' and internationally;d) Draw attention to what these findings mean for the creation of public spaces that are increasingly seen as 'self organised'. This approach employs collaborative and reflexive problem-solving and encourages building adaptability and flexibility into the design of the physical, communicative and management systems required to deal with the fluid nature of the threat of terrorism;e) Establish a research 'road map' for exploring emerging issues and any identified gaps in knowledge. Lessons from this work will be fed into evolving policy processes linked directly resilient planning but also wider urban, social and transportation policies or procedures.

The Urban Living Partnership pilot phase in Newcastle and Gateshead will diagnose the complex and interdependent challenges within the urban region, working collaboratively to co-design and implement initiatives and solutions in order to contribute to the life and development of the area. Led by Newcastle University and featuring project partners from across the Quadruple Helix model from government, industry, academia and civil society, we will form the Newcastle City Futures Unit and implement an inter-disciplinary and cross-sectoral approach to the initial 18 month pilot project, allowing us to synoptically approach challenges and develop a platform for innovative urban solutions. As a post-industrial urban area with more than 381,100 citizens, Newcastle and Gateshead form the heart of a contiguous urban conurbation of over 1 million people. We are a region facing numerous challenges, and perform below average on a number of socio-economic factors such as economic activity, educational attainment and health. Our pilot phase work will look to identify specific issues around these and other challenges, framed through our themes of "Ageing", Sustainability" and "Social Renewal", which have been identified previously as areas of particular significance for the city region. Newcastle and Gateshead provide the perfect platform to establish this pilot project, based on the success of the Newcastle City Futures 2065 project which was part of the UK Foresight Future of Cities programme. This work initiated collaborative working between HEIs and local authorities in the area in order to address long term complex city problems beyond traditional disciplines and sectors in order to reflect the complex government and organisational environment that is a hallmark of 21st century cities. This project acted as an urban incubator to identify themes through scenarios and Delphi methods which built on the existing assets of the city region to achieve innovation through research, policy development and demonstrator projects. The themes identified through this work were "the age friendly city", "the sustainable city", "the creative city" and "the science city", and along with evidence of a need for more detailed work to understand the drivers of change affecting cities. The work also identified the need for support for new digital platforms in order to exchange data across sectors, multifunctional demonstrator projects which offer innovative solutions to problems and opportunities across all sectors, as well as support for visualisation of long-term scenarios by bringing together expertise in areas such as computing, mapping, spatial analysis and urban planning. The Newcastle City Futures Unit will build on this, to establish an urban accelerator, to co-produce and collaboratively design practical solutions and policy recommendations in order to drive the future policy agenda and shape deliverable demonstration and innovation projects within Newcastle and Gateshead. An array of methods will be utilised across the duration of the project, including foresight futures methodologies such as Delphi surveys, scenario building and systems analysis work to help representatives from HEIs, businesses and civil society to identifying long term challenges in the city region and to create a vision for the future of the cities that can be replicated elsewhere. Visualisation techniques will also be implemented combining expertise in computing, mapping, spatial analysis and urban planning, with consortium partners facilitating identification of suitable case studies for the work. Through the work outlined above, the Newcastle City Futures Unit will build capacity amongst a wide range of stakeholders to realise communities of practice that are futures oriented and make a measurable difference to the cities and their citizens.

The U.K. population is projected to reach 80 million by 2050 and it is anticipated that the overwhelming majority will continue to live in cities. Besides becoming more densely populated, future cities will be surrounded with expanding urban areas. Interactions within cities; across urban areas and with surrounding cities, towns and 'rural' areas with the rest of the UK will place new and different demands on infrastructure, whether housing, energy, transport, freight distribution and disposal of waste. Decisions that are made now will have profound implications for the resultant pressures on transport, living space, energy use, and ecosystem services (the benefits humans receive from ecosystems). These decisions will play out at two fundamentally different spatial scales. First, and by far the better understood, are those decisions that concern individual households and their neighbourhoods. These include issues of how their members move around, what kinds of housing they occupy, how their energy demands and waste production are reduced, and how their negative influences on the wider environment generally will be limited. Second, broad scale strategic decisions regarding regional planning will determine where in the U.K. population growth is primarily accommodated. This will determine, and be shaped by, the kinds of transport and energy infrastructure required, and the environmental impacts. Obviously these two sets of decisions are not independent. The demands for and impacts of broad scale development (whether this be the creation of new urban areas or the intensification of existing ones) - and thus how this is best achieved to deliver sustainability- will be influenced not by the typical demands and impacts exhibited now by households, but by the way in which these have been changed in response to the modification to the associated infrastructure. This makes for a challenging problem in predicting and evaluating the possible consequences of different potential scenarios of regional development. The proposed study SElf Conserving URban Environments (SECURE) will address this grand challenge of integration across scales (the global aim) by developing a range of future regional urbanization scenarios, and exploring their consequences for selected high profile issues of resource demand and provision (transport, dwellings, energy, and ecosystem services) alongside sustainable waste utilisations. In doing so, it will build on findings of research outputs of several previous SUE projects and harness its relationship in the context of policy and economic growth. The study includes specific research objectives under five broad cross-cutting themes - Urbanisation, Ecosystems Services, Building and Energy, Stakeholder Engagement and Policy Integration across themes. SECURE is designed to assemble novel deliverables to bring about step change in current knowledge and practice. The North East Region will be used as a test bed and evaluation of transitional scenarios leading up to 2050 will quantify the benefits of integration across the scales through conservation across the themes. SECURE will deliver policy formulation and planning decisions for 2030 and 2050 with a focus on creating Sustainable Urban Environment.The contributors to this project are researchers of international standings who have collaborated extensively on several EPSRC funded projects, including the SUE research since its inception. The SECURE team builds on their current collaboration on the SUE2 4M project. The Project consortium is led by Newcastle - Prof Margaret Bell as PI and Dr Anil Namdeo as co-ordinator alongside Dr Jenny Brake with academic partners: Prof David Graham (Environmental Engineering), Prof David Manning (Geosciences); from Loughborough: Prof Kevin Lomas, Prof Jonathan Wright and Dr Steven Firth (Civil and Building Engineering); from Sheffield: Prof Kevin Gaston and Dr Jonathan Leake (Animal and Plant Sciences).

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2018 highlighted the need for urgent, transformative change, on an unprecedented scale, if global warming is to be restricted to 1.5C. The challenge of reaching an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050 represents a huge technological, engineering, policy and societal challenge for the next 30 years. This is a huge challenge for the transport sector, which accounts for over a quarter of UK domestic greenhouse gas emissions and has a flat emissions profile over recent years. The DecarboN8 project will develop a new network of researchers, working closely with industry and government, capable of designing solutions which can be deployed rapidly and at scale. It will develop answers to questions such as: 1) How can different places be rapidly switched to electromobility for personal travel? How do decisions on the private fleet interact with the quite different decarbonisation strategies for heavy vehicles? This requires integrating understanding of the changing carbon impacts of these options with knowledge on how energy systems work and are regulated with the operational realities of transport systems and their regulatory environment; and 2) What is the right balance between infrastructure expansion, intelligent system management and demand management? Will the embodied carbon emissions of major new infrastructure offset gains from improved flows and could these be delivered in other ways through technology? If so, how quickly could this happen, what are the societal implications and how will this impact on the resilience of our systems? The answer to these questions is unlikely to the same everywhere in the UK but little attention is paid to where the answers might be different and why. Coupled with boundaries between local government areas, transport network providers (road and rail in particular) and service operators there is potential for a lack of joined up approaches and stranded investments in ineffective technologies. The DecarboN8 network is led by the eight most research intensive Universities across the North of England (Durham, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and York) who will work with local, regional and national stakeholders to create an integrated test and research environment across the North in which national and international researchers can study the decarbonisation challenge at these different scales. The DecarboN8 network is organised across four integrated research themes (carbon pathways, social acceptance and societal readiness, future transport fuels and fuelling, digitisation, demand and infrastructure). These themes form the structure for a series of twelve research workshops which will bring new research interests together to better understand the specific challenges of the transport sector and then to work together on integrating solutions. The approach will incorporate throughout an emphasis on working with real world problems in 'places' to develop knowledge which is situated in a range of contexts. £400k of research funding will be available for the development of new collaborations, particularly for early career researchers. We will distribute this in a fair, open and transparent manner to promote excellent research. The network will help develop a more integrated environment for the development, testing and rapid deployment of solutions through activities including identifying and classifying data sources, holding innovation translation events, policy discussion forums and major events to highlight the opportunities and innovations. The research will involve industry and government stakeholders and citizens throughout to ensure the research outcomes meet the ambitions of the network of accelerating the rapid decarbonisation of transport.