Earth is a Noisy Planet. Human activity means that from megacities to oceans, most places are infected with noise and tranquility is disappearing. This was starkly illustrated during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns when transport and industry largely stopped, and we glimpsed what a better-sounding future might be. Noise is a health problem for one in five European citizens. At high levels it causes hearing loss. At moderate levels it creates chronic stress, annoyance, sleep disturbance and heart disease. Noise makes it harder to communicate, harming learning in schools and increasing withdrawal of older people from social situations. The 2023 House of Lord's Science and Technology Committee report called noise a "neglected pollutant" and recommended more research to reduce harms. Noise also increases mortality in marine and terrestrial wildlife. The CDT will go beyond noise control to research how to engineer positive sounds. From using sound to improve the accessibility of products, through to enhancing cultural events that boost well-being, there are many ways of creating a better aural future. The CDT focuses on the user need of businesses, society and government to create a more Sustainable Sound Future. In EPSRC's Tomorrow's Engineering Research Challenges, the sound of drones and environmental noise are highlighted as needing innovative solutions. This CDT will not only cover this challenge, but will also contribute to seven out of eight Tomorrow's Engineering Research Challenges, because noise and vibration cuts across many sectors such as transport, energy, environment, construction and manufacturing. Through the CDT, we will address recruitment issues faced by the UK's £4.6 billion acoustics industry. Our partners tell us they struggle to find doctoral-level graduates in acoustics. Cohort training will empower our CDT graduates with an unprecedented depth and breadth of knowledge. This is needed because of the complexity of the challenge, from re-engineering machines, systems and buildings, through to understanding how sound affects the health and well-being of humans and other animals. Current PhD training in acoustics is too piecemeal to tackle a problem that cuts across sectors, regulators and society. The CDT will create a unique cohort of future research leaders and innovators, with the ability to create a step-change in how sound is tackled working across disciplines. This CDT brings together four powerhouses in acoustics: the Universities of Salford, Bristol, Sheffield and Southampton; along with industrial partners, regulatory bodies, public and third sector. This provides CDT students with access to an extraordinary range of laboratories and breadth of expertise for their training. This includes domain and application knowledge across many disciplines; state-of-the-art simulation, measurement and auralisation capabilities; datasets and case studies, and routes to impact. The CDT builds on EPSRC's UK Acoustics Network that has over 1,700 members including 500+ early career researchers. Challenging interdisciplinary research projects and cohort-based training will develop the much-needed postgraduates. A mixture of week-long residentials, group project and online activities are planned. These will develop technical skills for acoustics (simulation, measurement, machine learning, psychoacoustics, etc. and key skills for research (project planning, entrepreneurship, public engagement, policy influencing, responsible innovation, etc.). Partner placements will play an important role in ensuring the cohort learns about context and how to create impact. The learning outcomes of the training have been co-created between academics and partners, to ensure CDT graduates have the skills, knowledge and understanding to create a more sustainable sound future for all.

Along the well-to-wake value chain from upstream processes associated with fuels production and supply, components manufacture, and ships construction to the operation of ports and vessels, the UK domestic and international shipping produced 5.9 Mt CO2eq and 13.8 Mt CO2eq, respectively in 2017, totalling 3.4% of the UK's overall greenhouse gas emissions. The sector contributes significantly to air pollution challenges with emissions of nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide and particulate matters, harming human health and the environment particularly in coastal areas. The annual global market for maritime emission reduction technologies could reach $15 billion by 2050. This provides substantial economic opportunities for the UK. The Department for Transport's Clean Maritime Plan provides a route map for action on infrastructure, economics, regulation, and innovation that covers high technology readiness level (TRL 3-7). There is a genuine opportunity to explore fundamental research and go beyond conventional marine engineering and naval architecture and exploit the UK's world-leading cross-sectoral fundamental research expertise on hydrodynamics, fuels, combustion, electric machines and power electronics, batteries and fuel cells, energy systems, digitization, management, finance, logistics, safety engineering, etc. The proposed UK-MaRes Hub is a multidisciplinary research consortium and will conduct interdisciplinary research focussed on delivering disruptive solutions which have tangible potential to transform existing practice and reach a zero-carbon future by 2050. The challenges faced by UK maritime activity and their solutions are generally common but when deployed locally, they are bespoke due to the specifics of the port, the vessels they support, and the dependencies on their supply chains. Implementation will be heavily dependent on the local community, existing infrastructure, as well as opportunities and constraints related to the supply, distribution, storage and bunkering of alternative fuels, in decarbonising port handling facilities and cold-ironing, with the integration of renewable energy, reducing air pollution, to land-use and increased capacity and capability, and the local development of skills. The types of vessels and the cargoes handled through UK ports varies and are related to several factors, such as geographical location, regional industrial and business activity and wider transport links. Therefore, UK-MaRes Hub aims to feed into a clean maritime strategy that can adapt to place-based challenges and provide targeted technical and socio-economic interventions through a novel Co-innovation Methodology. This will bring together Research Exploration themes/work packages and Responsive Research Fund project activity into focus on port-centric scenarios and assess possibilities to innovate and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, 2040 and 2050 timeframes, sharing best practice across the whole maritime ecosystem. A diverse, and inclusive Clean Maritime Network+ will ensure wider dissemination and knowledge take-up to achieve greater impact across UK ports and other maritime activity. The Network+ will have coordinated regional activity in South-West, Southern, London, Yorkshire & Lincolnshire, Midlands, North-West, North-East, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. An already established Clean Maritime Research Partnership has vibrant academic, industrial, and civic stakeholder members from across the UK. UK-MaRes Hub will establish a Clean Maritime Policy Unit to provide expert advice and quantitative evidence to enable rapid decarbonisation of the maritime sector. It will ensure that the UK-MaRes Hub is engaging with policymakers at all stages of the hub activities.