GoodDeeds will use digital technologies to facilitate behaviour change through engaging and empowering employees to reduce the environmental impact of public buildings. Almost 20% of the UK's energy consumption and CO2 emissions arise from non-domestic buildings. Behaviour change initiatives could have a significant impact given current estimates that around 30% of energy in buildings is currently wasted. The aim of the research then is to work with Leicester City Council to develop a set of social media/smartphone tools that the local authority can use to reduce the energy demand across its building stock. This research aims to explore the opportunities for and impact of digital technologies on user-behaviour and energy demand reduction in the non-domestic setting through enabling building users to both understand the environmental impact of their activities and to act in networks through social media applications of the digital technology. For example, social media platforms offer building-users the ability to view the energy consumption of the building and offer comment if the consumption is unexpectedly high. Photos or video can be taken and posted of any issues; knowledge can be shared on how best to manage a room's temperature; visitors can share their views and energy managers can share best practice and gain insight from building-users if their building energy management system is flagging up an alert. Importantly the research aims to explore the potential of social media tools to overcome the lack of empowerment many building-users feel in being unable to control or affect the building's energy performance. Findings from the project should increase understanding on how ICT can help society meet challenging and ambitious carbon reduction targets. Given the high energy demand and carbon footprint of the built environment there is a pressing need to implement effective and affordable energy demand reduction strategies in non-domestic buildings. The potential impact of Gooddeeds then is in finding an affordable ICT based solution for building users to collaborate, share knowledge and mitigate some of the errors inherent in the solely technical approach. This could impact on the way buildings are managed, building energy management systems are operated and how building users experience and perceive buildings. But this is not simply about buildings. Gooddeeds seeks to demonstrate that solutions to the grand challenges of our age will not be resolved by merely 'top down' solutions but by approaches that insist on the engagement and nurturing of active citizens who understand their responsibilities to their environment and to each other, and who act together for the mutual good.

This participatory research project will investigate the biographies of understudied (not selected for display) Roman-era objects in the archives of two museums/heritage sites in the East Midlands: The Jewry Wall Museum (Leicester) and The Chester House Estate (Northants). The investigations will combine guided archival research with the use of cutting-edge equipment acquired through an AHRC CapCo grant awarded to the School of Archaeology and Ancient History (SAAH) and will involve KS2/3 (7-13 years) pupils and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) (16-25 years). Participants will visit the archives to select and handle objects and will carry out guided archival research. They will attend interactive workshops where CapCo equipment will be used to investigate objects selected by participants. Their research and responses to the investigation will be showcased through a range of digital and pop-up displays co-created with staff from the organisations involved which will be incorporated within the interpretation at both sites. Accessible digital resources for Key Stage 2/3 and SEND teachers will be developed (including videoclips of the investigation) linked to SAAH's highly successful KS2/3 Life in the Roman World (LitRW) programme for schools. Through a workshop for teachers the project will show the potential of arts and STEM integration for enthusing and empowering young people as creators, innovators and leaders within their communities, and will strengthen and enhance existing research, learning and Knowledge Exchange (KE) partnerships between SAAH, local schools and heritage sites in the East Midlands. The project will provide training, mentoring, school and community engagement opportunities for early career researchers, professional archaeologists and heritage professionals, simultaneously building capacity within SAAH, University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS), Leicester City Council (LCC), The Chester House Estate (CHE) and the Northamptonshire Archaeological Resource Centre (NARC).

The project will work with teachers, governors, pupils, building designers, researchers and policy makers in Leicester over two academic years to engage with them in the science, engineering and technology of carbon neutral schools. Leicester is the UK's first Environment City and has a long history of carrying out energy efficiency improvement work and installing renewable energy technologies. It is in the first wave of the national programme Building Schools for the Future which will refurbish all the city's 17 secondary schools in a 220 million programme. Leicester is also unique in that most of its schools have intelligent metering to read the electricity, gas and water consumption every half hour. The project will address the science, engineering and technology of energy efficiency and renewable energy in school design and operation through training courses, hands on activities, visits and a dialogue between pupils and both building energy experts and policy makers. It will focus on the schools that are being rebuilt in Leicester as part of the Building Schools for the Future initiative. There would be two main areas of engagement, firstly between the pupils and the energy experts from the project partners and secondly between pupils and policy makers from Leicester City Council and the Department for Children, Schools and Families.The pupils will experience practical energy related projects. These will include:discussions on thermal performance, ventilation, daylighting and appliance use in school buildings,visits to sustainable buildings , workshops with building energy experts, researchers and policy makers relating to their school building,multimedia presentation work and role play, building small scale renewable energy models and investigating the siting of wind turbines,computer simulation,analysing electricity gas, water and temperature data.This will stimulate teacher and pupil interest in future energy use and inspire them through hands on experience of sustainable energy projects. They will be able to explain the role of thermal insulation, daylighting, ventilation, electrical appliance use and renewable energy in buildings to both policy makers and the wider school community. The pupils will engage with young researchers, so hopefully being inspired to think about a career in science and engineering. The project will also analyse the post occupancy performance of the four low energy schools currently being built, so helping to determine whether predicted energy and water consumption reductions have been achieved. Finally the pupils will engage with the policy makers (the Leader of Leicester City Council and the other senior decision makers involved in the BSF process). This will then inform the design and operation of the new schools being built in Leicester and also inform the DCSF about the design and operation of new school buildings to maximise environmental sustainability.Evaluation is a key part of the project. On-line questionnaires will be completed by participants before, during and after the engagement. The results of these evaluations will be disseminated at BSF and other events that will take place over the next three years. It will help inform the national BSF programme development.

The project will engage festival goers in the science and engineering of how they can reduce their own carbon footprint. It will do this in an environment where people are enjoying themselves, that is, at music festivals. It will work with festival organisers, event managers and science communicators using peer education, interactive displays and hand held devices to communicate the underlying science and engineering of measures to reduce personal carbon emissions. The Face Your Elephant peer education facility was devised by young people as part of the C-Change project http://www.switchonswitchoff.org/. The typical emissions of someone in the UK is equivalent to two elephants. The challenge is to reduce this value to one baby elephant - hence the title. It consists of display material and practical interactive exhibitions that engage people in actions that they can take to reduce their carbon footprint. This facility will be expanded to increase the amount of science and engineering via updated displays, hand held devices and the involvement of researchers, PhD students and Science and Engineering Ambassadors. A carbon calculator, running on hand held devices will be used to help people measure their personal carbon footprint. The key part of the exhibition is a dialogue between festival goers and the Peer Educators about energy in the home and a future low carbon economy. The hand held devices will provide audio, text, images and video to help explain the science and engineering. They will also be used to collect questionnaire and carbon footprint data, so gathering information on their knowledge, attitudes and behaviour. This proposal would update the material; develop related text, video, images for display on the hand held devices and train the peer educators. The approach will be piloted in 2009 and then used at mainstream music festivals in 2010.

Vikings and the Viking Age are currently highly visible in popular culture, generally in forms which continue to emphasise the age-old views of them as glamorous, violent and somewhat larger than life. What does not often find its way into the popular view is that the Viking Age was a time, like today, of migration, diaspora, and cultural and religious encounters between the Vikings and various regions of England. Over 1000 years ago, the East Midlands was the site of just such encounters as Vikings came into the region, not only as invaders, but also as traders, farmers and settlers. They left a clear mark in the place-names of the region, while material traces of their existence are gradually emerging through archaeological excavation, metal detectorist and other finds, and a better understanding of early medieval sculpture in the region. Put together, the evidence demonstrates how the immigrants found their place in the society of the time, and how the two groups negotiated their religious, cultural and linguistic differences, ultimately to form new communities. Bringing Vikings Back to the East Midlands will explore these issues in ways which resonate with the experiences of the modern inhabitants of the region, reaching out to different communities through existing and extensive engagement with schools (enabling access to parents and carers who might not otherwise engage with museums/exhibitions), community groups and museum partners across the region. Using the high profile event of the British Museum's travelling exhibition 'Vikings' (at the University of Nottingham Museum from November 2017 to March 2018) we will build new user communities, audiences and heritage sector capability for the region's Viking heritage. To achieve this, working closely with the University Museum, we will shape the exhibition and its public programme to engage our audiences with: 1) The regional artefacts in the British Museum's exhibition, as well as artefacts held in local and regional museums. Handling sessions with museum-quality replicas, and an online gallery of the relevant holdings of local museums, will provide direct and easy access to an understanding of the Viking Age in the East Midlands. In partnership with Blueaxe Reproductions, a programme of craft events and talks will enable creative practitioners and the wider public to explore Viking Age designs. 2) The hidden legacy of the Vikings in place-names, inscriptions, poetry to elaborate the history of the East Midlands. Public talks and field trips for KE partners will demonstrate the legacy of the Vikings in the region and the assets that might be drawn on to retell its history to visitors. Nottingham's new status as a UNESCO City of Literature provides a platform for local, national and international outreach. 3) The potential of the region's Viking heritage to attract new audiences for museums and to the region. Working with KE partners we will explore how Viking heritage might be used as part of the region's cultural offer. The long term legacy of the project will be key resources which ensure that Vikings and their Age will continue to inspire inhabitants of and visitors to the East Midlands. These will include: A web-based illustrated inventory of Viking Age objects from the various museums of the East Midlands which will be available free of charge for public use and which will provide an important resource for users such as heritage professionals, researchers, school teachers and pupils and the wider public interested in the Viking period. A web-based gallery of designs based on Viking Age artefacts, provided as scalable templates in the public domain, enabling creativity through historical accuracy. A community of heritage and tourism professionals and researchers in the region with a new awareness of the region's Viking heritage potential in terms of their own collections and sites, and their place in a wider network of collections and sites.