Iona, although a small island off the larger island of Mull, off the west coast of Scotland, has one of the oldest, richest, and most complex place-name records in Britain and Ireland. It also has a complex modern landscape as a result of multiple user-groups interacting with the landscape of the past in different ways. This project interrogates the dynamics of the namescape (the historical and changing landscape of names) of Iona and its environs, shedding light on the past, and proposing new ways of curating place-names as part of heritage management. The 'Life of Saint Columba' written around AD 700 by Adomnán, the ninth abbot of the monastery of Iona, gives our earliest detailed impressions of this landscape, including some of our earliest recorded Gaelic place-names in Britain or Ireland. In the modern period the island became a destination for tourists and antiquarians, who interacted simultaneously with older texts and traditions and with the landscape and monuments they found, creating, curating and reinvigorating names. In the past century a traditional Gaelic crofting community has evolved into a more mixed economy, with a greater range of year-round occupations, augmented by seasonal auxiliary staff and faith-tourists. Permanent organisations, e.g., the National Trust for Scotland and Historic Environment Scotland now have differing management responsibilities towards the built and natural environments of the island, joining the international faith group, the Iona Community. This has created a complex dynamic of new names, translated names, and forgotten names, in Gaelic and English, a contested landscape of heritage and naming. These place-names (settlement names, landscape and coastal features, monuments) have never been subjected to formal rigorous analysis, despite the fragility of many of the names used by the Gaelic-speaking community in recent times. That fragility (highlighted by recent deaths) makes it vital that we subject this namescape to a programme of rigorous research, publication, curation and dissemination to the public and to official public bodies, and that we do it now. The team we have assembled for this purpose represents cumulative and long-standing expertise on Iona's history and heritage, on place-names and place-name survey, and on Gaelic and history in the adjacent island of Mull. In assembling this team at this time, the project is of utmost timeliness. The core tasks of the project will be to research in-depth the place-names of Iona, to make that research widely available to the public through an online resource, and to bring them to publication in a volume of the Survey of Scottish Place-Names. Because of its long-standing links to Iona, this will also include the place-names of the nearby small uninhabited island of Staffa, also managed by NTS. The research will involve an in-depth investigation of the earliest records of Iona and its landscape, as well as work with modern recordings of Gaelic place-names, and new fieldwork into contemporary usage among the various communities who inhabit and work on Iona. The research will be set against the context of the neighbouring island of Mull, examining how Iona may share features with or differ from its environs. Our work on the concerns of curating heritage place-names will be explored in an international conference on 'Authority and Authenticity', with subsequent essay collection. We will engage fully with a variety of beneficiaries from the project, producing a number of key ancillary outputs designed for the public and for the aid of heritage management: an interactive website allowing exploration of the names and the landscape; a popular guide to the place-names; standardised lists of names. We will further engage with the public and with heritage management bodies via a variety of events, including workshops, and a conference in 2021, the 1500th anniversary of the traditional date of the birth of Iona's founder, St Columba

Wildlife populations naturally experience a wide range of infections and disease. Understanding how they circulate in the environment, how they are evolving over time and how different hosts are affected is key to understanding both their impact on different animal species and their potential to spill-over into domesticated animals and humans. We are currently experiencing a major outbreak of Avian Influenza that is having a major impact both on wild birds and commercial poultry at a global scale. This is a disease caused by infection by a group of Influenza A type viruses of which water birds are the natural host. These viruses usually circulate in wild waterfowl and shorebirds with relatively little impact. However, the past year has seen a significant change in the impact of one particular subtype of avian influenza called H5N1. Mortality reports in wild birds have been highest in seabirds with over 200,000 dead birds reported over a three month period in Scotland alone. These are novel hosts that up until this point have been relatively unaffected so we currently lack information about how this disease is impacting in these novel host populations, hindering our ability to make informed decisions about any potential mitigation strategies that might be put in place or evaluate their likely success. In this project we have three main objectives. Firstly, we will track the evolution of the virus over time and space across a range of different host species. This will tell us about possible routes of transmission but also help us track how the virus is changing as it evolves and to identify any viral changes that may alter its pathogenicity or its ability to jump between species. Secondly, we will focus on the hosts and explore what proportion of birds are exposed and survive infection. We will do this in populations that have been monitored over many years so their individual life-histories, age, and migration routes are known to help us identify which whether particular parts of the population may be more vulnerable or more important in transmission. Finally we will use the data we are collecting to create a modelling framework that represents the wider population of different species to test how resilient different populations might be to this disease and to use as a tool to evaluate and prioritize potential mitigations that can be put in place to minimise any impact on host populations and limit future disease spread.

These equipment upgrades will improve and enhance Historic Environment Scotland's (HES) core functions in investigating, caring for and promoting Scotland's historic environment, both in terms of managing our in-house collections and also underpinning our wider engagement and support across the sector. Our historic environment is a sophisticated assemblage of historic buildings and structures, archaeological sites, monuments and landscapes which, together with object collections and archives, make up a unique and interconnected resource, collectively documenting over 5000 years of human history. Through upgrades to key pieces of equipment - spanning across material science, 3D digital documentation and visualisation, remote survey and applied object conservation - our ability to apply science to culture to better understand and safeguard our national collections will be enhanced, increasing wider benefits through sharing of information and promoting additional collaborative research with a range of partners and stakeholders. The targeted investment is particularly timely because climate change is resulting in unprecedented impacts on our historic environment, significantly increasing the threats to its preservation. Increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events and the acceleration of coastal erosion are threatening iconic sites, requiring better understanding of impacts and adaptive actions. Tackling the causes of climate change also requires unprecedented levels of intervention to buildings to support emissions reduction and decarbonisation. To address these issues, HES recently launched a new and ambitious Climate Action Plan to set out our priorities for understanding and adapting to the challenges of climate change. Research and innovation is one of four cross-cutting priorities helping to support delivery of this plan. By allowing us to create richer datasets and helping to make information more widely available in more accessible formats and in greater quantity, this investment will transform our use of digital resources to support ourselves and others to make better informed choices about how we look after our cultural heritage for future generations. The investment will result in practical benefits to HES, our partners, and wider stakeholders. It will produce efficiencies and significant cost savings as well as the provision of new quality, multi-purpose data, which will support us and other asset managers to devise more effective interventions to maintain and adapt the historic environment to maximise benefits whilst retaining cultural value. This increased capability will support new research and innovation and increase access and engagement, including reaching new audiences and development of resources for education and training. We will also support new economic opportunities by informing planning and development, and supporting resource efficiency and the sustainable re-use of historic assets through, for example, provision of improved information to support energy efficiency retrofit of existing buildings, currently a major strand of economic recovery programmes. The upgraded equipment will also support research and skills development in heritage management and conservation. It will support the work and development of our in-house trainees, collaborative PhD students and junior researchers, and underpin national and international partnerships. This will help to ensure that the next generation of researchers and heritage professionals have the skills necessary to tackle contemporary challenges. Through the investment and the enhanced capability it will deliver, we will build on our strong reputation for excellence and innovative cross-disciplinary partnership approaches to research, and increase our support for others by providing a national-scale resource for collaboration, education and training.

Core Research Question: How successful have approaches to immersive technologies at major heritage sites in Scotland been currently, both in terms of outcomes against business plan expectations and in terms of visitor response, and what kinds of future development are supported by the evidence? Research Methods: The proposed Research Methods in this initial pilot phase will lay the groundwork for the exploration of the effectiveness and potential of the core Immersive Technology Research Question. Under the guidance of the PI and research team, the pilot project RA will set up a questionnaire to test visitor response to the immersive dimensions of the Culloden, Robert Burns Museum and Bannockburn sites, as well as at the Riverside Museum in Glasgow (which has secured one of the highest -if not the highest-non-traditional museum audience in the UK) and the National Library of Scotland at Kelvin Hall. In parallel, they will set up observations and a focus group round the proposed collections and policy developments at Newhailes by the National Trust for Scotland. These approaches will follow the methodology used by the PI's CDA to evaluate audience response among the 60 000 visitors to the When Glasgow Flourished exhibition in 2014 and by the PI's Beyond Text RA to evaluate responses to the material Burns January exhibition in the Mitchell Library, Glasgow in 2010 and 2011; and by the CI Economou's RA in three different immersive exhibitions in Rome, Athens, and Ename as part of the Marie Curie CHIRON project between 2005-2008 (Economou & Pujol Tost 2011). The project team will identify audience focus groups from the existing visitor and client contact base of the partner organizations, and will explore their visitor experience while also exposing them to new developments in Immersive Experience technology. Consideration will be given to the development of future 'Smart' response evaluations, such as Fitbit and smartphone visitor response monitoring. Immersive experiences are means of 'composing' memory (that is, creating the conditions in which the memories which are publicly expressed are those which are formulated within a range of socially acceptable contexts. In the motorized era, trails have fulfilled the same function of embedding preferred memory narratives, while immersive experiences-delivered in part or whole through the medium of technology-strive to present a fusion of memory, place and performance to create a close and lasting relationship of visitor memory to the experience purchased by the visit. Immersive technologies have (although research on this is not yet developed and its development is a key component of the proposed partnership) arguably similar effects to electronic mass media in the composure of memory, but effects which are possibly delivered in stronger and more lasting terms. We will also work with Soluis as our digital partner, to create a decision-making model for policy and audience development. Research Context: The research context is that of both the recent rapid growth of the heritage sector, and within that the centrality of cutting edge immersive experiences for tourism, the heritage industry and audience development The development of immersive experiences at 'fantasy' venues such as the London, York, Blackpool and Edinburgh 'Dungeons' from Merlin Entertainments is a connected activity. Some of these visitor experiences are relatively recent, and audience feedback is at an early stage: however, there is some evidence that fully or predominantly CGI immersive experiences such as Bannockburn are less appealing and effective to a comprehensive audience demographic than they are to particular groups. Research Outputs: Website, a policy paper, a risk assessment, a visualization decision making tool and presentations at the AHRC Showcase, and connected events-e.g. presentations at DH conferences and a media/social media strategy.

Context: Peatlands are one of the world's most important habitats and the largest terrestrial carbon store. However, 80% of UK peatlands are damaged and deteriorating, meaning they are often a carbon source rather than sink. This trend is alarming in the context of the climate emergency. Restoring peatland is therefore an urgent UK action, necessary to meet the net zero commitment. The UK Committee on Climate Change has recommended restoration of at least 50% of upland peat and 25% of lowland peat by 2050 to contribute to the net zero target. Changing agricultural use of peatland is likely to lead to the highest per hectare emissions savings implementable in the UK. However, the number of peatland hectares restored remains low despite support mechanisms in Scotland and England. How to achieve large-scale peatland restoration is under-researched, and agricultural environments and communities are facing intersecting stresses which inhibit the necessary transformative practices. Challenge: RESPECT takes a holistic approach to this real-world challenge through interdisciplinary research which supports landholders to undertake peatland restoration and reduce carbon emissions through land use change. Two case study regions - the Forth and Humber Catchments in Scotland and England - will be investigated in-depth, where tensions exist between food production, historic environment preservation, carbon sequestration and ecological restoration. Questions: RESPECT investigates a number of questions in this context. Where should peatland restoration take place based on the current and future physical capacities of agricultural land in the case study regions? How should peatland restoration be implemented based on the social capacities of key land stakeholders in the case study regions? How can landholders seeking to restore peatland be best supported in their decision-making to reduce emissions, as well as deliver other social and environmental benefits? What governance reforms are required to facilitate peatland restoration on agricultural land? Finally, how can the data, methods and tools established in the case study regions be scaled up to the national level? Overview: RESPECT will produce data, methods, landholder tools and proposals for governance reforms to change agricultural practices on peatland and contribute to the UK's net zero target. RESPECT will achieve this by collating data through novel interdisciplinary collection, modelling and engagement methods. These data will establish the capacity of land and land users to contribute to the net zero target as well as generate other social and environmental co-benefits, balanced against conflicting land use demands, within the context of climate change. Informed by this baseline data, RESPECT will produce the Peatland Triage Tool (PTT), providing decision-support for landowners, land managers, farmers and crofters (collectively 'landholders') seeking to undertake peatland restoration. Governance reforms will be proposed to scaffold the social innovations necessary for transformative change. Outputs will be scalable and replicable with national significance. Application and Benefits: RESPECT will produce new thinking and transdisciplinary research outputs about facilitating landholders to deliver land use change for net zero and manage conflicting land use demands. RESPECT uses an innovative combination of both data and methodologies to address land use change, and carefully considers the social and physical capacities of the land and land users to effect change. The PTT will provide decision-support in a useful and accessible way. Combined with the expertise in policy implementation and support from project partners, RESPECT will develop a game-changing approach to reducing emissions from land use.