The Royal Society of Edinburgh Research Awards Reception

The Royal Society of Edinburgh research awards reception

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monday 11 september 2017 7

Front cover images: 1. Dr Greg Singh and Dr Eddy Borges-Rey, Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Network, p. 19. Life in Data: literacy, openness, education policy and creative data innovation in Scotland 2. Dr Lindsay Blair, Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Small Grant, p. 20. An Investigation of the Photographic Body of Work by Andrew Begbie Ovenstone (1851–1935) [Fisherman with buoy] 3. Professor Nick Pearce and Dr Hilary Macartney, Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Network, p. 18. Unwrapping an Icon: New Research on the Lady in a Fur Wrap in the Stirling Maxwell Collection, Pollok House [Lady in a Fur Wrap, attributed to El Greco, c1577–80. © CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection] 4. Justin Sperling, Lessells Travel Scholarship, p. 13. Plasmonic nano-‘traps’ for capturing and studying the function of single proteins 5. Dr James Nott, Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Workshop, p. 28. Let’s Dance! Scotland’s Social Dancing History 1920–60 6. Dr Jacqueline Jenkinson and Dr Caroline Verdier, Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Workshop, p. 24. Uncovering civilian war trauma among female Belgian refugees in Scotland during the First World War [Image of Belgian pin]

Images above and facing: 7. Dr Suzie Thomas, CRF European Travel Fellowship – Visit to Scotland, p. 16. Dark Heritage? Community responses to the material legacy of Second World War Encampments 8. John Ferguson, NERC Enterprise Fellowship, p. 34. Novel Uses of Sisal Fibre 9. Shauna McMullan, Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Workshop, p. 28. Pollok House, The National Trust for Scotland, Glasgow Cabinet Interventions 10. David Cowley and Dr William Megarry, Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Workshop, p. 25. The Outermost Neolithic – Exploring Early Farming Communities in Shetland 11. Dr Sally Foster, Scottish Government Arts &Humanities Small Grant, p. 21. Concrete and non-concrete: an ethnographic study of the contemporary value and authenticity of historic replicas Iona: detail of the 1970 St John's Cross replica, and swallow. Diﬀerent variations of the same image 12. Professor Nick Pearce and Dr Hilary Macartney, Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Network, p. 18. Unwrapping an Icon: New Research on the Lady in a Fur Wrap in the Stirling Maxwell Collection, Pollok House [Philip II of Spain, by Alonso Sánchez Coello. c.1570. ©CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection]

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3 RSE Funding and awards

The RSE’s funding programmes aim to: • Attract and retain those with outstanding potential to establish their Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) and Arts & Humanities careers in Scotland; • Encourage enterprise, innovation and the commercialisation of technology-based ideas coming from academic research; • Develop international collaboration and enable participation in international research programmes. Awards featured in this programme are listed on facing page. Full details of programmes not awarded annually, and new awards being introduced this year, are also available on our website. Visit: www.rse.org.uk/funding-awards/

Our Funding Partners

4 Henry Duncan Medal CRF European Travel Research Fellowships This medal recognises outstanding contributions to To establish a two-way ﬂow of scholars in the Arts & business, public service or public engagement in Scotland Humanities and Social Sciences between Scotland and Europe. at an early-career stage. (Page 7). Other early-career • Visits to Europe to enable staﬀ in Scottish Higher medals are awarded annually to researchers, normally Education Institutions to visit other European countries resident in Scotland, with a minimum of two years’ overseas for two–six months; (Pages 14 & 15) postdoctoral work experience. Available in life sciences; • Visits to Scotland to enable nominated scholars from other physical, engineering and informatic sciences; arts, European countries outside the UK to carry out research humanities and social sciences. or study in Scotland for two–six months. (Pages 15 & 16)

Henry Dryerre PhD Scholarship Scottish Government Arts and Humanities Awarded every three years, to support full-time research Awards in medical or veterinary physiology at a Scottish Institution Small Grants – for first-class honours graduates of Scottish Universities. To support personally-conducted research in various ways, (Page 8) For further details of award visit: whilst ensuring that the high quality of research is www.carnegie-trust.org/schemes/postgraduate-schemes/ maintained and advanced and outcomes disseminated appropriately. Carried out over a 12-month period. (Pages 20–23) CRF PhD Scholarships Workshops Two awards made annually to first-class honours under- Defined as “the coming together of scholars at the early graduates from Scottish Universities for three years’ post- stage of planning and developing a collaborative graduate research at a university in Scotland. No restriction research initiative”, these awards are not for single events on subject or field. (Page 8). For further details of award visit: and are carried out over a 12-month period. They are www.carnegie-trust.org/schemes/postgraduate-schemes/ intended to facilitate intellectual and creative interaction between researchers from different disciplines and from Fulbright Scholarship a range of institutions. (Pages 24–29) New joint annual award with the US–UK Fulbright Networks Commission. Offers an academic from anywhere in the To create and/or to consolidate collaborative partnerships UK the opportunity to go to a top university in the US for over a two-year period. May be used to expand activities up to three months to carry out lecturing and/or research of existing Research Workshops or to initiate new projects. in: science & technology; arts & humanities; social science; (Pages 17–19) or business and public service. (Page 9). For further details: www.fulbright.org.uk/going-to-the-usa/academic-and- Enterprise Fellowships professional/fulbright-scholar-awards Funded by Scottish Enterprise (SE); the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC); the Biotechnol- Cormack Funding for Astronomy Research ogy and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC); and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), Cormack Astronomy Outreach Small Grant these one-year Enterprise Fellowships enable promising For individuals or groups to develop public understanding science and technology researchers to develop into in Scotland in the field of astronomy. Intended to set up successful entrepreneurs. Awardees focus solely on refining new projects or add new elements to exisiting ones, rather their business ideas, whilst receiving one-year’s salary, than to fund ongoing activities. Must benefit a wider expert training in entrepreneurship and access to audience rather than just the funding receipient(s). (Page 9) mentorship from Fellows of the RSE and other successful Cormack Postgraduate Research Prize entrepreneurs in the business community. (Pages 30–35) Awarded annually to recognise and reward the most outstanding postgraduate student contribution to Scottish Crucible astronomical research in Scotland. (Page 9) A leadership and development programme for Scotland’s Cormack Undergraduate Vacaction Research Scholarships research leaders of the future: encouraging researchers to Funding for six-week research projects for full-time put their roles into a wider societal context; share perspectives undergraduates in summer vacation before final year. and build relationships; and to think creatively in order to (Pages 10 & 11) make research more innovative. A series of three residential meetings, held over three months, each lasting two days. For further information visit the Scottish Crucible website: Lessells Travel Scholarships https://scottishcrucible.org.uk (Pages 36–38) For Honours Graduates in Engineering from Scottish Universities, to support study in some aspect of their profession, outwith the UK. Projects of approximately two–five months – maximum of one year. (Pages 12 & 13) 5 Welcome by Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell The President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh

Welcome all to the annual Research Awards Reception; one of the highlights of the year for the RSE. It gives me great pleasure to host this celebratory event which provides us with an opportunity to recognise and commend the important work being carried out across academia and business here in Scotland and beyond. Tonight’s gathering brings together like-minded individuals who hail from a range of sectors, disciplines and cultures, and I hope that it will allow us to reflect upon the new national and international connections that have been forged, and appreciate the ongoing reinforcement of our existing collaborations. This evening our distinguished RSE awardees, who all have exciting and innovative projects in process or about to begin, are joined by members of the RSE Awards Selection Committees, funders and supporters. Their achievements will not only enhance knowledge and developments in their respective fields, but they also reflect the RSE’s 234-year history of supporting excellence across all areas of academic, public and business life in Scotland. Once again, it is encouraging to see the breadth of research and impact that is enabled through our wide-ranging, prestigious awards. I congratulate each of the pioneering and inspiring awardees; their achievements reflect the high standard of work that typifies the RSE and Scotland’s research and business community. Finally, it is important to note that the RSE’s awards are made possible through the continued support of our funding partners. I therefore extend my warmest thanks to BBSRC, NERC, the RSE Scotland Foundation, Scottish Enterprise, the Scottish Funding Council, the Scottish Government and STFC.

Welcome by Professor Bonnie Webber Research Awards Convener

Welcome to the RSE’s annual Awards Reception. I am Professor Bonnie Webber, from the University of Edinburgh, and I am the RSE Research Awards Convener. I am delighted to be attending this annual celebration of the Society’s awards programmes. Every year, it gives us great pleasure to use this event to recognise and congratulate the Research Fellows, Enterprise Fellows and Arts and Humanities Awardees, as well as our Research Scholars and Students. You will find details and information about them in the following pages of this programme. The RSE is Scotland’s National Academy, covering all disciplines – science & technology, the arts, humanities, social science, business and public service. As such, the Society is able to offer awards across all these disciplines, reflecting the founding aim of the Society, which is “the advancement of learning and useful knowledge”. The Awards Department has recently gone through an administration review, which has helped make the selection process and Committee work more streamlined and less burdensome. We anticipate being able to offer new Research Awards next year and Scottish Funding Council-funded Sabbatical Fellowships now. The Society also welcomes the funding it receives from its partner organisations and is pleased to be able to offer awards to such deserving academics and entrepreneurs. Without the support of our partners, the majority of these awards would not be possible. The Arts and Humanities awards continue to be very competitive, with an upcoming deadline on 29 September. We continue our strong relationship with Scottish Crucible and, earlier this year, the RSE selection panel chose thirty Scottish Crucible participants who have now completed their career development ‘labs’. We will announce the winning group projects this evening and you will find more information about Scottish Crucible, and its participants, at the end of this programme. In addition to announcing our 2017 Awards this evening, we will be presenting the RSE/ Henry Duncan Medal to Michael Welch OBE, an outstanding entrepreneur and businessman based here in Scotland. I would like to take this opportunity to wish all the 2017 Awardees every success with their projects over the coming year and into the future.

6 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH

RESEARCH AWARDS RECEPTION 2017

PROGRAMME

5.00 pm Guests arrive and seated by 5.30 pm

5.30 pm Welcome from the President: Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell CBE

5.35 pm Professor Bonnie Webber – Report on 2017 Awards Programme – Presentation of the RSE Henry Duncan Medal: Awarded to Michael Welch OBE – Announcement of Scottish Crucible Project Awards

5.55 pm President’s Concluding Remarks

6.00 pm Poster Displays and Buﬀet Supper

8.00 pm Finish

Henry Duncan Medal Michael Welch OBE CEO and Founder of Blackcircles.com, Peebles Mike Welch founded BlackCircles in 2001, the world’s first ‘click & fit’ for tyres, taking it to a leading position in the UK market before its $100m sale to Michelin in 2015. He started his first online tyre business in 1995 in Liverpool, when he was 17. He sold that business to UK fast fit chain Kwik-Fit and joined them before leaving in 2002 to launch Blackcircles.com Welch is the Chairman and Founder of The Welch Trust, a charitable trust which aims to provide grants to support children and young people. The trust’s focus is on making life easier for children and families whose children need it most, with a particular interest in supporting adoption and fostering, critical and terminal illness and the advancement of business education. He was awarded an OBE by the Queen in 2016 for services to business and charity and in the same year was honoured with a doctorate for enterprise from Edinburgh Napier Univeristy. Mike has been awarded the RSE/Henry Duncan Medal (Early-Career Prize) for his outstanding business leadership.

7 Research Awardees 2017

Henry Dryerre PhD Scholarship

Dafni Bechtsi Wellcome Centre for Molecular Parasitology, Institute for Infection Immunity and Inflammation Investigation of genes with novel functions in Plasmodium early gametocyte and gender-specific differentiation Malaria (caused by the single cell parasitePlasmodium ) is resurgent, due to increasing resistance to most antimalarial drugs and the increasing resistance of the mosquito vector to insecticides. In order to transmit from host to vector, the parasite must produce small numbers of specialised stable forms, gametocytes that develop from the pathogenic multiplying forms in the blood. Our laboratory identified the key protein that drives this developmental switch and can now manipulate its expression to generate large numbers of gametocytes. My research aims to identify genetic factors that control and guide the initial steps of the generation of a gametocyte from a multiplying parasite and answer the question of what they do. The initial focus will be on a broad class of proteins that contain what areknown as zing fingers. Eventually, this work could allow the development of drugs that block gametocyte production and halt the spread of the disease; one approach to the reduction of malaria. CRF PhD Scholarships

Margarita Kanevski Psychiatry (based in Salvesen Mindroom Centre), University of Edinburgh Identification of cognitive predictors of mathematics skills in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Children with ADHD show pervasive difficulties with attention and memory, linked with learning difficulties in mathematics. However, ADHD is a diverse condition, with just under a third showing memory impairments, less than a quarter showing attentional deficits, and 25–50% showing no impairments at all. Similarly, mathematical knowledge is not a unitary process, comprising several related, yet distinct, components that rely on different cognitive processes including factual, conceptual and operational knowledge. The current literature lacks a comprehensive investigation into the links between cognition and mathematical ability in a variable ADHD group. This project will assess the performance of children aged 6–12, with and without ADHD diagnosis, on tasks measuring various aspects of mathematical ability, and attempt to associate these with their cognitive performance. Children with ADHD exhibiting a similar set of cognitive and/or mathematical difficulties will be grouped together for the purposes of identifying a pilot intervention optimally tailored to their needs.

Samuel White School of Social Sciences (Law Department), University of Dundee Does the UK’s current legal framework offer sufficient protection of fundamental rights? The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether the UK's current framework for human rights protection offers sufficient protection for fundamental rights. It will argue that the UK's constitutional law prevents guaranteed protection of fundamental rights. It will assess this by charting the history of human rights in the UK, before going on to look at the efficacy of the current framework, considering, inter alia, the constitutional doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. This thesis will then examine how other states manage to balance these competing interests, before considering possible solutions to the current imbalance. Finally, this thesis will conclude by answering the question posed in the negative and make recommendations regarding which of the possible solutions would best suit the United Kingdom.

8 Research Awardees 2017

Fulbright Scholarship

Dr Kirsteen Shields Law, School of Social Sciences, University of Dundee Visiting: Berkeley Law School and Berkeley Food Institute, University of Berkeley The Right to Food This research seeks to develop knowledge on the nature and quality of the ‘right to food’, and on what it implies for the reform of global food systems. It draws on recent experience of legislating for land reform at the Scottish Parliament where ‘public interest’ was used to redress the balance between property rights and economic, social and cultural rights. This research will focus on the potential of the right to food to catalyse change in land use in ways that signiﬁcantly impact on food security, both globally and locally.

Cormack Astronomy Outreach Small Grant

Professor John C Brown OBE FRSE, 10th Astronomer Royal for Scotland Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow A Poetic Look at our Universe in Lallans Scots Travel support for one year’s collaboration with eminent Scots Language poet Rab Wilson (Burns Birthplace Museum Alloway) on writing a popular book based around selected astronomy objects, people and concepts, some with a Scottish connection. I will write a page or two on each topic with high impact images and in informative but easily accessible English, while Rab will convey the thoughts each inspires in him in a new Lallans poem with his inimitable insight and wit. Likely entries include: In the Beginning and in the End; Space, Time and Gravity; White Dwarfs, Pulsars and Black Holes; Exoplanets; The Seven Sisters; Some Great Scottish Astronomers (Alexander Wilson, Henderson, Clerk Maxwell; Astro-archaeology; IYA 2009 New Scottish Constellation. The overall aim is to increase awareness of our amazing Cosmos and its science in the arts/literary world, and scientists’ awareness of the power and beauty of poetry in describing it. Cormack Postgraduate Research Prize

David Starkey Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews Space Telescope and Optical Reverberation Mapping Project: Reverberating Disc Models for NGC 5548 Super massive black holes (SMBH) lie at the centres of galaxies. In some cases these eat surrounding gas that wanders too close; they become active galactic nuclei (AGN). The accreting material forms into an accretion disc around the SMBH in a similar way to X-ray binary stellar mass black holes in our own Galaxy. These discs are too remote and compact to be resolved directly and much about their structure and dynamics remains unknown. We conducted a multiwavelength variability study of the Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 5548 to investigate the temperature structure of its accretion disk. Our model recovers the disc temperature and disk inclination i=36 degrees. We also infer the driving light curve and ﬁnd that it correlates poorly with X-ray observations, suggesting that the X-rays alone may not drive the ultraviolet and optical variability as previously thought.

9 Research Awardees 2017

Cormack Undergraduate Vacation Research Scholarships

Joe Cairns Physics Department, Lancaster University Visiting: Institute for Astronomy, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh SCUBA-diving in the Deep Universe: the origins of the most massive galaxies Young galaxies tend to be gas rich, fuelling vigorous star formation, whereas old galaxies tend to be gas poor; they are said to be passive. However, the mechanisms that dictate the transition to passivity are not well understood. Furthermore, the most massive galaxies formed most of their stellar mass, and subsequently turned passive, more than 8Gyr ago (z>1). Therefore, this epoch (z~1-3) saw the most intense phase of star formation, and understanding passive galaxies at z>1 may allow us to better understand the mechanisms that quench star formation. This project uses the novel combination of VANDELS spectroscopic data and submillimetre data from the SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey to probe passive galaxies at z>1, determining whether they are truly passive and, if so, the possible reasons behind their transition to passivity.

Anna de Graaff Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh A search for missing baryons in the cosmic web Observations of galaxies and galaxy clusters in the local Universe can account for only 10% of the expected baryon density. Cosmological simulations predict that the ‘missing’ baryons are spread throughout filamentary structures in the cosmic web, forming the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM). Previous efforts to detect this diffuse gas focused on only the lowest and highest temperature end of the WHIM, leaving a large fraction of the baryons still unobserved. In this project, we searched for cosmic web filaments through the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, which probes the full temperature range of the WHIM. By selecting close pairs of galaxy clusters and measuring the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect around their locations on the sky, we detected a stacked intercluster filament of 10 Mpc/h at the 5 level. σ This result supports the finding from simulations that the majority of baryons reside in large-scale filaments in the cosmic web.

Alexander Farmakalides School of Physics & Astronomy, University of St Andrews Echo Mapping of Black Hole Accretion Flows in Active Galactic Nuclei Supermassive black holes lurk in the hearts of most, if not all, large galaxies in the local Universe, and have played a key role in determining the structure of galaxies. The accretion flows onto supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei can be resolved by using time variations across the accretion disk, due to a finite speed of light. The temperature profile of the blackbody accretion disc and the black hole radius can be found by measuring the time delay between continuum and emission-line variations in the observed spectra, and analysis of X-ray, ultraviolet, optical light-curves and spectra from satellite observations reveal such time delays among the spectral features. My goal was to create a computational model that could interpret the line and continuum light-curve data and therefore estimate the black hole mass and accretion rate by fitting the data using Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods.

10 Research Awardees 2017

Cormack Undergraduate Vacation Research Scholarships

Hirokazu Mori Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh Gravitational Waves in a Universe accelerated by Beyond Einstein Gravity Several different models of tensor-scalar gravity (TeS) were explored with Wolfram Mathematica to see whether several different models of TeS can be tested by analysing the data of directly detected gravitational waves such as LIGO and LISA. The relationship of luminosity distance against redshift was plotted for lambda cold dark matter ( CDM) model and two different models of TeS to calculate confidence Λ assuming the Universe is a CDM universe. The first model was an approximated Λ model derived from a gravitational-wave equation with modified Hubble constant H’=(1+ka^n)H and the second one was the self-minimal accelerated model. The testability of my model, based on the spec of ESA’s Space-based gravitational wave detector LISA, was explored.

Ellen Sirks School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh Quantifying Selection Effects in Cosmic Shear Cosmic shear is the distortion of images of distant galaxies due to weak gravitational lensing by the large-scale structure in the Universe. Measuring cosmic shear is a delicate process, and there are several possible sources of bias. Because accurate galaxy shapes are required to measure the shear, it is common practice to remove galaxies when their light is blended with that of another. This introduces a selection effect into the data. To fully understand the effect of galaxy selection on the shear correlation functions, we use control samples of simulated data, ‘mocks’. Furthermore we propagate the effect in the estimation of cosmological parameters to better understand the impact of selection on such data analyses. Future surveys will be able to observe the effects of cosmic shear with a higher significance than ever before, and so it is important to understand these effects to fully exploit the data.

Robbie Western School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow Investigating Quasi-Periodic Pulsations in Solar Flares In 2015 the very common appearance of clear pulsations during large solar flares was reported by Simões et al., using the soft X-ray (SXR) light curve recorded by the GOES satellite. These pulsations are inconsistent with ‘red noise’, and may be interpreted as genuine pulsations in the flare, with periods from a few tens to over a hundred seconds. The interpretation is unclear from the SXR light curves alone – it is not possible to see where in the flaring structure these pulsations originate. SXRs suggest a coronal origin; however, during a flare the chromosphere can also be heated to SXR-emitting temperatures. Our work attempts to localise the source of these pulsations, using time-series data and imaging data taken at different wavelengths, corresponding to a range of coronal and chromospheric spectral lines/passbands.

11 Research Awardees 2017

Lessells Travel Scholarships Rhiannon Grant Institute for Bioengineering, University of Edinburgh Visiting: Department of Material Science and Engineering and Department of Bioengineering, Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, USA Development of a novel peptide–polymer conjugate scaffold for liver tissue engineering Liver disease causes one in 50 deaths in Scotland, and is the third leading cause of premature death in the UK. The only way to treat end-stage liver disease is with an organ transplant; however, the shortage of donor organs leads to many patients dying waiting for a suitable donor. Bioengineering aims to create liver ‘organoids’; devices which can support or replace the function of a liver in vivo. An important part of this is the provision of biomimetic 3D environments (scaffolds) which support the adherence, survival and function of hepatocytes. My time at Lehigh University will be spent with Dr Lesley Chow, creating new scaffolds which exploit hepatocyte-specific receptors to promote cell adherence, aggregation and function. I will 3D print scaffolds which incorporate peptides (short protein chains) known to interact with hepatocytes, providing an environment which will promote adherence and aggregation of the cells and alter their survival and function. Ewa Guzniczak Institute of Biological Chemistry, Biophysics and Bioengineering, Heriot-Watt University Visiting: Greifswald University, Germany Development of a miniaturised microfluidic drug screening platform for human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes The development of in vitro platforms assessing drug-induced toxicity in human cardiac cells has seen a dramatic development with the introduction of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology. However, these assays often rely on cultures that lack the 3D architecture of a tissue and their inherent mechanical constrains. Consequently, the poor representation that 2D cultures offer of the cardiac environment can give rise to false negatives. To fully address this shortcoming of standard cardiotoxicity methods, we propose to develop a multiparameter assay that relies on an organ-on-chip approach using micro- fabricated engineered heart tissues (µEHT). Contracting 3D cell fibres composed of human iPSC cardiomyocytes in co-culture with different cells will be suspended between two posts with tuneable material properties. This will allow for the quantification of various time-, spatial- and mechanical-dependent variables that will help to characterise the beating behaviour of the 3D culture, and assess the physiological impact of different drugs. Xi King Division of Biomedical Engineering, University of Glasgow Visiting: Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong New Acoustic Method for Nebulisation of Liposomes for Pulmonary Drug Delivery Pulmonary diseases, such as asthma, are generally treated by the inhalation of aerosols. Effective respiratory drug delivery requires a droplet-size distribution between 1 and 5 μm. My research is focused on developing a reliable platform for targeted pulmonary drug delivery, using surface acoustic waves (SAWs) and liposomes. SAWs have the potential to form and nebulise vesicles. Producing aerosol only in restricted dimensions and avoiding storage-related problem of the medicine, SAWs represent an efficient drug delivery system in lungs. A novel approach, for in situ formation and encapsulation of vesicles in aerosols, is studied, by means of an interdigital transducer to create SAWs, coupled with an etched silicon mesh (cylindrical cavities). Vesicles in optimised range of 80–100 nm are achieved. Multiple steps in vesicles’ formation, including removal of organic solvents and detergent, are eliminated and a mean aerosol droplet size within the optimum range is obtained.

12 Research Awardees 2017

Lessells Travel Scholarships Alistair Rodman Institute for Materials and Processes, University of Edinburgh Visiting: Process and Systems Engineering Centre, Technical University of Denmark Systematic model parameterisation and dynamic optimisation of industrial fermentation Determining how a modern industrial production process should be operated to maximise efficiently typically involves mathematical optimisation. A prerequisite for this is that a suitably accurate model of the process exists, to allow computational simulations to predict process performance under a range of conditions. This project considers an industrial fermentation process, with the aim of developing a descriptive model which may be used for computational process optimisation. This will involve an experimental campaign of repeated batch fermentations under various conditions to permit model parameter estimates to be determined. Once a descriptive process model has been produced, it will be used in optimal control studies: applying collocation on finite elements and NLP solvers to determine how system temperature should be varied during the process. Specific examples of optimal operation computed may subsequently be performed in the laboratory, allowing the parameterised model and simulation results to be verified.

Simón Santamaría BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering, University of Edinburgh Visiting: Combustion and Fire Processes Laboratories, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley Improving ignition criteria: analysis of surface heat losses under complex ignition scenarios Understanding the ignition of solid fuels is the cornerstone of fire safety engineering. My PhD project is delivering new insight into this phenomenon by studying it under better defined, more realistic conditions. By evaluating the energy balance in the gas and solid phases leading up to ignition, limitations of common ignition criteria have been exposed, which impact our ability to predict common design parameters such as flame spread and fire growth. While on a Lessells Scholarship, I will use specialised equipment to undertake a detailed analysis of the heat transfer processes leading to ignition of a solid material. This device has been used in the past to analyse flame spread and flammability of materials in micro-gravity. Results will be used to better understand and more accurately predict the onset of flaming combustion, as well as to build on current ignition and flame-spread theory.

Justin Ryan Sperling Biomedical Engineering Research Division, University of Glasgow Visiting: Single-Molecule Microscopy Group, Universitätsklinikum Jena Plasmonic nano-‘traps’ for capturing and studying the function of single proteins Protein function is key to developing a better knowledge of disease mechanisms and prevention, as well as enabling new drug discovery routes. However, there are challenges to understanding how they operate individually on the nano-scale. We seek to develop a new method capable of simultaneously trapping and probing individual proteins by combining the nano-fabrication expertise of the University of Glasgow and the individual-protein analysis expertise of the Universitätsklinikum Jena in Germany. We will do so by constructing optically-activated nanoscale ‘traps’ in a metallic thin-film. Based on a phenomenon known as plasmonic-resonance, these apertures, when activated by the correct wavelengths of light, will hold single proteins in place, while also providing enhanced electric-fields required for single-molecule FRET (fluorescence–resonance–energy–transfer) measurements.

13 Research Awardees 2017

CRF European Travel Fellowships – Visits to Europe

Dr Ian Astley Asian Studies, School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, University of Edinburgh Visiting: Dept. of Japanese and Centre for Advanced Studies, Munich University Exegetic strategies and the philosophy of language in Sino-Japanese Esoteric Buddhism: The commentarial works by Amoghavajra and Kukai All Buddhist traditions have grown through exposition, exegesis and commentary. Much work has been done since the Kuroda conference on Buddhist hermeneutics (1984), but very little has explored the way in which the Sino–Japanese Zhenyan/ Shingon tradition wove the impulse to exegesis into its esoteric framework and its innovative understanding of language and sound as an unmediated expression of the Buddha's awakening. Two crucial ﬁgures in the development of esoteric Buddhism in East Asia, Amoghavajra (701-74) and Kukai (774-835), systematised and developed a range of ritual practices and worked them into a new articulation of Mahayana Buddhist teachings. Through analysis of their exegetic works, we seek to reveal their interpretive strategies in their philosophic and political context.

Dr Iain Banks Centre for Battlefield Archaeology, School of Humanities, University of Glasgow Visiting: Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies, University of Helsinki Captivity and Confinement in the Arctic North: PoW camps and civilian internment camps in Lapland during WWII The project looks at PoW camps and other forms of confinement in wartime and peace time, considering the ways in which they are theatres of conflict between prisoners and guards, and between the inmates, and an element of the continuing war outside the camps; and also looking at the ways in which PoW camps can act as places of reconciliation, where inmates and local populations can negotiate a future based on the experiences of the camps being situated in a civilian landscape. The visit will also give me an opportunity to visit Sámi refugee internment camps in Sweden, to see the impact of conflict on civilian populations.

Dr Jacob Copeman Department of Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh Visiting: Centre for South Asian Studies, School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences and the French National Centre for Scientific Research, Paris A new approach to Indian secularism This research aims to close a gap in our understanding of Indian secularism, as well as shed light on the distinctive role played by personal names in facilitating socio-economic discrimination. It will do this by analysing personal naming techniques used by secular and rationalist activists to deliberately blur their caste and religious backgrounds. The research will be built around the following two questions: If personal names significantly catalyse socio-economic discrimination and inequality through revealing demographic information about their bearers (e.g., caste and/or religious statuses), what strategies do activists employ to bring the association between name and pigeonholed identity into question and how effective are they? The aim is to contribute new understandings of secularism, names and caste in contemporary India. In doing so, the research will enhance awareness of societal issues resulting from name-derived discrimination in India; thereby better informing policy-making communities’ response to this issue.

14 Research Awardees 2017

CRF European Travel Fellowships – Visits to Europe

Dr Bridget Heal School of History, University of St Andrews Visiting: Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Freie Universität, Berlin The Religious Reconstruction of Germany, 1635–1700 My project will focus on religious life in the Holy Roman Empire during and after the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48). It will draw on a wide variety of sources – both texts and images – to investigate the ways in which religion framed understandings of violence and suﬀering, not only at the level of clerical elites but also at the level of local communities. It will also ask how the traumas of the period shaped both Protestant and Catholic piety at the beginning of the Baroque era, investigating the gradual re-establishment of religious life post-1648. During my Research Fellowship, I will be based at the Freie Univeristät in Berlin, and will spend part of my time working in local libraries and archives in Saxony. This project will eventually form part of a larger, collaborative study of religious life in post-conﬂict contexts, which will bring together experts on all periods of German history.

Dr Catherine Jones Department of English, University of Aberdeen Visiting: Scaliger Institute, Leiden University, The Netherlands Historiography of Anatomy in the Northern European Atlantic World, c.1650–1800 The project will examine the rise and development of different genres of writing on anatomical practice, history and instruction in the Northern European Atlantic world. Focusing on the anatomical theatres of Leiden (established 1594) and Edinburgh (established 1697, influenced by the Leiden model), the project will investigate the relationship between writing on anatomical practice and its history and philosophies about human nature as presented in the arts and sciences of the Enlightenment in the Netherlands, Scotland and the wider Atlantic world. The project will show how the interplay of ideas and genres in writing on anatomical practice contributed to individual and collective understandings of the past and to the emergence – in the context of a new Enlightenment sociability and the concept of a public it generated – of the modern field of medical ethics. CRF European Travel Fellowships – Visit to Scotland Dr Agnieszka Koscianska Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw Visiting: Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh The History of European Non-normative Sexuality in the 1970s: Polish Sexology in Comparative Perspective The aim of this project is to strengthen trans-European and multidisciplinary connections as a part of the Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) project (Cruising the 1970s: Unearthing Pre-HIV/AIDS Queer Sexual Cultures [CRUSEV] http://www.crusev.ed.ac.uk/). CRUSEV focuses on the history of non-normative sexuality in the 1970s in the UK, Spain, Germany and Poland (project leader – Dr Glyn Davis). Dr Koscianska is a member of the Polish CRUSEV research team. During her stay at Edinburgh College of Art, she focused on putting her Polish research in comparative perspective. Drawing on archival and oral history research, she reconstructed the dialogue between sexologists and their patients. She reflects on the specificity of the Polish situation in the 1970s. Her research points to significant changes, which occurred during the course of the 1970s. However, the nature of these changes in state socialist Poland seems to be significantly different than that in Western Europe.

15 Research Awardees 2017

CRF European Travel Fellowships – Visits to Scotland

Dr Alexandra Peat Department of Literature, Franklin University, Switzerland Visiting: English, School of Arts and Creative Industries, Edinburgh Napier University Scottish Modernism and the 1938 Empire Exhibition My research centres on the 1938 British Empire Exhibition in Glasgow and its relation to Scottish Modernism. This exhibition was overshadowed by the threat of war and anti-imperial protests. It occurred in 1938, a year Margery Palmer McCulloch calls “critical” for Scotland’s literary culture. My project explores how this exhibition operates as a map, or even a mirror, to early 20th-Century Scotland, revealing a fraught community in a moment of transformation and thus raising complex questions about Scotland’s national, cultural and international identities. My research explores a wide range of texts that circulated around the event of the exhibition, including oﬃcial reports and guides, and discussions in a broad section of the press, from popular newspapers to magazines and periodicals. I also trace the literary responses to the exhibition from contemporary writers and artists, such as Neil Gunn, Hugh MacDiarmid, Edwin Morgan, John Buchan and John Grierson.

Dr Vasileios Syros Department of Social Sciences & Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä, Finland Visiting: School of History, Classics & Archaeology, University of Edinburgh Moses Almosnino’s Chronicle of the Ottoman Kings and Comparative History of Political Thought in the Early-Modern Mediterranean World The period between the 7th and the 13th Centuries witnessed the evolution of Islamic civilization and efflorescence of philosophical and religious thinking. While there is a substantial body of scholarship on the history of Jewish political ideas in the Arab context, little work has been done on the evolution of Jewish political thought in the Islamic world in the early modern era (16th–18th Cent.), particularly in the Ottoman Empire. This project seeks to fill this lacuna by tracing the emergence of Jewish political thought in the Ottoman context and indicating ways in which an in-depth comparative analysis of Ottoman–Jewish sources of political thought can shed new light on Jewish notions of political power, authority, civil identity and membership. More specifically, the project seeks to bring Moses Almosnino’s (1515–ca. 1580) Crónica de los Reyes Otomanos Chronicle of the Ottoman Kings) to the fore as one of the foundational works of the Jewish political tradition in the Ottoman world.

Dr Suzie Thomas Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies, University of Helsinki Visiting: Centre for Battlefield Archaeology, University of Glasgow Dark Heritage? Community responses to the material legacy of Second World War Encampments The research builds on data already gathered during the Lapland’s Dark Heritage research project (http://blogs.helsinki.fi/lapland-dark-heritage/) funded by the Academy of Finland. In order to add value to the data already gathered and being analysed, this project’s goal is to collect comparable data on the ways in which groups and communities perceive, engage with and utilise the Prisoner of War (PoW) site. I focus intensively on the former PoW encampment of Cultybraggan, Comrie, Perth and Kinross, also known as Camp 21. Cultybraggan is a community- owned site currently being developed, through the Comrie Development Trust, for a range of purposes, from commercial units through to allotments and heritage interpretation areas. The project identifies the ways in which local people have chosen to interact with the Cultybraggan site, and the extent to which the site’s conflict history (arguably ‘dark heritage’) has an impact on their perception of it.

16 Research Awardees 2017

Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Networks

Dr Stuart Airlie School of Humanities (History), University of Glasgow The Castle and the Palace The project will investigate the relationship between castles (often seen as instruments of oppression) and palaces (often seen as instruments of good government), to see if such a traditional opposition has any validity. The timeframe is the post-Carolingian period, i.e., from c.900–c.1100, often seen as a time of ‘feudal anarchy’ but also as one of state building, and we will scrutinise such periodisation. The focus covers western Europe, including the British Isles, but will also take in Islamic and Byzantine culture. Members of the network represent diﬀerent disciplines (history, archaeology) as well as diﬀerent national historiographies (Scottish, German, etc.)The network also includes members from the ‘heritage industry,’ and will critically consider how professional specialists communicate with, and learn from, a public interested in sites such as Edinburgh Castle and in depictions of the Middle Ages in programmes such as Game of Thrones.

Professor John Butt OBE FRSE Music, School of Culture and Creative Arts, University of Glasgow EAERN – Eighteenth-Century Arts Education Research Network The ﬁrst network meeting in Glasgow (May 25–26) involved presentations and discussions on directions to take the project, including the blog and upcoming workshop series, up to March 2018. The two research assistants have spoken at the Sound Heritage event in Sydney, Australia, Chawton House, the Women’s Study Group in London, the Art, Literature and Music conference in Edinburgh, the Musica Scotica conference in Stirling, the University of Edinburgh Eighteenth-century Studies Research Seminars and the US National Flute Association. They are presenting at the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies PG/ECR event in Swansea in September. We have, so far, received over 40 sign-ups from specialists across the world. We are now pursuing additional network funding from GU to involve other partners, including specialists and institutions in London, Europe and the US, including Monticello, Jeﬀerson’s home in Charlottesville, Virginia. Forthcoming events are at the University of Limerick, the Foundling Museum, London and Culzean Castle.

Dr Kirsteen McCue Scottish Literature & Centre for Robert Burns Studies, University of Glasgow Romantic National Song Network The aim of the proposed network is to explore and map the area of Romantic national song culture in Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales during the period 1750–1850. At this time of great political upheaval, the four nations of the British Isles (and many European nations) were actively collecting and disseminating what was presented to the public as ‘National Song’. While work has been done on some individual writers, composers and editors/publishers, there is still considerable confusion about the meaning of the term ‘National Song’ and little understanding of the relationships between the living song cultures of the British nations. Bringing together scholars working in literature and language, musicology, history of the book, and performance history, the network will map the ﬁeld bibliographically, exploring where these songs were published and performed, and will begin to establish how they shaped public perceptions of the diﬀerent national cultures of the British Isles.

17 Research Awardees 2017

Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Networks

Stories in Scotland Scotland’s teenagers are less likely to read for pleasure than in the past, partly because books increasingly compete with video narrative. Yet there is robust evidence that reading fiction for pleasure is correlated with attainment and wellbeing. What happens when verbal narratives lose out to moving image ones? What are the cognitive differences between experiencing a story in language or in moving images? Our highly successful 2016 RSE Workshop programme produced hypotheses that address these questions from the perspective of neuroscience and other disciplines. In this 2017–2019 RSE Network we will: • develop a major research grant to test these hypotheses; • develop Scotland’s potential as a future centre for research comparing film and text cognition; Dr Elspeth Jajdelska Dr Christopher Butler • hold and evaluate knowledge exchange events School of Humanities, Department of Neurology, to tailor impact plans for future research to University of Strathclyde University of Oxford emerge from the major research grant; • consolidate and expand relationships between academics and partner organisations; • exchange knowledge with partners, professionals and the public.

Unwrapping an Icon: New Research on the Lady in a Fur Wrap in the Stirling Maxwell Collection, Pollok House

The portrait known as the Lady in a Fur Wrap has been internationally renowned since it hung in the Louvre in the 19th Century. It was praised and reproduced in a seminal study of Spanish art by the Scottish scholar and collector, Sir William Stirling Maxwell, who later purchased it. Traditionally regarded as an early Spanish masterpiece by El Greco, c.1577–80, its attribution and dating have frequently been challenged, and the sitter variously identiﬁed as the artist’s daughter or mistress, or a princess or noblewoman of Philip II’s court. Bringing together leading art historians, curators, conservators and conservation scientists in Scotland and Spain, the network will use new research to assess the evidence in the many questions surrounding Professor Nick Pearce Dr Hilary Macartney the painting, provide a framework for its School of Culture & Creative Arts, History of Art, School of Culture interpretation and display within Scotland’s University of Glasgow & Creative Arts leading public collection of Spanish art, and oﬀer concrete outputs accessible to both University of Glasagow specialists and the wider public.

18 Research Awardees 2017

Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Networks

Life in Data: literacy, openness, education policy and creative data Life in Data brings together, for the first time innovation in Scotland in Scotland, a multidisciplinary network of scholars, creative and social entrepreneurs, policy makers, industry, educators and civic, public, and voluntary sectors, to deliberate the creative and pedagogical challenges, and civic potentials of data literacy. Through this collaborative enterprise, the project facilitates knowledge exchange between networks not previously connected, with the civic aim of transforming lives for the better, and to make innovative research on data literacy in Scotland more visible in the global research community. Data literacy is an emergent field in Science and Technology Studies. In a world where entire economies, communications infrastructure and media ecosystems are datafied, current understanding of data literacy’s centrality to everyday life remains variable. Such an environment, therefore, Dr Greg Singh Dr Eddy Borges-Rey presents pressing challenges and opportunities Division of Communications, Division of Communications, for the Arts and Humanities. Media and Culture, Media and Culture, University of Stirling University of Stirling

Existential Philosophy and Literature: The Franco–Scottish Connection Past and Present

The project focuses on the long-standing connection between Scottish and French theologians and writers, aiming to ensure a stronger cultural presence of Scotland in Europe and a wider recognition of the role which Scotland has played, and continues to play, in shaping conceptions of human existence, individual and universal values, cultural speciﬁcity, certainty and faith. The scheduled activities and knowledge exchange events intend to consolidate and extend the research links and collaboration between academic and external partners both at a local and European level, in order to maximise the impact of research carried out in Scotland and re-position the Scottish philosophical tradition at the centre of Dr Ramona Fotiade Professor Alexander Broadie FRSE European debates on key existential notions. School of Modern Languages Emeritus Professor of Logic & Cultures, & Rhetoric, University of Glasgow University of Glasagow

19 Research Awardees 2017

Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Small Grants

Dr Lindsay Blair Department of Art, University of the Highlands and Islands An Investigation of the Photographic Body of Work by Andrew Begbie Ovenstone (1851–1935) This is the ﬁrst book-length exploration of the work of photographer, Andrew Begbie Ovenstone (1851–1935). The archive of plates and photographic images are contained within a rare, unpublished private collection. AB Ovenstone – the Atlantic Freight Manager of Glasgow-based shipping company, Anchor Line – photographed Scotland, India and the furthest reaches of Empire. Ovenstone’s archive was built over a decade, between 1880 and 1890; it includes a collection of sixteen albums, each containing approximately 24 albumen prints, of Lochranza, Langbank, Greencastle, Carradale, Clyde, Tarbert, Cleghorn, Dunblane, Elie, Bute, Busby, Loch Fyne, Largo, Portencross and Ardbeg. Five albums of larger-format prints bring the total of prints in the archive to over 600. I am investigating the photographs from the perspective of cultural theory and aim to bring this collection – which is of global cultural signiﬁcance – into the national/international consciousness.

Dr Katherine Champion Division of Communications, Media and Culture, University of Stirling From the margins to the centre: the role of creative hubs in supporting contemporary craft and creative workers in rural and remote geographies Creative and cultural industries are an increasingly signiﬁcant element of rural economy, but investigation of the support of creative processes in such areas has remained neglected. Creative hubs can be used to mitigate issues associated with precarious patterns of work, by oﬀering opportunities for a supportive, safe context, as well as economies relating to proximity. This research will aim to capture the strengths, assets and capabilities of successful creative hubs (physical, virtual, temporal) in the Northern Isles of Scotland and explore their role in supporting the work of creative and craft workers in the region. In so doing, it aims to address the gap of the under-theorised and under-examined role of hubs in supporting creative work in rural and remote locations.

David Cowley Aerial Survey & Remote Sensing, Historic Environment Scotland Automating archaeology? Object detection, prospection, heritage management and big data Automated object detection is increasingly common in fields such as medical imaging and surveillance, and interest in its applications for archaeology is growing. This project will examine the potential of large area data, such as airborne laser scanning and aerial photography, in heritage management. Computer vision, artificial intelligence and convolutional neural networks (CNNs) that emulate the biological visual cortex offer new ways of looking at archaeological data. These approaches offer entirely systematic image processing and object detection in a field of practice that otherwise relies heavily on individual perception, also providing methods to grapple with ever-increasing complexity and volumes of data. These issues will be explored in the Scottish context, where increasing availability of digital topographic data and digital aerial photographs is outstripping the ability of the archaeological community to exploit it effectively for survey and heritage management.

20 Research Awardees 2017

Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Small Grants

Dr James G Devaney School of Law, University of Glasgow Judging International Judges: A Comparative Examination of the Disqualiﬁcation of Arbitrators in International Investment Law The issue of international investment arbitration is one which is increasingly attracting attention. The idea of secretive super courts beyond the law of any particular country which can force countries to pay huge sums of money to multinational corporations is one which understandably prompts concern. As scholars turn their attention to this emerging and incredibly important new area of law, many questions remain unanswered. This proposal focuses on one particular issue which goes to the heart of public concern; namely, the identity of those who sit in judgement of the claims brought before them. The proposal will investigate who these arbitrators are, how they are selected and how their appointment to such arbitrations is challenged. In doing so, the project will seek to assess how fair this process is procedurally and to draw a number of broader conclusions about this area of law which is of such contemporary importance.

Professor John Finlay School of Law, University of Glasgow Visiting: Shetland Museum and Archives, Lerwick The papers of Sheriff Charles Rampini (1840–1907) Charles Rampini, the first Scots Italian member of the Faculty of Advocates, was a district judge in Jamaica from 1867–1877. In 1878, he became Sheriff Substitute of Caithness, Orkney and Shetland, residing at Lerwick until he was transferred to Elgin as Sheriff Substitute in 1885. He became Sheriff Principal of Dumfries and Galloway in 1899. He wrote fiction, under the pseudonym George Temple, and, in his own name, works of (popular) history. The aim of the research was to examine his papers for information primarily about his legal career and his outlook as a lawyer with colonial experience. This is part of a wider project of research examining the development of the legal profession in Scotland, and the spread of Scots lawyers within the British Empire, in the 19th Century.

Dr Sally Foster Centre for Environment, Heritage and Policy, History and Politics, University of Stirling Concrete and non-concrete: an ethnographic study of the contemporary value and authenticity of historic replicas This is one of the ﬁrst qualitative social studies examining how replicas of historic objects and monuments ‘work’. With Professor Siân Jones (University of Stirling) and Dr Stuart Jeﬀrey (Glasgow School of Art), this project examines the forms of meaning, value and authenticity associated with replicas – debated yet unruly objects that potentially subvert or appropriate the authenticity and value of originals. Using focused ethnographic methods, it concentrates on the early-Christian carved stones at Iona, where originals and replicas co-exist in museum and landscape contexts, not least the St John’s Cross erected in front of Iona Abbey in 1970, arguably the most iconic of Iona’s monuments. Engaging with key communities of interest, our research is shedding new light on how replicas mediate people’s relationships with the past. The results of the project will advance recent interdisciplinary debates, and have important implications regarding when and how replicas are used.

21 Research Awardees 2017

Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Small Grants

Dr Ewan Gibbs Media Culture and Society, University of the West of Scotland Energy Policy and Scottish Coalfield Politics This study sheds new light on the renegotiation of the Union during the mid- late-20th Century by analysing the dynamic relationship between devolved and centralised policy making which shaped deindustrialisation. I am working towards completing an academic monograph, having added major new elements to my PhD Thesis based on research at the National Archives, which an RSE Small Research Grant supported. My Thesis provided a comprehensive analysis of contraction in Scotland’s largest coalfield in the mid-20th Century, Lanarkshire, between the 1940s and 1980s. Research at the National Archives has significantly extended the scope of my study through highlighting the place of coal within energy policy at UK level and within electricity generation in Scotland. The findings illuminate long-running political-economic concerns relating security, financial performance and employment. These matters were negotiated with particular attention to Scottish political dimensions in coalfield workforce planning and regional economic performance.

Dr Claudia Glatz Department of Archaeology, University of Glasgow Visiting: Northeast Iraq Khani Masi Excavations: The Ritual Production of Local and Imperial Identities in the Zagros–Mesopotamian Interface A ﬁrst season of large-scale excavations at the site of Khani Masi on the Sirwan/Upper Diyala River (Kurdish Region of Iraq), in August/September 2016, partially exposed a unique ritual and feasting complex, whose detailed analysis will provide unprecedented insights into the material practices through which Kassite–Babylonian (ca. 1500–1100 BC) imperial–local relationships were produced and negotiated in the western Zagros region and within the socially and politically highly-charged arenas of ritual and commensality. Following an additional season of excavations to fully expose this monumental structure and adjacent courtyard areas in 2017, faunal, archaeobotanical and organic residue analyses will be carried out to identify the food-stuﬀs being consumed, determine their likely local or imported nature, and to investigate local practices of food preparation and modes of consumption. This will allow us to begin to characterise the ways in which imperial and local cultural identities were constructed and negotiated.

Dr Craig Lamont Scottish Literature, University of Glasgow The Early Editions of Robert Burns, 1786–1802: towards a new descriptive bibliography This project will benefit both scholars and general readers of Scotland’s national poet. Burns’ poems and songs are well-known, the most famous are sung at New Year’s and during his birthday on January 25th. But less is known about his early editions where these lines were first printed. Of course, there is the Kilmarnock edition of 1786: Burns’ first book that launched his fame. But even today, the history of his second book is unclear. This project will answer lingering questions on these editions and the chapbook market of the late 1790s, during which time Burns’ poems were being sold cheaply in Glasgow. By travelling to the British Library in London, the Bodleian in Oxford and the A M Donaldson Burns Collection in Vancouver, more of these rare items will be seen and the truth of Burns works can be revealed in a user-friendly bibliography.

22 Research Awardees 2017

Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Small Grants

Professor Ray McKenzie Forum for Critical Inquiry, Glasgow School of Art Public Sculpture of Edinburgh The publication of a catalogue raisonné of the public sculpture of Edinburgh, including all free-standing monuments, statues attached to buildings and signiﬁcant programmes of relief carving (but excluding work in and on churches and in ceme- teries). The main catalogue will provide a discussion of the genesis, production, critical reception and art historical impact of approximately 300 works, all of which will be illustrated. There will also be a series of appendices dealing with historic works that have either been lost or removed, minor works and sculptural coats of arms, the information on which will be presented in the form of an annotated list. The two- volume study will be published by Liverpool University Press as part of its Public Sculpture of Britain series, eighteen volumes of which have appeared so far. Publication is scheduled for Summer 2018.

Dr Michael Penman Department of History, University of Stirling A Ground-Penetrating Radar Survey of Dunfermline Abbey Choir: Pilot Stage II As a Royal mausoleum and cult centre the Choir of the Benedictine Abbey of Dunfermline, Fife, represents one of the medieval Scottish kingdom’s greatest buildings, but a structure lost to the Reformation [1560] and the overbuilding of a new Protestant ‘Abbey Church’ [1818–21] and which has otherwise left little surviving historical or pictorial record. A two-day trial scan [13–14 June 2016] of sections of the Abbey Church used ground-penetrating radar to produce promising results in a search for evidence of the location and nature of burials and architectural features of the buried Choir. A second-stage pilot scan would thus see two further important areas surveyed. This will provide vital comparative data to enable a sharper interpretation of results from a complex site. This will contribute to a wider survey and re-interpretation of the whole medieval site.

Mr Bede Williams Music Centre, University of St Andrews The Music of Grey Seals I am researching ways that the creation of new music can be informed by research in other disciplines. Previous projects have resulted in newly-composed music based on research in theology and astronomy. The Music of Grey Seals is a project between composer and zoomusicologist Emily Doolittle, Vincent Janik (Director of the Scottish Oceans Institute) and myself. Emily is writing a new piece for the St Andrews New Music Ensemble, based on the sounds and interactions of seals around the coast of St Andrews. The new piece will be premiered during the St Andrews New Music Week in February 2018. The week as a whole will include performances of other pieces of music which are also based on marine mammal research.

23 Research Awardees 2017

Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Workshops

Poetry and Performance: Embodied Poetic Experience in Public This scholarly and practice-based project Spaces studies the audience’s experience of publically-performed poetry, in contrast to silent reading from the page. It addresses the role of sensorial experience and movement, in both the making and sharing of contemporary poetry as ‘common’ experience, responsive to the speciﬁc (in this case Scottish) cultural context. It focuses on the live performance of print, sound and digital poetry and seeks to analyse the role of the body, of both performer and spectator in experiencing poetry. One of our key objectives is to explore creative approaches to collecting data on the way both poets/performers and audience engage with poetry events and on how they may perceive themselves as part of a cultural community. This project constitutes a key step in understanding the way performance as an embodied poetic experience contributes Dr Elodie Laűgt Professor Andrew Roberts to (re)deﬁning poetry’s social function. School of Modern Languages, School of Humanities, University of St Andrews University of Dundee

Uncovering civilian war trauma among female Belgian refugees This project intends to stimulate research on in Scotland during the First World War the timely subject of civilian war trauma via a case study of female Belgian refugees in Scotland 1914–18. ‘Shell shock’ during the First World War is overwhelmingly associated with male frontline soldiers. Few academic studies consider the impact of warfare on female wellbeing, particularly on the health of female civilians. This project links the care and support of present-day refugees with Scotland’s historic support for refugees via the housing of close to 20,000 Belgian refugees in Scotland during the First World War. It considers local authority welfare and health care support for civilian Belgian refugees and will explore to what extent this met the needs of those traumatised by war, with emphasis on female war trauma. This project will establish ongoing research networks to further investigate Scotland’s support for wartime refugees during and since the First World War. Dr Jacqueline Jenkinson Dr Caroline Verdier Division of History and Politics, School of Humanities, University of Stirling University of Strathclyde

24 Research Awardees 2017

Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Workshops

The Outermost Neolithic – Exploring Early Farming Communities The early prehistoric landscapes of Shetland in Shetland are among the best preserved in Europe, and a unique resource for the study of early farming communities. Extensive boundary systems, ﬁelds, houses, tombs and stone tool workings survive across many areas, and are complemented by excellent sources of palaeo-environmental information in peat and freshwater sediments. Landscapes of this date elsewhere tend to be fragmented, so Shetland oﬀers an exciting opportunity to understand how communities dealt with the ‘new technology’ of farming. Shetland’s potential has been demonstrated by recent intermittent research with excellent results, and the time is ripe for a major research funding application building on existing strands of research in a landscape framework. This workshop brought together researchers active on Shetland to begin building a network Mr David Cowley Dr William Megarry for such a funding application. This is Aerial Survey & Remote Sensing, The School of Natural and Built anticipated to establish the major importance Historic Environment Scotland Environments, of the Shetland landscape for the understanding The Queen’s University, Belfast of Neolithic Scotland and Western Europe.

Suffering and Autonomy at End of Life Scotland’s ageing population challenges our established theory and practice concerning end of life care. This series of interdisciplinary workshops considers how to protect the core human value of autonomy in geriatric and palliative care. We focus first on theory, exploring the relationship between suffering and autonomy at end of life, and consider how suffering can both threaten and augment autonomy. We then turn to practice, bringing together academics, policymakers and practitioners to consider how the identified effects of suffering and autonomy are currently reflected in medical and legal regulatory frameworks, and how those frameworks might be reformed. These developments in theory and practice will make a substantial contribution to the aim of guaranteeing the conditions of autonomy for all citizens, not only in the prime of life, but also at its end. Dr Ben Colburn Dr Jennifer Corns Department of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, University of Glasgow University of Glasgow

25 Research Awardees 2017

Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Workshops

Political Petitioning and Public Engagement in Early Modern In a modern democracy, petitions serve as an Scotland, Britain and Northern Europe essential means of communication between citizens and their elected representatives. Yet the evolution of petitioning, from humble medieval pleas to modern on-line campaigns, is little understood. This project will explore a crucial transformation in the early modern period (c.1550 to 1795), when petitions became more public, assertive and collective with the aid of print technology. Two international workshops will consider how petitioning allowed ordinary people to participate in national politics and how this aﬀected the development of representative politics in Scotland and elsewhere. The workshops will uncover typical petitioning practices and examine case studies on petitioning and participation. Our scholars will collaborate with the Petitions Committee at the Scottish Parliament to Dr Karin Bowie Professor Thomas Munck provide historical perspective on Scottish School of Humanities (History), School of Humanities (History), petitioning for the committee’s website, public University of Glasgow University of Glasgow exhibitions and community Parliament Days.

Trading Places: comparing and collecting the Scottish commercial This project aims to expand academic diaspora knowledge and improve museum interpretation of Scotland’s commercial diaspora, focusing on the material culture of short-term economic migration. The workshops bring together museum and academic historians to consider the Scottish commercial presence in Northern Europe and East Asia, from the 17th to the 21st Century. With this case study approach, we are exploring comparisons across place and time, between the early modern and the modern and contemporary periods, considering questions about networks, identity and memory in a transient environment. High on the news agenda and prominent in political discourse, migration is emerging as one of the deﬁning phenomena of our own times, one that is perceived as a uniquely Dr Stuart Allan Dr Tanja Bueltmann modern global challenge. Can heightened Department of Scottish History Department of Humanities, understanding of commercial migration from and Archaeology, Northumbria University Scotland in the past be of value in building National Museums Scotland relationships among communities coming to Scotland today?

26 Research Awardees 2017

Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Workshops

Workshop of Potential Scottish Literature A workshop to explore the potential for collaboration between individuals and institutions involved in the pedagogy, support and dissemination of Creative Writing, in order to investigate the role and responsibilities of Creative Writing at HE level as an agenda setter in Scotland’s literary culture. The objective of the workshop is to draft a ‘provocation paper’ for dissemination in the HE and industry context. Responses to this document will inform a proposal for a wider network of Creative Writing practitioners working in HE and within other Scottish cultural bodies. The overall aim is to establish conditions for a network that will promote collaboration, excellence and equality of access to, and representation within, the literary industries in Scotland.

Professor Louise Welsh Zöe Strachan Creative Writing/ English Literature, School of Critical Studies, University of Glasgow University of Glasgow

Maria Fletcher School of Law, University of Glasgow Scottish Universities Legal Network on Europe – “EU Constitutional Dialogues – Re-imagining the future following the UK referendum on EU membership.” This project was to facilitate the design and delivery of research-led, knowledge exchange workshops on key topics aﬀected by Brexit – Constitutions, Borders, Rights and Citizenship and Security. Maria Fletcher, Director of the Scottish Universities Legal Network on Europe (SULNE) acted as PI on this project on behalf of the whole network.

27 Research Awardees 2017

Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Workshops

Shauna McMullan Sculpture and Environmental Art Department, School of Fine Art, Glasgow School of Art Visiting: Pollok House, The National Trust for Scotland, Glasgow Cabinet Interventions This research project is concerned with the relationship between historic and contemporary representations of Scottish national identity and landscapes and how these get articulated through our cultural institutions and national collections. A collaboration between contemporary artists and The National Trust for Scotland, and located within one of its key properties, Pollok House, Cabinet Interventions will develop new and original research into the role, potentials and limitations of material culture in deﬁning place. The methodology for this project is practice based. Through the cultivation of an artist-led, practice-based, research group, artists will interpret, question and respond to the context of, and collections within, Pollok House, creating contemporary objects, events and interventions that frame and initiate new dialogues, and contribute to the future, creative, cultural consciousness of Pollok House and The National Trust for Scotland.

Dr James Nott School of History, University of St Andrews Let’s Dance! Scotland’s Social Dancing History 1920–60 This project focuses on a key cultural tradition and vital part of Scotland’s national heritage – social dancing. This includes both the cultural activity of dancing and the built environment in which it took place. A highly successful Research Workshop was held in June 2017, bringing together those in academia and Scottish cultural institutions to discuss how this cultural heritage might be preserved, and how it can be disseminated to as many people as possible. The research workshops examined how historians, artists and others might work together in a range of fruitful ways. A number of experimental collaborations were discussed and the workshops have led to the creation of an exhibition on Edinburgh’s dance halls in conjunction with the Living Memory Association, and the building of an interactive website plotting the city’s dance venues in partnership with Edinburgh City Libraries, both to be unveiled from October.

Dr Elizabeth Reeder Creative Writing (English Literature), University of Glasgow On Genre-Bending Essaying: Catalyst Conversations and Workshops on the Potential Impact of Experimental and Hybrid Writing in Scotland In times of sudden political shifts, violent acts, and considerable cultural change (as exempliﬁed by Brexit, events in Calais, the Black Lives Matter movement, discussions around Scottish Independence, and ongoing explorations of issues pertaining to gender, race, equality and migration), we often turn to writers to help us question and understand situations that trouble us. Cross-genre writing (e.g., Rankine’s Citizen; Solnit’s Hope in the Dark) has the potential to bring complicated, diﬃcult subjects to the attention of wider audiences in complex, thought-provoking ways. Towards this end, we will run a series of writing workshops and public events bringing writers, artists, academics and readers together to think about how and why we write and read between and beyond genres, forms and disciplines. These conversations will encourage new writing and collaborations, underpinned by the idea that the experimental essay is a powerful form in which essential ideas are hashed out and communicated.

28 Research Awardees 2017

Scottish Government Arts & Humanities Workshops

Dr Richard W Whitecross Accountancy, Finance and Law, Edinburgh Napier University Unaccompanied Minors: Law, Policy and Accessing Rights in Scotland Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are a vulnerable group: they live not only in a diﬃcult situation as minor refugees staying in another country, but face other risks due to the absence of their parents, such as traumatic experiences, exploitation or abuse. Globally, according to UNHCR, children make up 50% of the refugee community and up to 15% are either unaccompanied or separated from their families. Recent research suggests that whilst various international NGOs and national agencies focus on seeking to provide appropriate emotional and psychological support and care, they fail to address those priorities articulated by the children themselves; for example, access to citizenship in the receiving state. In a series of workshops focused around the themes of reception, protection and integration, policy makers, lawyers, social workers, psychologists and educationalists will explore these concerns in relation to unaccompanied child refugees in Scotland, to identify durable solutions.

Professor Neil Walker FRSE Dr Cormac Mac Amhlaigh Professor Claudio Michelon Law School, Law School, Law School, University of Edinburgh University of Edinburgh University of Edinburgh

The Law and Polity Project This research looks very broadly at the changing relationship between Law and ‘Polity’ in the contemporary age. The sovereign state has been the dominant polity of the modern age, and law, as well as being supported by the material power of the state, has been key both to the state’s institutional organisation and to the expression of its values. The centrality of the law/state coupling in our governance architecture has been increasingly challenged, however, by a number of recent global tendencies, which we proceed to examine. These are the development of new forms of polity nesting within and beyond the state, the extension of transnational policy domain specialisation and, more generally, the disembedding of certain ‘universal’ frameworks of legal normativity (such as human rights) from any and all polity settings.

29 Research Awardees 2017

Scottish Enterprise Enterprise Fellowships (April 2017)

Dr Steven Hammer Engineering and Physical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University The ProstaPalp test: objective prostate cancer diagnosis, monitoring and screening Prostate cancer is the most common cancer found in men, but is often indolent. Early diagnosis relies on a blood test (PSA) and a digital rectal examination and may be followed up by a biopsy. Up to 76% of men who are sent for biopsy do not have clinically significant cancer and could benefit from non-invasive monitoring. There is, therefore, a strong clinical need for an objective and reliable prostate cancer diagnostic, monitoring and screening test. Palpation Diagnostics aims to reduce the number of men who are unnecessarily referred for further treatment following an initial diagnosis. To do this, we are developing an objective point-of-care test that measures and classifies prostate tissue non-invasively. This disposable device integrates into the current prostate cancer diagnostic pathway, and could make diagnosis and screening more accurate and less uncomfortable.

Dr David F Mahon Director of Lynkeos Technology Ltd Nuclear Physics Group, University of Glasgow Commercialisation of the Lynkeos Technology Ltd Muon Imaging System for Non-Destructive 3D Imaging of Shielded Structures Lynkeos Technology Ltd is a University of Glasgow spin-out company that specialises in muon tomography technology. The Lynkeos muon imaging system (MIS) has been developed in Glasgow with £4.8million of R&D funding from Sellafield Ltd and the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. This system uses naturally-occurring background radiation, in the form of cosmic-ray muons, to provide a high-resolution 3D image of the contents of shielded structures. The primary market for this system is in nuclear waste container inspection, where there are no other technologies capable of characterising these heavily-shielded drums. Lynkeos was awarded £1.6million from Innovate UK in April 2017 to commercialise the MIS and to carry out the first-of-a-kind deployment of this technology within the global nuclear industry. This programme of work, which runs in parallel with the Fellowship year, will culminate with final deployment of a commercialised MIS in March 2018 at the National Nuclear Laboratory facility in Preston.

Dr Fiona Rudkin MRC Centre for Medical Mycology, University of Aberdeen mycoBiologics Invasive fungal infections (IFIs) kill 1.5 million people every year. A major problem is the lack of accurate, discriminative diagnostic tests and ineﬀective treatments. Multi-drug resistance is on the rise and new approaches to therapy are urgently required. Based at the MRC Centre for Medical Mycology at the University of Aberdeen, mycoBiologics is a pre-spinout anti infectives company specialising in the targeted treatment of common and multi-drug-resistant (MDR) pathogens. Our current portfolio of highly directed, IP-protected antibodies target Candida – one of the ‘Big Four’ major human fungal pathogens. These have already been validated in early-stage diagnostic and preclinical therapeutic settings. When used in combination with current antifungals, they will improve the eﬀectiveness of marketed drugs and provide healthcare professionals with a safer, more targeted option for therapy, whilst also decreasing resistance development and the length and cost of hospital stays.

30 Research Awardees 2017

Scottish Enterprise Enterprise Fellowships (April 2017)

Tomasz Sadowski School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow Opinew When shopping online, people want to make their decisions quickly and without the hassle of reading many reviews. So it is crucial for internet retailers to help their customers make the best, most informed decision in that short time span. Our product helps reduce decision fatigue for online shoppers when purchasing from independent online retailers by using our proprietary predictive text analytics system, which learns what indicators (or features) of a review make it appropriate to present to a user by using state-of-the-art machine learning. We also give retailers an opportunity to sell more. We use the collected review data to fuel our central website where people can search for the best products sold by our partners. We are a product comparison website that also collects and manages reviews for the retailers.

Jordan Smith Product Design Engineering, Glasgow School of Art pkt by Oddity Innovations “pkt" is the eﬃcient, reliable and fully recyclable packaging solution for the parcel networks. It brings our ‘peel to reveal’, (patent pending) technology to the consumer, allowing easy packaging of any item regardless of size or shape.

Scottish Enterprise Enterprise Fellowship (October 2017)

Sydney Chasin Department of Research and Innovation, Edinburgh Napier University lil’POP The Healthy Crop The Healthy Crop Ltd has developed Europe’s ﬁrst ever packaged popped sorghum product, lil’POP. Popped sorghum looks like miniature popcorn, but is made with a grain that is water resource saving and nutrient rich.

31 Research Awardees 2017

Scottish Enterprise Enterprise Fellowships (October 2017)

Andrew Davidson Research and Innovation Department, University of Stirling Charge Hydration™ – Performance Enhancing Hydration System. (By AS D-Zine Ltd) Hydration and performance go hand-in-hand; a 2% drop in hydration levels can impact physical and mental performance by up to 20%. To help encourage optimum hydration, I am developing a Patent Pending hydration product, which delivers plain water or a sports drink from a single source. The device is small, lightweight and delivers a scientiﬁcally formulated sports drink at the ﬂick of a switch. The device can be attached to any hydration reservoir (such as a CamelBak) meaning users have the option to use their pre-existing kit. There is no contamination of the hydration reservoir and the device will have built-in antimicrobial technology, making the whole system easily cleaned. The product is targeted at endurance activity participants, with the beachhead market being Mountain Bikers. During the Fellowship, further testing and design iterations will take place before launch, which is set to take place during the Fellowship.

Sukrit (Roy) Hotrabhvanon Edinburgh Research and Innovation, University of Edinburgh PlayerData Currently, if you want to collect a combination of movement and biometric data, you are limited to using multiple solutions and usually restricted in a lab environment, costing upwards of £5,000. Through capturing requirements directly from elite Scottish sports clubs, we have designed a product intended to disrupt this space and take high-fidelity data capture into the field. What we have designed is essentially a human telemetry system, a base-layer filled with biometric sensors to capture your vitals and even turn you into a 3D model. The integration of all these sensors into one device will be a world first and we are pitching it at the current price of mid- to high-end wearables. We believe this product can affect real change in the industry by offering an open platform for researchers and by allowing the consumer market access to technology previously only found in high-end research labs.

Peter Orrell James Hutton Ltd, The James Hutton Institute, Dundee MycoNourish - Beneficial microbes that allow growers to reduce fertiliser use Fertiliser costs are rising, increasing pressures on crop growers, and their use leads to environmental problems such as eutrophication and acidification. Growers face additional pressures to improve the sustainability of their farms, and reduce fertiliser usage. We are developing soil inoculants made from ‘arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi’, which improve the growth of crops and reduce the amount of fertiliser required to grow them. These microbes are natural soil-dwelling fungi that can form a beneficial relationship with plants, acting as a secondary root system and improving a plant’s ability to access and use fertilisers. Our fungi are a natural part of crop production systems, forming relationships with most crops, and are present in the majority of production systems. Our product helps to tailor these interactions, to give the best possible benefit to plants, providing a reliable, sustainable means of reducing fertiliser usage and improving crop yields.

32 Research Awardees 2017

NERC Enterprise Fellowships (April 2017)

Dr Rotimi Alabi Department of Geology and Petroleum Geology, School of Geosciences, University of Aberdeen RAB-Microfluidics Diagnosing early, potential failure of heavy machiney is critical to operations across many industries. For this reason, industrial busineses in 2016 spent £2.01Bn on state-of-the-art oil condition monitoring (OCM) tehniques. These techniques, however, are inefficient, expensive and environmentally unfriendly. For example, an additional £2.1Bn was spent in 2016 on breakdowns, repairs and costs associated with downtime losses, highlighting the inefficiency of current OCM technologies. We have developed cutting-edge microfluidic ‘Lab-on-a-chip’ technology that delivers OCM analysis 1000x faster and 10x cheaper than the current approaches. Specifically offering customers real-time continuous monitoring, early problem diagnosis, rapid decision making, enhanced efficiency and cost savings.

Dr Leon Baruah Department of Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Sussex Viridian Logic: Optimising natural habitat regeneration to maximise benefits to both people and nature There is a need for regional or national plans to provide the framework for natural resource management, and the additional need of local knowledge for implementation, since not all high-service provision is aligned with environmental gain. The Viridian Logic platform is a geographical information system (GIS), using novel methods in computing and ecosystems research to suggest best-practice land uses for areas that are are prone to flooding (and/or sedimentation/pollution of rivers). Viridian Logic achieves this by computing hydrology for river landscapes, enhancing it with ecology research, to rank parcels of land for their ability to mitigate flooding. Identifying the areas of least ability, and then proposing various habitat planting schemes, the platform delivers maps that describe the optimal land use change in an area, to reduce flooding/sedimentation/diffuse pollution that affects communities downstream.

Dr Murray Collins Edinburgh Research and Innovation, University of Edinburgh SigmaTree: supplying forest degradation mapping using satellite radar data Deforestation is one of the world’s most urgent environmental problems, driving climate change, depriving the world’s poorest people of essential raw materials and causing huge biodiversity loss. In response, hundreds of companies, including McDonalds and Unilever, have recently made commitments to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains by 2020, and The Paris Agreement on Climate Change commits developed countries to spending billions of dollars to halt deforestation in developing countries. This has created a huge demand for forest monitoring services. However, there is currently no service providing timely deforestation mapping data. We will address this unmet demand through our deforestation detection system, using our unique algorithm and freely-available satellite radar data. Our vision is to be the industry-standard supplier of high-quality, cost-eﬀective, large-scale forest monitoring services. The business will have a high-quality revenue stream from annual subscriptions from a range of client segments, supplemented by consulting revenues.

33 Research Awardees 2017

NERC Enterprise Fellowships (April 2017)

John Ferguson Edinburgh Research and Innovation, Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation, University of Edinburgh Novel Uses of Sisal Fibre Sisal is a highly sustainable fibre crop grown in east Africa. Traditionally, it was used for making ropes and sacks; however, there has been little innovation with it for the past fifty years. As consumers move towards more ethical and sustainable materials, we believe sisal has a role to play. We have researched multiple applications; however, we are currently focusing on sustainable building materials and, specifically, sisal insulation. Although healthy and natural insulation products only make up a very small proportion of the UK market, it is a rapidly growing area. In addition to growing a successful business and giving consumers the option of a more sustainable product, we also aim to help small-scale sisal farmers in East Africa trade their way out of poverty.

Dr Peter Long Department of Zoology, University of Oxford Oxford Environmental Tools Oxford Environmental Tools provides web-based environmental decision-support tools to inform land use planning by businesses. The mapping tools are easy to use, and provide reliable and actionable information at a spatial scale relevant to decision makers. The Local Ecological Footprinting Tool (LEFT) www.left.ox.ac.uk is an online mapping tool which supports biodiversity risk assessments across landscapes by identifying important ecological features. The tool automatically assembles data, performs analysis and produces a customised report. The Natural Capital Tool, which provides information on the provision of key ecosystem services, will be launched in 2017.

BBSRC Enterprise Fellowship (April 2017)

Dr Lissa Rocha Herron Edinburgh Research & Innovation/The Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh Eggcellent Proteins Therapeutic proteins, or biologics, make up about one quarter of global pharmaceutical sales, with an expected market of over $250B by 2017. Biologics are expensive to manufacture, primarily due to the high costs of development and upstream production in cell culture systems, and this is passed on to the consumer as a high-cost pharmaceutical product or research reagent. These high costs mean that the agricultural and veterinary markets are largely priced out of accessing these drugs, and research is limited by how much an academic laboratory can aﬀord on tight grant budgets. Using the transgenic hen bioreactor to produce therapeutic proteins, production costs can be dramatically reduced, due to the large quantity of protein expressed in the egg at much lower capital costs compared to cell culture systems. Our system allows for the production of therapeutic proteins accessible to the animal health and reagents markets, while maintaining a strong proﬁt margin.

34 Research Awardees 2017

BBSRC Enterprise Fellowship (October 2017)

Dr Jon Cuccui Department of Pathogen Molecular Biology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Low-cost recombinant vaccines for improved animal health Animal health is a multibillion-pound industry. However, current vaccines are invariably reliant on traditional technologies that consist of crude preparations and are often toxic or ineffective. Given the accepted need to reduce antibiotic use in the livestock industry, the need to develop low-cost, effective animal vaccines is a current global imperative. My research at the LSHTM has resulted in the development of a glycoengineering technology platform to produce low-cost combination glycoconjugate vaccines to protect against multiple animal pathogens. Glycoconjugate vaccines have been proven in human vaccinology, with over a billion doses used worldwide, but due to technical difficulties and cost, such vaccines have never penetrated the veterinary medicine market. Based on a decade of experience in bacterial glycobiology and glycoengineering, I have developed new methods and genetic tools for producing recombinant vaccines which I aim to apply to the veterinary market. STFC Enterprise Fellowships (October 2017)

Dr Yan-Jie Schnellbach Department of Physics, University of Liverpool Low-Cost Radiation Sensors Scintillator-based radiation sensors are commonplace in many applications, including the security sector, medical facilities and nuclear installations and laboratories. However, traditional scintillator materials are often hard to handle, volatile or expensive per unit volume. As a result, these sensors tend to be compact and placed in speciﬁc locations. A new type of non-hazardous plastic-based scintillator can be produced in large quantities at much lower unit cost, thanks to modern manufacturing and readout techniques. This project is about commercialising this new type of scintillator and the new applications it allows. With the lower cost, high production volume and the ability to ﬂexibly size the material, uses that were previously too expensive or specialised are now opened up, allowing for a wide range of large-area low-cost radiation sensors.

Dr James Waterfield School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Sussex Pulser Optics Pulser Optics is a soon-to-be-founded company which specialises in compact, cost-effective and customisable sub-nanosecond light sources. The nanopulser is a pulsed LED light source that was originally developed for the SNO+ experiment. SNO+ is a neutrino experiment which contains approximately 9500 photomultiplier tubes that need to be calibrated to within a nanosecond of precision. Pulser Optics provides bespoke systems for experiments so that researchers can concentrate on the analysis rather than building their own calibration systems. The nanopulser can also be used as an excitation source for various applications, such as time-correlated single photon counting, fluorescence spectroscopy and DNA sequencing. During the course of the Fellowship, Pulser Optics hopes to break into these various exciting markets and become a successful spin-out company.

35 Research Awardees 2017

Participants in Scottish Crucible 2017

Dr Mhairi Alexander Dr Miranda Anderson Dr Chiara Bernardi Dr Heidi Burdett Dr Hannah Burrows Institute of Biomedical College of Humanities Communications, Lyell Centre for Earth Centre for Scandinavian and Environmental and Social Sciences, Media and Culture, and Marine Science Studies, Health Research, University of Edinburgh University of Stirling and Technology, University of Aberdeen University of the Heriot-Watt University West of Scotland

Dr Natalie Gorenkova Dr Silvia Gratz Dr Abigail Hird Dr Louise Hoyle Dr Robin Ince Strathclyde Institute Rowett Institute, Design, Manufacture School of Health Institute of Neuroscience of Pharmacy and University of Aberdeen and Engineering and Social Care, and Psychology, Biomedical Sciences, Management, Edinburgh Napier University of Glasgow University of Strathclyde University of Strathclyde University

Dr Jose Marques-Hueso Dr Craig McKenzie Dr Giuseppe Paladini Dr Yong Sung Park Dr Brian Patton Institute of Sensors, Centre for Anatomy and Institute of Aquaculture, School of Science Department of Physics, Signals and Systems, Human Identiﬁcation, University of Stirling and Engineering, University of Strathclyde Heriot-Watt University University of Dundee University of Dundee

36 Research Awardees 2017

Participants in Scottish Crucible 2017

Dr David Childs Dr Katherine Duncan Dr Jonathan Fraser Dr Susana Garcia Lopez Dr Eleanor Gilroy School of Engineering, Strathclyde Institute Mathematics School of Engineering Cell and Molecular University of Glasgow of Pharmacy and and Statistics, and Physical Sciences, Sciences, Biomedical Sciences, University of St Andrews Heriot-Watt University James Hutton Institute University of Strathclyde

Dr Catherine Jones Dr Asimina Kazakidi Dr Kirsty Loudon Dr Issie MacPhail Dr Marianna Markantoni Electronic and Electrical Biomedical Nursing, Midwifery and Division of Health Land Economy, Engineering, Engineering, Allied Health Professionals Research, Rural Health Environment and University of Strathclyde University of Strathclyde Research Unit, and Wellbeing, Society Group, University of Stirling University of the Scotland’s Rural College Highlands and Islands

Dr Matthieu Poyade Dr Lucas Richert Dr Alice Toniolo Dr Stephen Wallace Dr Liu Yang School of Simulation School of Humanities School of Computer School of Biological Mechanical and and Visualisation, and Social Sciences, Science, University Sciences, Aerospace Engineering, The Glasgow University of Strathclyde of St Andrews University of Edinburgh University of Strathclyde School of Art

37 Scottish Crucible is an award-winning leadership and development programme for Scotland’s ‘Research leaders of the future’. Over the past nine years, the programme has selected 273 highly-talented researchers representing all academic disciplines, universities and research organisations across Scotland to take part in its prestigious programme. Each annual cohort goes on to join the Scottish Crucible Alumni Network, continuing to work together to forge new ideas for pan-Scotland collaboration in research and innovation. Scottish Crucible aims to foster development of four key attributes: collaboration; interdisciplinarity; innovation; and leadership, inspiring researchers to be more ambitious, creative and innovative in their research and interdisciplinary collaborations. The programme runs via a series of intensive, two-day workshops (called ‘Labs’) held between April and June each year, comprising a wealth of guest speakers, seminars, skills sessions, tours and informal discussions. Participants gain a unique opportunity to broaden their networks with senior colleagues from diﬀerent sectors, including the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scottish Government, Scottish Parliament, business and industry.

38 The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland’s National Academy of Science & Letters. It is an independent body with charitable status. The Society organises conferences and lectures for the specialist and for the general public. It provides a forum for informed debate on issues of national and international importance. Its multidisciplinary Fellowship of men and women of international standing provides independent, expert advice to key decision-making bodies, including Government and Parliaments. The Society’s Research Awards programme annually awards well over £2 million to exceptionally talented young researchers to advance fundamental knowledge, and to develop potential entrepreneurs to commercialise their research and boost wealth generation. Among its many public beneﬁt activities, the RSE is active in classrooms from the Borders to the Northern Isles, with a successful programme of lectures and hands-on workshops for primary and secondary school pupils. The Royal Society of Edinburgh, working as part of the UK and within a global context, is committed to the future of Scotland’s social, economic and cultural wellbeing. The Royal Society of Edinburgh

Telephone: +44 (0) 131 240 5000

e.mail [email protected] www.rse.org.uk

22–26 George Street, Edinburgh EH2 2PQ

The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scottish Charity No. SC000470 The RSE Scotland Foundation is a connected charity, registered in Scotland as Scottish Charity No. SC024636