Hear from Shunsei a Second Year BSc Student on their summer internship experience

By leonie.dunn, on 16 October 2024

During the summer I did two short internships, both lasting about a month. The first was at the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies (ISEP) which is a policy research NGO that also works to expand renewable energy projects across Japan. The second was at an ODA organisation called the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

My main responsibilities at ISEP were to record and format meeting minutes from calls/interviews with the local community and newspapers. I also drafted ISEP’s plan for intermediary support with the Japan Centre for Climate Change Actions. At JICA, the main goal of the internship was to learn about JICA’s local centres’ activities, speak with local actors and ultimately propose new materials/topics that JICA’s local centre should work on. This gave me the flexibility to choose and contact organisations that I wanted to interview to use as material for the proposal.

I chose to apply for these internships because I knew that my summer break was going to be long and I thought it would be a great time to learn topics I am interested in and to use material I have learnt during first year in real life context. Studying on the course and at UCL helped when applying to the internships. For the ISEP internship, the senior researcher was interested in the work I engaged in at UCL’s energy society. During the interview, understanding concepts and terminology such as “Feed in Tariffs” and “the difference between kW and kWh” from STEP0039 Society, Systems and Change and ENGF0014 Engineering Thinking 1, respectively, helped me answer the questions and secure the internship.

For JICA, the director of JICA Hokuriku was interested in the BSc Science and Engineering for Social Change course itself, since multi/inter-disciplinary courses are also increasing in Japan and he wanted to know the difference. During the interview, we brought up topics such as “Bounded rationality” which was introduced in STEP0041 Policy co-design 1 and discussed the difficulties of decision-making in the Japanese government with the director. My understanding of those topics allowed me to engage in the discussion and make meaningful comments during the interview which I hope gave a good impression to them.

At ISEP, I was able to facilitate a citizen assembly which was one of the policy co-design tools discussed in STEP0041 Policy co-design 1. The citizen assembly was about revitalising an old city, and what facilities would residents want that would make their lives more fun/convenient. We gave post-it notes to the participants, and they wrote what they wanted on the yellow ones. Later on, we mixed up the group and discussed what topics had come up in the previous group and I wrote down some keywords that I found important. It was almost like hope and fear cards, except the fear cards were not used because the first session was intended to be as light-hearted and positive as possible. Since this was my first time actually engaging with a community, I was nervous and unsure if I would be able to do it well, but it was an excellent opportunity to actually engage in an activity that was taught in class.

Author: Shunsei Kobayashi, Second Year BSc Science and Engineering for Social Change student.

Seaweed revolution – how can we support the emergent seaweed industry to deliver a more sustainable future?

By luis.lacerda, on 19 July 2024

As the new Government comes into power, the UK’s ambition to position itself as a global clean Energy Superpower has been renewed. Government has expressed the need to invest in a new industrial strategy where sustainability goals are critical to deliver economic growth and achieve clean energy by 2030. This includes investing in new jobs and technologies and exploring responsible ways to utilise the UK’s naturally available bioresources.

Seaweed (macroalgae) has a pivotal role to play in delivering ambitions on clean energy, and incubation and support for this emerging industry must feature in the future industrial strategy to unlock the transformative potential it can offer. Seaweed-derived bioproducts can be used to displace fossil fuel-derived compounds across multiple sectors, including plastics, fabrics, fuels, pharmaceuticals, and the nutraceuticals industries. Furthermore, seaweed can capture more carbon than it releases to the atmosphere (carbon sink), contributing as a natural tool to tackle climate change.

To unlock these benefits, we must scale up seaweed biorefineries in the UK, but there are several engineering, bioscience and societal challenges currently holding this back. Tackling these challenges and demonstrating the feasibility and potential of scaled-up seaweed biorefineries in the UK, is the focus of important research currently being conducted by Dr Emily Kostas at the new Manufacturing Futures Lab at UCL East. It is envisioned that this research will encourage Government to support UK seaweed aquaculture and increase the availability of this versatile and sustainable feedstock.

Despite important efforts to map and characterize opportunities for seaweed farming across the UK [1]^,[2], there has been no strong policies and support at the necessary scale to realize the ambitions set above. Numerous UK companies are, in fact, currently importing seaweed from abroad (Norway and the Faroe Islands) due to the lack of a constant supply and adequate amount of seaweed biomass that is currently available here in the UK, which clearly demonstrates that there is demand and that the market is ready for this transition.

We believe there is an opportunity to sink carbon and support green energy domestically by promoting the scale-up of seaweed-derived bioproducts, biofuels, biochemicals and biomaterials that have been manufactured from UK farmed seaweed.

Therefore, we have identified three key recommendations for policy action going forward:

• Build on existing evidence base of suitable areas for sustainable aquaculture[3] and monitor the regional landscape availability and production of native seaweed feedstocks; this would ensure a constant supply and will meet the demand for a future UK bioeconomy.
• Design and deliver a new regulatory and policy framework that promotes sustainable seaweed farming and cultivation in the UK, based on solid, sustainable and responsible planning on how to best manage marine environments[4]^,[5].
• Work with coastal communities and stakeholders to explore how to meaningfully develop a plan to create job security whilst protecting natural resources and landscape.

Seaweed can provide a fresh start to ignite a new UK industrial strategy and contribute to achieving the ambitious goals of delivering clean energy by 2030 and production of alternative and sustainable products. The ability to do so rests on how effectively we can bolster the UK’s aquaculture in the years ahead.

References

[1] https://thefishsite.com/articles/initiative-aims-to-take-uk-seaweed-sector-to-the-next-level

[2]  https://www.carymor.wales/seaweed/seaweed-farming-in-the-uk

[3] Identification of strategic areas of sustainable aquaculture production in English waters: Final Report

[4] https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/marine-planning-in-england

[5] https://www.gov.scot/policies/marine-planning/

Machine Learning for Unlocking the Policy Impact of Transdisciplinary Research

By Basil Mahfouz, on 8 July 2024

As the 31st International Conference on Transdisciplinary Engineering 2024 kicks off at UCL East, over 100 engineers from around the world—including the United Kingdom, Brazil, Mexico, United States, China, Japan, Sweden, Singapore, and others—converge in London to explore how transdisciplinary engineering can drive social change and improve the world. This conference provides a platform for discussing the crucial role of engineering and science in addressing societal challenges through innovative, interdisciplinary approaches.

We already know that transdisciplinary research teams comprising engineers and others, tend to produce research that is more likely to have policy and commercial impact. Yet, with over 334 categorized research fields, there are more than 35 billion possible combinations for interdisciplinary work for teams of up to 5 researchers. Depending on the combination of researcher capabilities, some interdisciplinary teams may be better suited for disruptive science, developing patents, or informing policy. But which combinations of fields lead to which type of impact?

Supported by Elsevier and working with the Growth Lab at Harvard Kennedy School, we are applying complexity methods and machine learning on bibliometric data to understand which combination of researcher capabilities leads to high-impact research. For this blog, we’ll discuss our work within the context of the impact of interdisciplinary climate research on public policy.

To calculate interdisciplinarity, we determine the capabilities of authors based on their publication history in different fields. Each author is represented by a vector indicating the number of times they have published in each field. These author vectors are then used to calculate the disciplinary diversity (DDA) of each paper, reflecting the combined expertise and capabilities of the co-authoring team.

As a first step, we ran a series of statistical analyses and regressions to evaluate the relationship between a paper’s interdisciplinarity score and the number of policy citations it received. Preliminary results show that interdisciplinarity explains almost 15% of the variance in policy citations, making it the strongest predictor of policy impact we have identified so far. In fact, transdisciplinarity is found to be three times better at predicting policy citations than conventional metrics of research excellence, exceeding the combined effects of academic citations, journal impact factor, and author h-index.

We then aggregated our analysis at the topic level by calculating the average interdisciplinarity score of papers within each topic. The first observation is that climate change-related topics with high interdisciplinarity are less common than those with low diversity. The distribution of these topics is shown in Figure 1.

Fig 1: Distribution of paper interdisciplinarity in climate research

The second observation is that topics with higher ratios of policy citations have nearly double the average interdisciplinarity score compared to topics with relatively low policy citations. Figure 2 illustrates the difference in interdisciplinary distribution between the low and high policy relevance groups.

Figure 2: Interdisciplinary Distribution by Policy Relevance

Finally, using the paper vectors, we are developing a machine learning model to understand which combinations of author capabilities and team dynamics lead to high policy impact. The preliminary model has already found that for climate change-related research overall, teams involving researchers with expertise in economics, meteorology & atmospheric sciences, general & internal medicine, ecology, and horticulture tend to be associated with higher policy impact.

Moving forward, we are refining the model to predict the optimal team dynamics for high impact within specific policy topics. We are expanding the training data to include additional metrics and features, such as academic seniority, international collaboration, and research text. Furthermore, we will incorporate the distances between research fields to study the effects of deep interdisciplinarity, bringing together researchers from relatively less connected fields, on social impact.

As TE2024 brings together engineers and researchers from around the globe, this work exemplifies the potential of interdisciplinary collaboration in addressing global challenges and driving social change through innovative, data-driven approaches. Equipped with machine learning tools like this, researchers can develop targeted strategies to form data-informed transdisciplinary teams, optimized for maximum societal benefit and impact.

UCL’s MPA Students Host Second Summit on Sustainability

By leonie.dunn, on 16 May 2024

On 26 April, a cross-faculty student committee representing the MPA degrees from the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP), UCL Department of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Public Policy (STEaPP), and UCL Department of Political Science (DoPS) hosted the second annual Summit on Sustainability.

The Summit brought together students, academics, and professionals for an interactive and collaborative learning experience as well as engaging discussions about ongoing action in sustainability. This year’s theme, the Power and Politics of Sustainability Transitions, aimed to navigate the increasingly complex world of activism, policy, and conflict surrounding sustainable transitions and solutions.

Collaboration with the UCL Climate Action Unit opened the Summit

Dr. Kris de Meyer from the UCL Climate Action Unit started the event off with a talk about climate change and the uncertainty of the future. He demonstrated how we are doing what we can because it’s what we know, but posed the question: “If we knew the solution, what might we do differently to get there?” The thought-provoking talk set the tone for the event and explored the different realities that can and do exist in sustainability.

Jon Alexander and Jane Davidson in fireside chat about collaboration

Co-founder of The New Citizenship Project and co-author of Citizens, Jon Alexander has worked to center the public at the heart of collaborative issues like climate change and economic insecurity – to treat people like Citizens not Consumers. He sat down with Jane Davidson, former Welsh Government minister and current chair of the Wales Net Zero 2035 Group, to discuss community participation in policymaking. Ms. Davidson delved into her history has a lawmaker in Wales, living through community collaboration for a better future. Her passion for sustainability led to the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act (2015), putting sustainability at the forefront of all government and public organization action.

Policy Pathways Simulation adapted from in-field work for MPA participation

After lunch, the UCL Climate Action Unit once again took the stage to deliver a two-hour activity in which the participating students and staff joined a Climate Strategy Advisory Board to advise on a hypothetical green transition plan set out by the Prime Minister. Policy Pathways was created by the Unit as a virtual exercise for policymakers and politicians to collaborate and deliver different methods of sustainability transitions through financial regulation, taxation, and public subsidies. The simulation was adapted for the Summit with the goal of providing groups with differing perspectives the chance to discuss and debate amongst themselves, leading to somewhat differing strategies.

After the activity, Dr. de Meyer showed that, in the field, stakeholders struggled to utilise the existing policy tools to deliver effective and affordable green transitions. He brought the conversation back to his opening talk, wherein he stated that we can only do what we know, so we must expand that knowledge in order to expand the reality of sustainability.

Multi-profession panel explores navigating power and politics in the field of sustainability

Moderated by one of the student organizers, the three-person panel discussed different actors’ roles in change, and how power plays into the sustainability movement when it comes to justice and representation. Selina Newell, Director of Climate Action Implementation at C40, Fatou Jeng, founder of Clean Earth Gambia and Youth Climate Advisor to the UN Secretary General, and Asad Rehman, Executive Director of War on Want, unpacked the different levels of action, from individual movements to global affairs. Much of the conversation focused on equity being utmost important for sustainability movements and recognising economic inequality as a major point of conflict when it comes to global change. The cross-sector backgrounds of the panellists offered unique insight into the different powers that activists and policymakers have to enact change through sustainability transitions.

Clare Farrell speaks on the failure of ‘sustainability’ and where to go from here

To round out the Summit, keynote speaker Clare Farrell, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, delivered a talk titled Why Sustainability Isn’t Working Out. She spoke on her background in fashion and ethics, and how her work on the ground in activism led to the group’s message of civil rebellion for democratic change. Her thought-proving talk demonstrated the slow-moving and barrier-filled process of change through established political and economic institutions, and how the conventional perception of ‘sustainability’ has failed to come to fruition. Ms. Farrell guided the attendees to think about what must change now in order to achieve future goals in green transitions. She wrapped up the event by evoking hope in action now for change later.

After closing remarks, guests and attendees were invited to food and drinks for a two-hour networking social with open discussion and further questions.

Continuing cross-MPA collaboration and learning

Last year’s summit paved the way for the collaborative effort made this year. The three departments delivered learning in different contexts. Unifying those views for a cohesive and multi-perspective educational opportunity allowed the attendees and the committee to learn from both each other as well as the guests. Collaboration between the MPAs is imperative as we the students prepare to embark on our professional journeys as decision makers. Our ability to learn from each other must be fostered now so that it is not limited to these formal institutions. After coming together for this year’s Summit, we hope the relationship between the departments’ MPA programs continues to grow and furthers collaboration in the coming years.

Authors Note

Written by Erin Sebastian.

Erin along with the other organisers of the Sustainability Summit would like to give a special thanks to Kazuhiro Naito and Liam Orme for photography.

Unleashing the economic potential of UK manufacturing

By a.tacu, on 2 May 2024

Manufacturing has a pivotal role to play in building a thriving future UK economy which is resilient and can meet many of the increasingly pressing challenges facing UK society.  

But is this fundamental role fully understood by those outside the world of manufacturing? Attending ‘The Future of UK Manufacturing’ event earlier this month has prompted me to reflect on this question.  

Common cross-sectoral challenges and potential solutions 

Recent policy developments such as the UK’s Advanced Manufacturing Plan supported by £4.5 billion of funding for strategic manufacturing sectors, the Net Zero Strategy and the UK Net Zero Research and Innovation Framework point to the increasing awareness of the importance of manufacturing for the UK economy in recent years.  

While this is welcome, a number of challenges continue to hamper the ability of manufacturing to realise its true economic potential. 

One of the key apparent challenges is that, despite the fact that the UK is a global leader in innovation and research, this does not fully translate into economic value through industrial activity [1]. For example, in terms of number of research publications, the UK surpasses the US in per capita terms, but it lags behind in translating scientific knowledge into commercial success. A telling example is that the word ‘manufacturing’ is only mentioned once in the ‘Science and Technology Framework’, which risks creating the perception that the onus is on industry when it comes to scaling up new technologies. 

Although a constant stream of fundamental research is a crucial part of the innovation ecosystem, the ability to scale up lab-based demonstrations needs to become an equally prominent part of how research is undertaken in the UK to set the right conditions for success. Lessons can be learned from the example of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine where the parallel research in immunology and in manufacturing, supported by the Vax-Hub, contributed to the speedy Covid-19 vaccine rollout.  

Another significant challenge for the UK manufacturing community is skills gaps, which amounts to between £7.7 and £8.3 billion in lost annual economic output [2]. Part of the difficulty in attracting talent to manufacturing careers is that manufacturing jobs are still associated with a traditional view of manufacturing roles as being manual and poorly paid. A study led by InterAct suggests that these perceptions can be changed by focusing on levers which have the potential to attract people to manufacturing careers such as flexibility and being part of the solution to many of the health-related, environmental and economic issues we are facing. 

Which leads us to one of the recurring themes that emerged from the discussions held during the event – the importance of storytelling and narrative setting. There was agreement that the UK manufacturing community should challenge outdated perceptions and create a positive narrative about the role of manufacturing that cuts across sectors and is clearly communicated to policymakers and those outside the world of manufacturing. Coalescing around a common strong narrative can support with ensuring manufacturing remains high on the policymakers’ agendas and can attract the skilled people it needs.  

So, what could this narrative be? One of the workshop sessions explored this exact question. A strong narrative should show how manufacturing can be at the forefront of creating good quality jobs and be a fundamental part of the UK’s future economic prosperity and national security.  

Early-stage R&D, which underpins manufacturing innovation, requires continued long-term funding support as businesses are often risk-averse and not incentivised to invest sufficiently at that stage. The Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has been responding to this need through its manufacturing for the future research funding programmes, which is very welcome. I am left convinced that prioritising this type of investment is more important than ever and that, over the long term, these investments will more than pay for themselves in value returned to the UK. 

Context  

The EPSRC together with the High Value Manufacturing Catapult and the Institute for Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge organised ‘The Future of UK Manufacturing’ event in Sheffield. The event brought together academics, policymakers, innovation agencies and industry to review the current UK manufacturing landscape and to look ahead to future research and innovation priorities and opportunities. I attended this event as Policy Adviser for Vax-Hub Sustainable, one of the manufacturing research hubs funded by EPSRC and co-led by UCL Biochemical Engineering and the University of Oxford.   

Author’s note 

Written by Anca Tacu, Policy Impact Unit. With thanks to Jen Reed, Head of Policy Impact Unit, for her valuable contributions.  

References 

[1] Cambridge Industrial Innovation Policy. 2024. UK Innovation Report 2024. Available at: https://www.ciip.group.cam.ac.uk/innovation/the-uk-innovation-report-2024/  

[2] Policy Connect. 2023. Upskilling Industry: Manufacturing productivity and growth in England. Available at: https://www.policyconnect.org.uk/research/upskilling-industry-manufacturing-productivity-and-growth-england