The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, with input from other research councils, is running a a five-day Sandpit event in the water energy food nexus and has opened a call for participants.
The Sandpit is being led by EPSRC with the support of three RCUK cross-council programmes: Living with Environmental Change, The Energy Programme and the Global Food Security Programme; and the UK cross-government /industry UK Water Research Innovation Partnership (UKWRIP).
The Sandpit is intended to enable UK researchers to perform research on the water energy food nexus, potentially using revolutionary approaches to challenges in this area.
An anticipated £ 4-5 million of funding will be made available to fund research projects arising from the sandpit with additional computational modelling support from STFC.
Securing a sustainable supply of water, energy and food is a key global issue. An increasing demand for land/food/energy/water, urbanisation and the need to limit exploitation of these resources in a move towards a more sustainable economy will increase the strain on local, national and international resources.
The sandpit will focus on understanding the interdependencies between water, energy and food security and is expected to span a broad range of disciplines within a number of fields including, but not limited to, the engineering, mathematical, computional, economics, social, environmental and life sciences.
The broad aims of the sandpit are to generate research proposals which can:
- Build a better understanding of the problems and challenges posed by the water energy food nexus and allow these to be framed in a clearer way.
- Address the key research challenges that are identified.
- Identify a common language between disciplines.
- Facilitate interactions between key researchers and users in water energy food.
EPSRC said that achieving the Sandpit aims will require the participation of leading researchers from a broad range of disciplines. Participants should be able to apply their knowledge, skills and experience across discipline areas to develop innovative research with the potential to deliver practical solutions to the challenges around the water energy food nexus.
It is expected that a number of cross-disciplinary research projects will be funded and will complement and link-in other activities in the area such as the ESRC Nexus Network and the NERC call on Valuing Natural Capital.
The closing date for applications to take part is 4th November. Anyone eligible to apply for funding from Research Councils UK can apply.
The Sandpit will run over five days starting mid-morning on 19 January and finishing mid-afternoon on 23 January 2015.
Those selected to attend will receive further briefing before the event and attendance for the full week is mandatory. Approximately £4 -5 million has been allocated to fund collaborative research projects arising from the sandpit.
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