"If we use the strength of diversity among researchers we can only improve the quality and impact of our research": Issues of equality, diversity, inclusion, and transparency in the process of applying for research funding

This paper sets out the recommendations that have emerged from a six-month-long exploration and discussion of the processes that take place before research is submitted for funding: the ‘pre-award’ environment. Our work concentrated on how this environment is experienced by researchers at all career stages and from a variety of backgrounds, demographics, and disciplines, as well as by research managers and research support professionals. In the later stages of our exploration, representatives from research funders were also involved in the discussions. The primary component of this project was an analysis of pre-award activities and processes at UK universities, using information collated from workshops with researchers and research management and support staff. The findings of this analysis were presented as a workflow diagram, which was then used to surface issues relating to equality, diversity, inclusion, and transparency in context. The workflow diagram and the issues highlighted by it were used to structure discussions at a symposium for a range of research stakeholders, held in Bristol, UK, in January 2023. The recommendations set out in this paper are drawn from discussions that took place at that event. This paper is not an exhaustive landscape analysis, nor a review of existing research and practice in the area of pre-award processes or of recent thinking on the topics of equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). Instead, it aims to summarise and encapsulate the suggestions put forward by the stakeholders during the symposium. These recommendations, from experienced professionals working in the field, are based on their encounters with the issues raised in the project. They do not solely relate to those working on pre-award processes, but may also apply to funders, policymakers, university leaders, and professional associations, since many of the challenges flagged in our research are systemic and cultural, and reach far beyond the research office

Hidden biodiversity in cryptic habitats provided by porous coastal defence structures

In response to flood risk from rising and stormier seas, increasing amounts of natural coastline worldwide are being replaced by a proliferation of coastal defence structures. While the primary role of defence structures is protecting the coastline, consideration should be given to the biological coastal communities they support. Artificial structures are currently seen as poor habitats for marine organisms. They are constructed in harsh coastal environments, lack structural complexity, and are subjected to episodic disturbance from maintenance, reducing their suitability as habitats for coastal species. Recent work has focused on mitigating the impacts of coastal defence structures, through secondary routes such as enhancing biodiversity by encouraging colonisation of marine biota. Research thus far has focused on enhancements to improve structural complexity on the external surfaces of coastal defences. Many structures are porous with internal compartments. To date no work has been undertaken on the habitat provided by the internal surfaces of the blocks used in building structures.We investigated the role of porous coastal defence structures in habitat provision. Taking advantage of a groyne reduction from 45 m to 20 m length, we surveyed the internal environment of the structure. We also considered the impacts of maintenance activity on coastal assemblages. Our work shows that the internal environment of artificial structures provides functional habitat space supporting higher species richness and diversity than external surfaces. The more benign environment of internal surfaces protects from desiccation stress and is probably less scoured by mobile sediments, and as such is of unrealised importance to coastal assemblages. External surfaces are also subject to high levels of disturbance from maintenance activities, further limiting the potential ecological contribution this area of the artificial habitat might otherwise develop. These findings reveal the multifunctional role of porous coastal defence structures, acting as engineering protection and habitats for coastal assemblages

stress threshold and annual duration of transport

International audienceThe physics of bedload transport has been investigated in artificial rivers, in natural rivers and by numerical simulations. These approaches demonstrated that bedload transport depends on diameter of pebbles and of the shear stress that acts on the river bed above a threshold stress. These parameters are difficult to estimate in natural rivers where the granulometry is spread out several tenths of centimeters and where the basal shear stress is very difficult to estimate. Three hundred meters of the alluvial portion of the Vieux Habitants River (Guadeloupe Island, French Antilles) have been imaged by drone once a year during 7 years. The hydrograph of the river was measured upstream at 2 km of the study area. An ortho-image at a resolution around 3 cm was computed from the images of each mission. The cobbles that were deposited or transported away between two acquisitions were mapped in a GIS. The volumetric density of deposited cobbles by classes of 10 cm for a diameter of 0.1 to 1m was reported against the maximum water flow of the river that occurred between two acquisitions. This volumetric density reflects the flow of transported cobble during the flood. The dataset shows that the volumetric density of deposited cobbles is very low when water flow is lower than 35m3/s. Above this value, the volumetric density of deposited pebble increases linearly with the flow. During the years of study, the hydrograph shows that the threshold for significant displacement was reached less than 0.03% of the time. Bedload transport occurs only during extreme meteorological events for cobbles with a diameter larger than 10 cm in a river such as Vieux-Habitants

Thermal Conductivity of the Quantum Spin Liquid Candidate EtMe_{3}Sb[Pd(dmit)_{2}]_{2}: No Evidence of Mobile Gapless Excitations

The thermal conductivity κ of the quasi-2D organic spin-liquid candidate EtMe_{3}Sb[Pd(dmit)_{2}]_{2} (dmit-131) was measured at low temperatures, down to 0.07 K. We observe a vanishingly small residual linear term κ_{0}/T, in κ/T vs T as T→0. This shows that the low-energy excitations responsible for the sizable residual linear term γ in the specific heat C, seen in C/T vs T as T→0, are localized. We conclude that there are no mobile gapless excitations in this spin-liquid candidate, in contrast with a prior study of dmit-131 that reported a large κ_{0}/T value [Yamashita et al., Science 328, 1246 (2010)SCIEAS0036-807510.1126/science.1188200]. Our study shows that dmit-131 is in fact similar to κ-(BEDT-TTF)_{2}Cu_{2}(CN)_{3}, another quasi-2D organic spin-liquid candidate where a vanishingly small κ_{0}/T and a sizable γ are seen. We attribute heat conduction in these organic insulators without magnetic order to phonons undergoing strong spin-phonon scattering, as observed in several other spin-liquid materials