Grand Challenges Special Initiatives 2022/23 Awards

Grand Challenges recently awarded funding under four special initiative themes in academic year 2022/23:

• Climate Crisis
• Food Security
• Place & Displacement
• UN SDGs: Pathways to Achievement

The special initiative calls enable support for collaborative, innovative, and impactful cross-disciplinary activities. In total, over 70 applications were received from all 11 faculties at UCL as well as the Office for the Vice-Provost (Health) and the UCL Students’ Union. Four judging panels, one for each theme, approved funding for 17 applications, with total funding of nearly £150,000 awarded.

Summary details of the projects awarded are below:

Climate Crisis

Understanding the vulnerability of UK urban landscapes to emerging mosquito-borne diseases under climate change

£9,337.00

Dr Hector Altamirano, Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources
Dr David Redding, Zoological Society of London

No New Fossil Fuel Projects: A Fossil Fuel Research Hub to support legal practitioners challenging the legality of new fossil fuel supply projects

£6,575.00

Dr Fergus Green, Political Science
Dr Steve Pye, UCL Energy Institute

Hope and inspiration for futures in petroleum-based Arctic communities

£4,000.00

Prof Ilan Kelman, Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction
Ms Heloise Tunstall-Behrens, Self-employed

Futureproofing Care Settings for People with Epilepsy Under Climate Change

£9,993.77

Dr Anna Mavrogianni, The Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources
Prof Sanjay Sisodiya, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology

Place & Displacement

Displaced by an Airbnb? Platform-based short-term rentals, the rural housing crisis and the ‘right to stay put’ in England and France

 £9,577.28

Prof Nick Gallent, Bartlett School of Planning
Mr Murray Cox, Inside Airbnb

UK reception policies and practices vis-à-vis displaced Ukrainian refugees: hospitality and hostility in local sites of encounter

£10,000.00

Prof Mette Louise Berg, Social Research Institute
Dr Jo Billings, Psychiatry

Life on the edge: a place-based Rapid Appraisal of migrants' and community health needs in Necoclí, Colombia

 £9,052.00

Dr Norha Vera San Juan, Insitute for Global Health
Prof Cecilia Vindrola, Department of Targeted Intervention

Food Security

Fostering Community Food Resilience through Mutual Aid Networks and Cooperatives

 £8,600.00

Dr Rhiannon Firth, Education, Practice and Society
Dr Emma O'Dwyer, University of Greenwich

Crowdmapping for Food Security in Ethiopia

 £9,944.00

Prof Muki Haklay, Geography
Mr David Luswata, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team - Eastern & Southern Africa

UK food bank accessibility modelling for the Trussell Trust

 £9,999.82

Dr Neave O'Clery, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis
Ms Rachael Jones, Trussell Trust

UN SDGs: Pathways to Achievement

Managing What you Measure: Addressing SDG data gaps and weaknesses in the UK

£10,000.00

Dr Kate Roll, Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose
Dr Graham Long, Newcastle University

‘Rebuilding Reefs’: Measuring habitat complexity to improve methods for coral reef restoration

£9,780.00

Prof Kate Jones, Genetics, Evolution and Environment (GEE)
Mr Jason Lynch, UCL Social and Historical Sciences

Developing Education Technology (Ed-Tech) in Rural Ghana

 £10,000.00

Dr Michael Woodrow, Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering
Dr Josephine Marie Godwyll, Young At Heart Ghana

UCL Sustainable Development Goal Consultancy Challenge

 £9,625.00

Mr Oliver Peachey, Volunteering Services
Dr Jana Dankovicova, UCL Careers

Linking text to SDGs with Artificial Intelligence: Building a multi-use recommender system

£10,000.00

Dr Maria Perez-Ortiz, Computer Science
Mr Davor Orlic, Knowledge 4 All Foundation and International Research Center on Artificial Intelligence under the auspices of UNESCO

Engineers Without Borders Outreach

£2,368.00

Miss Rachel Wan, Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering
Miss Anjumon Ali, UCL Volunteering Services

No One Left Behind: Monitoring Migrant-Inclusive Universal Health Coverage

£10,000.00

Ms Rachel Burns, Institute of Health Informatics
Ms Anna Miller, Doctors of the World/Médecins du Monde