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A 2018 Social Science Plus pilot project laid the foundation for a new UKRI Interdisciplinary Textiles Circularity Centre that will bring £723K at 100% FEC (£579K, 80% FEC) into UCL.
A 2018 Social Science Plus award supported a new interdisciplinary collaboration between UCL researchers in social science (Profs. Carey Jewitt and Sara Price), neuroscience (Prof. Aikaterini Fotopoulou) and computer science (Prof. Nadia Berthouze), by funding the Digital Touch Emoticons project (£11,500). The project used methods from these three disciplines to generate a prototype device and explored how affective touch can be digitally-mediated to enhance social communication.
The pilot project funding proved invaluable when it came to forming a new collaboration as a foundation for applying for external funding. Two years on, the original team are collaborating, along with UCL colleagues Prof. Marianna Obrist and Dr Youngjun Cho, on a new UKRI Interdisciplinary Textiles Circularity Centre which will bring £723K at 100% FEC (£579K at 80% FEC) into UCL. The Centre, led by Prof Sharon Baurley, Royal College of Art, aims to lessen the environmental impact of clothing in the UK. It will use household waste and used textiles to develop new textiles instead of relying on imported materials. The emission levels caused by the UK’s textiles industry are almost as high as the total CO2 emitted through people using cars for private trips.
Nadia Berthouze, Professor in Affective Computing and Interaction and Deputy Director of UCLIC, commented: “Bringing together a very interdisciplinary team and involvement of diverse stakeholders and consumers, the centre will drive technological innovation for supporting engagement with new renewable material through the delivery of enhanced and novel sensory experiences.”
Aikaterini (Katerina) Fotopoulou, Professor in Psychodynamic Neuroscience, in the CEHP Research Department commented, “What is unique about these centre is that it will bring together expertise and experiences from stakeholders that do not typically work together to make the textiles sector sustainable, including fashion designers, materials experts, consumers, economists and brain scientists”.
Co-investigator Professor Carey Jewitt (UCL Knowledge Lab, UCL Institute of Education) said: “This centre brings a diverse range of UCL researchers together to generate innovative methods and technologies that can capture consumers’ experience and provide them with more meaningful and sustainable relationships with products and materials.”
Note
In 2020-21 UCL funds are being concentrated on Covid research. Therefore we will not be running a Social Science Plus call in 2020-21. Funding permitted we hope to run a call for 2021-22.