Research

Interdisciplinary Research Projects

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Interdisciplinary Research Projects

This searchable database contains details of pump-primed cross-discipline research projects taking place at the University of Aberdeen.

One of the main strands of our Aberdeen 2040 plan is to address urgent and wide-ranging challenges in the interdisciplinary areas of Energy Transition, Social Inclusion and Cultural Diversity, Environment and Biodiversity, Data and Artificial Intelligence, and Health, Nutrition and Wellbeing.

The wide range of projects on display here is a demonstration of some of the early-stage research being funded in these critical areas as well as the University's commitment to addressing the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals, a "blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all."

Projects undertaken in 2021 were funded by the University of Aberdeen's Scottish Funding Council allocation.

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Causes and consequences of microbiome variation for behaviour across dietary regimes in a model insect: implications for pest control and disease transmission

Microbiomes, the microbial communities that live within animals, play an important role in affecting individual-level variation in health, behaviour and reproduction. This project combines high-throughput DNA sequencing with animal personality tests to improve our understanding of the importance of diets in determining the function of the gut microbiome-brain-behaviour axis.
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Mass deaths and memorialisation

This project investigates how mass deaths impact on cultural understandings of death as a phenomenon, and on the memorialisation of the dead, with the longer-term aim of developing a network of scholars to support the establishment of a Centre for the study of death at the UoA.
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Assessing DNA preservation and biological sex in Pictish Faunal Remains

This project focuses on interdisciplinary ancient DNA research on faunal remains from Pictish archaeological sites and contexts.
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Food proVISION through sustAinable faRming sYstems and value chains (VISIONARY)

VISIONARY wants to make a difference in food system transitions by identifying what factors underlie the path dependencies and ‘lock-ins’ in current unsustainable food systems and showing how these can be overcome.
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Direct and indirect phenotypic effects on sociability

Can individual sociability, and therefore group size, evolve? By looking for behavioural indicators of consistency and repeatable influence in cockroaches we can attempt to find out.
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Community regeneration and biodiversity within a food activism and sustainability framework

The benefits of food growing and gardens are numerous and considerable. We propose that further work needs to be done to explore how to maximise these benefits for different groups using coordinated approaches that have the potential to address a range of requirements across different sectors and ages.
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The Mindfulness Challenge to Western Individualism

Buddhism and mindfulness resonate particularly well with contemporary Western society because they shed light on the struggle between individualism and the human need for community and social interdependence. This project looks to create a series of videos exploring this tension.
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Transcriptomic profiling of viral infections in the brain of a key pollinator

Honeybees are the most valuable pollinators of natural and human ecosystems. However, in addition to other factors, the DWV virus is causing serious problems for honeybee colonies. We use advanced techniques to understand how DWV affects honeybee cognition.
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Establishment of an International Network of Practice-based Research Collaboration

The aim of this project is to establish an international network of practice-based research collaboration between SERG, a sonic arts and sound studies group in the School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture, sonADA, a sound art organisation in North East Scotland, and arthereistanbul, an art space in Istanbul, Turkey.
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