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Interdisciplinary research, from bid to impact · Evaluate a public programme

STEAM Xcelerate

This is for you if…

…you are building an interdisciplinary bid, as a UK university, a consortium, a research leader or an industry partner, or as a funder behind one;

…you lead research, as a principal investigator for example, and want to show and track your project’s economic, social and environmental impact;

…or you run a publicly funded programme that needs its impact evaluated.

Interdisciplinary by design, impact by default: win interdisciplinary research with the method behind two UKRI awards, then track and analyse its economic, social and environmental impact with ImpactTracker, CBIT’s AI platform.

Next step

Tell us about your bid, your project or your programme, who funds it and the impact you need to show.

Email us about your impact

If your email app does not open, write to cbit@ntu.ac.uk

The AI edition

Win interdisciplinary research and turn it into impact: teams from different disciplines aligned on one trajectory, with AI agents tracking and analysing the impact.

“Interdisciplinary method from us is to align teams to work on the same trajectory, and create impact.” Professor Xiao Ma, Director, CBIT

Examples

  • BeefTwin: “BeefTwin: AI powered Digital Twin for Sustainable Beef Farming”, UKRI Cross-Research Council Responsive Mode, Round 1, 2025–2027. CBIT era
  • EASE: “Entrepreneurship, Art, and Science for Environmental Sustainability”, UKRI Cross-Research Council Responsive Mode, Round 2, 2026–2028, always co-led with Dr Iryna Kuksa. CBIT era
  • MOSMOP and Train the Trainer, both British Council-funded. CBIT era
  • The East Midlands construction hub (TNDRX): an EMCCA Investment Zone feasibility study, 2025. CBIT era

What AI adds

  • Owner-confirmed: in ImpactTracker, impact is tracked and analysed by AI agents.
  • Live: UKRI’s record titles the BeefTwin award “BeefTwin: AI powered Digital Twin for Sustainable Beef Farming”. CBIT era
  • Live: SurplusMap, an AI-enabled digital twin for London’s surplus food system, a feasibility study of an agentic-AI, city-scale digital twin.
  • Method: AI is one of the disciplines the method brings to the table — BeefTwin joins biosciences, environmental science, computer science and management science.

AI-native outcome: a consortium aligned on one trajectory, whose bid designs AI into the research (data, digital twins, agents) and into its route to impact, and whose impact is tracked and analysed by AI agents rather than told only as case narratives.

Win interdisciplinary research

The method behind CBIT’s two awards in UKRI’s Cross-Research Council Responsive Mode, brought into your next bid: disciplines challenge and refine each other’s ideas in planned sparring workshops, and the project runs in lean start-up sprints.

  • Sparring Partnership: the disciplines in your consortium challenge and refine each other’s ideas in planned sparring workshops.
  • Lean start-up delivery: build, measure and learn; minimum viable products; pivot or persevere; sprints.
  • A theory of change from outputs to impact.
  • Projects so far include AI digital twins and open data labs, agentic-AI feasibility studies, sustainable business-model tools and impact strands.

Why now

UKRI says interdisciplinary research “is important and will continue to be funded” through its councils’ applicant-led and strategic programmes, and cross-council research through the Cross Council Remit Agreement.

The Cross-Research Council Responsive Mode, the scheme behind both awards, has now closed. CBIT brings the method to UKRI’s continuing routes.

Source: UKRI’s page on its Cross-Research Council Responsive Mode, accessed 24 September 2026.

Track record

Professor Xiao Ma, CBIT’s Director: BeefTwin £1.2m (Project Lead, Round 1) and EASE £1.2m (Project Co-Lead, Round 2) — the only UK researcher to have won awards in both rounds of UKRI's Cross-Research Council Responsive Mode. EASE is co-led with Dr Iryna Kuksa, NTU School of Art & Design.

Show and track your impact

  • Routes to impact: ventures, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and industry partners, policy and community.
  • The triple bottom line: a way to generate and track economic, social and environmental impact.
  • ImpactTracker, CBIT’s platform, now live: it tracks how ventures perform after venture building, across economic, social and environmental measures. Digital platforms
  • For a publicly funded programme: impact evaluation, with a theory of change, the triple bottom line and attribution.

Format

  • An impact or evaluation role in your project: an impact work package, or evaluation lead.

The method in use

  • The BeefTwin consortium framed beef farming as a triple-bottom-line problem, with a theory of change.
  • EASE tests prototypes against triple-bottom-line criteria, and CBIT co-leads its learning and evaluation.

Impact story

Where this can lead

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