Over the Academic Year 2024-2025, MESSAGE distributed three rounds of Responsive Funding Awards. Here, we take a look at the awardees of the 3rd round of funding for 2025.
The first is Dr. Haley Dolton, she attended the International Conference on Basking Sharks on the 29th–31st August 2025 in Galway, Ireland. With the support of MESSAGE, Haley was able to present her talk “Body temperature dynamics of warm-bodied basking sharks,” which shares new findings that these sharks are not fully cold-blooded, as long assumed, but show regional endothermy, like white sharks (keeping parts of their body warmer than the surrounding water). The conference brought together experts in physiology, conservation, behaviour, and fisheries science. Conversations focused on the urgent need for stronger protections, the risks from climate change and fisheries, and the importance of cross border collaboration since basking sharks move widely across oceans. By sharing her work, Dr. Haley Dolton sparked useful discussions with researchers working on energetics, movements, and management, and we identified opportunities to combine physiological and tracking data in future collaborations.
The MESSAGE Grant also allowed Dr. Haley Dolton to travel to Achill Island, a former centre of basking shark fishing, where she spoke with a retired fisherman who shared first-hand memories of past shark abundance and behaviour. This was an invaluable perspective, reminding me how cultural history and local knowledge can complement scientific research.
Dr. Haley Dolton also contributed to the upcoming documentary “On the Shoulders of Giants” (produced by Scott DeGraw), which will feature my findings and highlight ongoing conservation challenges.
Our second awardee of the MESSAGE Responsive Funding Awards is Dr. Josie Taylor, who attended the Royal Geographical Society Conference, hosted at the University of Birmingham. Dr Josie Taylor and her colleague, Dr Giulia Champion co-organised a participant-led roundtable on Arts and Humanities Methods in Transdisciplinary Energy Transition Research. The premise of this exercise was that imagination, art and stories are tools for thinking about energy transition. Participants were given the choice between two themes: ‘storytelling and narrative’ and ‘arts and humanities methodologies’ for transdisciplinary energy transition research. In a small group, experiences of interdisciplinary research in the context of energy and environmental studies were discussed, taking into consideration the difficulties and challenges, its rewards and benefits.
Below, you can see the post-it note map created by the round-table and summarises the experiences as well as what effective ‘storytelling’ tools have been used in community engagement work in the context of fossil-fuel and energy cultures. The group discussion and mapping exercises were used as a starting point for Dr Josie Taylor and Dr Giulia Champion to continue to work together to begin a practice group around transdisciplinary methods in energy transition research.
Our third awardee is Dr. Pranay Kumar who attended the 46th IAEE International Conference on “Energy Solutions for a Sustainable and Inclusive Future”, held at Palais des Congrès, Paris from 15-18 June 2025. This conference was one of the largest IAEE conferences, attended by almost 700 registered delegates. Dr Pranay Kumar was able to present his work titled “Moving the Needle: A Comparative Study onAdoption Preferences of Clean Energy Technologies in Households”. This fascinating talk was well attended and evoked active participation and follow up discussions.
In his report, Dr Pranay Kumar wrote that the conference sessions, including the keynote and plenary sessions were very inspiring and thought provoking. He used these platforms to situate my own research work, benefitting from the discussions and feedback. Dr Pranay Kumar is now building upon his research scope and methods for academic publication and potential policy insights.
MESSAGE is delighted to have supported such fascinating research and proud to help researchers in their career developments and explorations. Keep in the loop for more updates !