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The purpose of this paper is to present a preliminary work on extracting band gap information of materials from academic papers. With increasing demand for renewable energy, band gap information will help material scientists design and implement novel photovoltaic (PV) cells.

The authors collected 1.44 million titles and abstracts of scholarly articles related to materials science, and then filtered the collection to 11,939 articles that potentially contain relevant information about materials and their band gap values. ChemDataExtractor was extended to extract information about PV materials and their band gap information. Evaluation was performed on randomly sampled information records of 415 papers.

The findings of this study show that the current system is able to correctly extract information for 51.32% articles, with partially correct extraction for 36.62% articles and incorrect for 12.04%. The authors have also identified the errors belonging to three main categories pertaining to chemical entity identification, band gap information and interdependency resolution. Future work will focus on addressing these errors to improve the performance of the system.

The authors did not find any literature to date on band gap information extraction from academic text using automated methods. This work is unique and original. Band gap information is of importance to materials scientists in applications such as solar cells, light emitting diodes and laser diodes.

This paper shares findings from a constructivist grounded theory study, exploring Trainee Teachers’ perceptions of their teaching and learning experienced during university-based teacher education programmes, specifically the theoretical components. Findings led to the development of a model of program design, pedagogy and teaching strategies that were successful in creating opportunities to build Professional Capital. This paper aims to share this model, highlighting the significance of Professional Capital amidst challenges in English Teacher Education, and to suggest implications for application of the model within broader workforce development.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 trainee teachers from four English universities. To support the development of the theoretical framework, researchers employed inductive and iterative constant comparative methods aligned with constructivist grounded theory to sensitise concepts and codes, which were verified using theoretical sampling.

Informed by the findings of this study, a model is presented which highlights that participants developed human, social and decisional capital during their academic programs helping them to widen their perceptions of what counts as educationally important, beyond narrow performativity measures that are pervasive in a school system. By actively adopting a transformative pedagogy and employing constructivist approaches to curriculum design and delivery, optimal learning environments for learners to build their professional capital can be provided.

These findings may prove valuable to Higher Education academics as a model when designing and delivering professional, student-centred programmes. There are also implications for policymakers seeking to redesign initial teacher education towards schools-led and practice-oriented approaches, who wish to consider the perceptions, values and motivations of trainee teachers.

The findings highlight the significance of teacher trainees’ active engagement with academic literature and theory, in terms of contributing to the development of their professional capital, resilience and professional commitment.

This chapter investigates the social determinants (urbanisation, population, literacy and corruption) of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the top 100 developed and developing emitting countries. The data were collected from central repositories for the different variables explored for the period 2012–2020 in a cross-country analysis. Fixed effects ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was used to analyse the data. The results for all top 100 countries and developing countries show that urbanisation and corruption are significantly positive and negative determinants of GHG emissions, respectively. In addition, literacy is a significant positive determinant of GHG emissions in developing countries but not in the top 100 and developed countries. Population is not significant in the top 100 developed and developing countries. The results for the control variables suggest that primary energy consumption is a positive significant determinant of GHG emissions in the top 100 developed and developing countries. However, gross domestic product (GDP) is not a significant determinant of GHG emissions. The findings have important policy implications.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) own and control technological resources and capabilities that make them critical actors in accelerating the transition toward net zero. Even beyond the energy sector, stakeholders are putting increasing pressure on MNEs to reduce the carbon intensity of their operations, that is, to improve their carbon performance. While there is unambiguous evidence that national climate policy is a critical catalyst for long-term carbon performance improvements, there is limited research on how MNEs’ carbon strategies react to climate policies. This chapter reviews the concepts, drivers, and strategies connected to carbon performance in the broader sustainability and management literature to clarify potential complementarities to international business (IB). The authors then highlight how MNEs will face increasing institutional complexity along two dimensions: (1) the structural diversity of institutional environments and (2) institutional dynamism, primarily reflected by public policy. The proposed conceptual framework maps these two dimensions to national and subnational levels, and the authors present two data sources that allow the quantitative analysis of country differences in the diversity and dynamism of national climate policy. The authors conclude that there are ample opportunities for IB researchers to explore MNEs’ strategic reactions to climate policy and to inform policymakers about the consequences of national climate policy in the global economy.

Climate change is a bitter truth for the entire humanity, and it vehemently calls for thoughtful means for environmental protection along with sustainable economic growth. International trade blocs fundamentally represent amalgamation of countries to achieve unified goals like higher living standards, reduced trade barriers, freer labour mobility across member states, social and cultural upliftment, political allegiance to regional association, etc. Throughout the 1990s, these trade blocs have committed to reducing environmental pressures and shifting towards cleaner forms of energy. This chapter examines the relationship between rate of change in carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions per capita and rate of change in per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in linear, quadratic and cubic polynomial forms with the other control variables like inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI), export of goods and services, population density, urban population percentage and location dummies for the 66 countries falling in seven regional trade blocs. Other than the European Union and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the remaining five trade blocs in the study – Association of South-East Nations (ASEAN), South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Common Market for Eastern and South Africa (COMESA), Mercado Común del Sur (MERCOSUR) and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) – contain mostly the developing and some of the fastest growing economies of the world. The panel regression result finds an inverse relationship between rate of change in per capita CO₂ emissions and rate of change in GDP per capita (in linear and cubic polynomial forms), exports and population density, while the other coefficients of the explanatory variables are positive. The study also establishes an Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) which is opposite to N-shape during 2005–2019, and that contradicts with the original EKC of inverted U-shaped. However, this shape admits the collective efforts of region-specific trade blocs towards achieving clean environment which is one of the important global goals.

Integration between the different components of development is a major aspiration of the 2030 agenda, but the efforts of firms that intend to contribute simultaneously to multiple development trajectories may be hindered by trade-offs that occur between the different sustainable development goals (SDGs) and targets. At the same time, synergies may also materialize and reinforce firm’s contribution. This chapter analyzes the effects of multinational enterprises (MNEs) and other foreign investors on two different targets of SDG 7, namely access of population to modern energy systems, chiefly electricity, and the use of carbon-free and renewable energy sources in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries, and the authors investigate whether foreign investors experience trade-offs and synergies in their contributions. A two-equation growth model of households’ access to electricity and carbon factor is estimated by employing a panel dataset that covers 15 SSA countries and foreign direct investment (FDI) from 82 origin countries over the 2005–2011 period. The findings reveal that foreign investors are subject to a trade-off in their effects, because when they foster access to electricity they are also likely to spur carbon factor increases, and vice versa, depending on the economic development of host and home countries. Nevertheless, electrification and carbon factor reduction are shown to be linked by a system-level synergy. The results have implications for the design of MNEs attraction measures and energy policy in recipient countries.

Key challenges currently facing Higher Education (HE) in the UK are the continuing dominance of curricula by West-centric knowledge traditions which reinforce normative Whiteness and undergird racism, and glaring disparities in student outcomes. Seeking to address these challenges and promote fair access and educational opportunities aimed at enabling a more equitable, just and life-enhancing society, London Metropolitan University has launched its Education for Social Justice Framework (ESJF) (2020) as an integrative framework for inclusive curriculum redesign.

This chapter explores the context and moral imperative of the ESJF, its integrative elements, its pedagogical challenges and its transformative potential, through critically reviewing its application during a pilot phase of implementation in 2020–2021, based on the perspectives of six academics involved as course leaders of the participating programs from various disciplines, as well as the authors. Data from individual interviews with the course leaders are used to throw light on key themes concerning the importance and character of the ESJF, challenges and enabling factors in implementing the ESJF, resulting course changes, and the role of students in curriculum development. This chapter concludes with some general implications of adopting an ambitious, integrative approach to curriculum and pedagogical transformation.

Even though sustainability appears to be a relevant driver for the relocation of production, this has only to a limited extent been studied as an independent motive or a result of backshoring. This study explores the literature on backshoring and sustainability and discusses some empirical cases to shed light on the connection between sustainability and backshoring. This study argues that sustainability issues may require a broader perspective than the dominant economic logic framing previous studies on backshoring. Institutional theory is suggested as a theoretical framework for analyzing how sustainability can play a role in companies’ backshoring decisions.

Globally, India ranks third in greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions. Decarbonizing India's economy would necessitate significant changes in how the country generates energy, manufactures things, delivers services and manages natural resources. Recently, scholars from different parts of the world have used various indicators like carbon and methane emissions to investigate potential solutions to the global warming problem that has resulted in climate change. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the impact of foreign direct investment, renewable and non-renewable energy consumption, in addition to economic growth, trade openness, and natural resources on ecological footprint.

Using India's yearly data from 1990 to 2016, this research investigates the impact of direct foreign investment (FDI), trade (TA) and natural resources (NR) on the ecological footprint (EF) within the framework of economic growth (GDP), renewable (RE) and non-renewable (NRE) energy consumption. The Zivot–Andrews unit root approach was used to examine the structural breaks in data series and the presence of stationary. An auto regressive distributive lag model was used to investigate the presence of long-run and short-run dynamic relationships among the variables.

The empirical findings demonstrate that FDI, RE and GDP have a negative and substantial impact on EF in the long term; in contrast, NRE and TA are significant and positive. The Granger causality test indicates that feedback transmission was observed between NR and EF and TA and EF. One-way causation passed from GDP to FDI and NR; TA to FDI and RE.

Indian Government and authorities should push for an eco-friendly manufacturing process and technology adaptation to improve environmental quality.

The study examines the role of natural resources (NRs) and energy consumption in managing the climate crisis in Africa, using annual series data from the World Bank from 1980 to 2019.

The empirical strategy is based on the second-generation panel techniques that account for cross-sectional dependency in the series. Specifically, the empirical evidence is based on the Westerlund (2017) panel cointegration test, panel augmented mean group, common correlated effects mean group and the vector autoregressive (VAR)-vector error correction (VEC) approaches.

Evidence from the panel analysis confirmed the existence of Carbon Kuznets Curve (CKC) U-shaped nexus in Africa, but the country-level results are mixed. Furthermore, results using the VAR-vector correction model indicate possible convergence among the variables across the African countries. NR unidirectionally Granger-causes carbon emissions. The authors suggest the consideration of environmental factors in the utilisation of NRs. Similarly, energy efficiency is crucial to decouple carbon from energy usage.

The study complements the extant literature by assessing the role of NRs and energy consumption in managing climate crisis in Africa.