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Dr Alan Dixon's research, undertaken in East and Southern Africa, has examined how local people develop wetland management knowledge, and how local institutional arrangements facilitate wetland management that balances livelihood needs with the maintenance of ecosystem services. In Ethiopia, research findings have been applied by the Ethio-Wetlands and Natural Resources Association, enhancing the livelihoods of 2000+ households. In Malawi and Zambia, the `Striking a Balance' project implemented wetland-catchment management initiatives with 300+ households, alleviating poverty amongst local communities. On-going research and field implementation activities continue to inform the wetland-livelihoods policy-making agenda of governments and local and international NGOs.
This case study concerns the development, adoption and dissemination of innovative `community-owned' approaches to the sustainable management of social-ecological systems (SES) within the Guiana Shield region of South America. Spanning the countries of Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana and areas of Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia, this region is of recognized global significance for carbon storage, fresh water resources and biodiversity. Its indigenous, Amerindian communities have a potentially crucial role to play in sustainable conservation policy and practice. However, local economic and cultural changes, extractive industries, and global dynamics such as climate change are bringing profound challenges to these local communities and their SES. Research at Royal Holloway has responded to these challenges by involving indigenous peoples in both biodiversity science and sustainability policy. The work allows indigenous communities to identify, through participatory research methods, the most effective practices they have for surviving and thriving sustainably.
The impacts of the research are of four main types:
University of Glasgow research has resulted in a significant change to environmental and development policy at the highest levels of government in Egypt, with tangible grounded benefits for local populations in the regions affected. Briggs and Sharp, in close collaboration with Egyptian colleagues, have substantially shifted the priorities of Egyptian environmental management to include the knowledge, needs and priorities of local people, and especially to increase participation and recognition of women.
The research highlighted here has had a major impact on the design of community led planning (CLP) and neighbourhood planning in England since 2006; initially within the voluntary and community sector and subsequently on policymakers' thinking. This has shaped the trajectory of policy development nationally since 2010 and influenced the way in which local authorities and other intermediary organizations (such as the Rural Community Action Network (RCAN) / Action in Communities in Rural England (ACRE) / Rural Community Councils (RCCs) in England) have approached community-led planning (CLP) and subsequently Neighbourhood Planning (NP). The work has had a significant impact on the NP approach and therefore on the public through the 2011 Localism Act. This legislation led to the `Supporting Communities in Neighbourhood Planning' (SCNP) programme, funded by Communities and Local Government (CLG) since 2011 to a value of circa £20m overall (which includes a 2013-15 tranche of £9.5 Million). The case study lead researcher (Parker) is now co-ordinating a large part of this programme while on 80% secondment at the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI)/Planning Aid England (PAE) (2012-2014).
The Local Governance Research Unit (LGRU) undertook a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE), a not-for-profit local government association that provides policy and operational advice to over 300 councils. This partnership informed APSE's strategic policy review, co-producing a new model of the Ensuring Council, which was adopted by its national council, and used to brand and position APSE within local government. Seven evidence-based policy tools were created through the partnership and taken up and used by APSE for consultancy and membership services. Externally, APSE used these outputs to increase its influence over national policy.
A major challenge to economic policy and public sector governance is how to provide a sustainable economic basis for less prosperous localities and neighbourhoods. Research findings demonstrated the need for a greater focus upon enterprise and jobs at a sub-regional level and improved co-ordination and integration of governance arrangements in order to tackle this issue. These findings influenced the development of national and local government policy and practice towards the economic development of deprived areas from 2004 onwards. Impacts were evident through shaping a significant re-orientation in policy approaches towards deprived neighbourhoods as well as the development of specific policies and governance practice.
Dr Jerome Lewis's research defining how to implement free, prior and informed consent has led to effective and equitable relations between indigenous forest people and FSC-certified forestry companies operating in the Congo Basin (over 4 million ha). It enabled forest people to monitor illegal logging and improve forest governance and has been adopted by forestry organisations in the region. It was instrumental in setting up the Centre d'Excellence Social which recruits students from the region to train a new generation of forest managers with the skills required to put the newly defined social principles into practice, as well as Radio Biso na Biso, a community radio station which disseminates indigenous views on local issues, logging and conservation.
Through training courses, briefings and written reports, Justin Willis and Chris Vaughan have influenced policy-making and contributed to professional development in the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), Department for International Development (DfID), and Ministry of Defence (MoD), as well as other governments. They have had similar impacts on NGOs and multilateral bodies, including the African Union and agencies of the United Nations. In so doing, they have contributed to innovation and entrepreneurial activity through the expansion of a non-governmental organisation, the Rift Valley Institute (RVI).
This case study centres on research, which had an impact on a major piece of local government legislation. The research was a comparative study of the Local Integrity Systems (LIS) of England, Scotland and Wales. The research was commissioned by Standards for England as part of its 2010 strategic review, which was used by the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) in the creation of the Localism Act 2011. This Act fundamentally altered the English local integrity framework. The research has subsequently been used by major national research projects in corruption in local government.
The Crofting Reform Act 2010 and Scottish Government's Policy Statement on Crofting 2008 implemented the main recommendations of the report of the Committee of Inquiry on the Future of Crofting, chaired by Professor Mark Shucksmith. The Inquiry itself was an example of a co-production approach to the generation of knowledge for legal and policy application. The report, in turn, was informed: by work of CRE researchers at Newcastle University in the 1990s and 2000s on "neo-endogenous rural development"; by theories and studies of "collaborative planning" developed by planning researchers in Newcastle University; and by Shucksmith's work, often synthesising the two, from 2005. This body of research informed a major overhaul of crofting legislation and governance in Scotland aimed at reversing the decline of crofting as a social practice with major territorial effects, and is actively debated in other countries as an appropriate approach to rural development.