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Key insights from LSE Cities' interdisciplinary research on the `compact and well-connected' city have been incorporated by central government in national planning policy and by the Mayor of London in the London Plan. This has led to urban land being developed more intensively, ensuring more sustainable and efficient use of space in English towns and cities. Research on green city policies has been adopted by the United Nations Environment Programme (2011) and is determining policy formulation in Stockholm, Copenhagen and Portland. Urban Age conferences and research have created an international network of urban policy-makers and scholars, and LSE Cities staff have had impact on the design of the Olympic Park in London and development plans for cities outside the UK.
Since 2006 Professor Cooper has led interdisciplinary research to inform the design of the urban environment, especially in relation to creating sustainable places that support citizen wellbeing. Outcomes include a new model of design decision-making, a toolkit for urban design decisions, and collation of evidence on the impact of environment on mental health and wellbeing. Her work has been supported by EPSRC, over ninety companies, and six city councils. Impact has included tools to enable planners and developers to address issues such as density and wellbeing; informing government policy on mental health and the environment; raising the profile of design-led approaches to complex policy problems.
DPU's research by Davila, Allen et al into urban infrastructure has generated analytical tools used by policy-makers, practitioners and aid organisations to examine the distribution of and access to urban services. It has supported the development of training curricula used altogether by over 4,000 urban planners in cities of the Global South, and through partners in The Netherlands, India and Colombia. At the policy level, the research has informed local government actors in Colombia, and international bodies (e.g. UN-Habitat and the International Resource Panel) in planning, financing, monitoring and equitable delivery of infrastructure services. At the NGO level, new analytical approaches have been adopted by WaterAid in Mozambique, Nigeria, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a result of DPU research.
The case study captures and describes the outputs and impacts arising from cumulative research on the theme of accessibility in transport and urban design. Impacts are evidenced both through the research process in terms of end-user engagement, collaborative research and real world test bed research (local communities and neighbourhoods); and through intermediary and professional/ practitioner body validation, policy-making and take up of research findings and guidance/toolkits arising. Impacts have also occurred through wider dissemination, follow-up research and collaboration both nationally and internationally.
University of Manchester (UoM) research has made a key contribution to adaptation planning strategy for urban climate change, at a range of scales. Impact was achieved via the generation of data, and the creation and refinement of tools and frameworks that offer a distinct geographical perspective and a means of generating local evidence on urban climate risks, vulnerabilities and adaptation potential. Proof of principle was established within Greater Manchester, with extensive and ongoing use of research findings to support urban adaptation. Subsequently, the research has guided additional localities, and contributed to national policy formulation. More recently, a number of cities — including on mainland Europe and the African continent — have used the research within local adaptation planning, and related green infrastructure policy and practice.
Peter Jones' research developed new principles for urban street planning and design, which have been incorporated into Department for Transport (DfT) and Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) national guidelines. The methodology has been used in the Mayor of London's Roads Task Force report; Transport for London (TfL) now requires boroughs to use the classification for all new submissions for funding for street schemes. It underpins the specification of an £650m PFI highway maintenance contract with LB Hounslow, and has been used by other UK local authorities. Internationally, the approach has been applied in Australia and included in draft regulations for urban planning in Beijing.
Communities have now become key measures of social need and welfare. Over the past 10 years Professor Mark Deakin's research has provided the means to turn around those communities previously deemed "unsustainable". This has been achieved by not only providing the means to tackle the inequalities of social exclusion and combat the culture of area-based deprivation, but by assembling the instruments (policy briefings, guidelines and decision support systems) that are needed for the value-adding and cost-saving measures of the urban regeneration programmes being promoted to succeed in meeting the welfare agenda which surrounds sustainable community development.
Urban biodiversity supports the functioning of the urban ecosystem and provides recreational opportunities. This is a West Midlands-based public engagement case study demonstrating both environmental and social impact through a five-year BIG Lottery-funded project based on research into urban biodiversity led by Professor Jon Sadler. The project — OPALWM — focused much of its public engagement activity on some of the most economically-deprived areas of Birmingham and the Black Country, locations that the scientific research had identified as having unrealised environmental opportunities. OPALWM achieved extensive recorded reach (122 organisations; 26,000 people; 60,000 website hits) and active engagement from schools, volunteers and wildlife groups. It has a sustainability plan designed to maintain its impact after its BIG Lottery funding ends in November 2013.
Borden's research into the history and contemporary urban practice of skateboarding, and particularly its role within cities and public spaces, has enhanced understanding of this global urban activity, leading to significant changes in how the public and media understand skateboarding culture in the UK and abroad. His work has also contributed to the campaign to save a historic skateboarding site at the Southbank Centre in London, and to moves to protect similar sites elsewhere. Finally, research by Borden has informed the design and development of some of the most influential skateboarding venues in the country.
Two decades of research in the Global Urban Research Unit at Newcastle University has significantly shaped public awareness and political understanding of the links between technology, infrastructure and security within highly urbanised societies. Research into the role of cities as key sites of security and war and the spread of `the surveillance society' are two interlocking foci that have generated impacts with global reach. Of particular significance are: a) research and scholarship to develop key concepts and a language that captures and communicates how urban landscapes are being infiltrated by military technologies. We specifically highlight the publication of Cities Under Siege as the culmination of this work and its impact on national and international public debate, and; b) specific studies into surveillance technologies in Britain that impact directly on public debate and the formation of specific national policy.