Research into the Impact of the Economic Downturn and the Rebalancing of Northern Ireland's Economy on it Neighbourhoods

ISEP researcher Dr Jenny Muir is part of a research team carrying out a three-year study into the impact of recession and the rebalancing of Northern Ireland’s economy on its neighbourhoods. The research is led by the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR) at Sheffield Hallam University and the third partner is the University of Sheffield. The aims of the study are to:

• Further understand and generate robust evidence of the longitudinal impacts of the recession and public finance reductions on different types of neighbourhoods in Northern Ireland, at individual household and community levels;
• Understand how the trajectories, dynamics and outcomes of neighbourhoods are affected by risk, resilience and recovery factors and the relationships between these factors and social capital, collective efficacy and the stewardship, community development and entrepreneurism functions of residents and voluntary and community groups;
• Use this understanding to inform policies which promote the resilience and recovery of deprived communities and facilitate the rebalancing of the social economies of neighbourhoods in Northern Ireland in order that the public, private and voluntary and community sectors can all contribute towards achieving the aims of the Lifetime Opportunities Strategy.

The research will be focused on three case studies of lower or mixed  income neighbourhoods, along with a comparator more affluent neighbourhood. Research methods will include: large scale resident surveys; in-depth interviews with key local stakeholders; in-depth interviews, photographic and diary keeping exercises with residents; and an assessment of the socio-economic contribution of the voluntary and community sector.

The research is being undertaken for the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister as part of its Equality and Social Need research programme.

or contact Jenny Muir for more details

Responding to Climate Change: India-UK Perspectives

Climate change requires a range of urgent international responses, however as the negotiations at Copenhagen in December 2009 highlight, agreeing a multi-lateral consensus faces major challenges. In such a context, the development of trans-national understanding of climate change impacts and responses offers an important contribution to the development of a broader agreement. Both the UK and India play important roles in the emergence of a common climate change response, India is the world’s second most populous country and faces dramatic rates of development, with associated global consequences for greenhouse gas emissions. While the UK is the first country in the world to adopt a legally binding framework for meeting climate change targets, as well as being a critical player in setting the climate change policy of the EU, the largest economy in the world.

In this context, academics from Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) and a range of Indian partners explore areas of mutual understanding and cooperation the field of climate change responses.

The aims are:

• To stimulate a UK-India cross-national understanding of the policy and research priorities for climate change action in the built environment and related disciplines;
• To stimulate UK-India exchanges amongst academic staff and students around the theme of climate change;
• To stimulate research collaboration between QUB and leading Indian researchers in the field of climate change responses.
• To act as a catalyst to further climate change events involving UK and Indian researchers.

Click here for the project website

or contact Geraint Ellis for more details

Delivering Renewable Energy Under Devolution

‘Delivering renewable energy under devolution’ is a two year research project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (RES-062-23-2526). The aim of the proposed study is to assess the impacts of devolution in the UK on the provision of renewable energy, addressing in particular the following questions:

1. To what extent has devolution affected the provision of renewable energy, in terms of the ways in which the devolved administration have formulated policy objectives, adjusted the choice, nature and settings of policy instruments, and influenced the delivery of new renewable energy capacity?
2. To what extent have the devolved institutions made different use of the powers and capacities for promoting renewable energy bequeathed to them by the devolution process, and how might we explain any tendencies towards divergence or convergence?
3. What lessons can be drawn for institutional design in the effective delivery of renewable energy from the experiences of governments across the UK to date?

The study runs for two years, from 1st January 2011 to 31st December 2012. The research is being led by the School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University (Dr Richard Cowell), in partnership with Institute of Spatial and Environmental Planning at Queens University Belfast (Dr Geraint Ellis), Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen (Professor Peter A Strachan) and the University of Birmingham (Dr David Toke).

Click here the project website at Cardiff University

or contact Geraint Ellis for more details

CU2: Contested cities and urban universities

This project is structured into four main themes that are designed to: Investigate the interface between regeneration and reconciliation in a contested city like Belfast.   Investigate the structure and culture of collaboration within and among the three tiers of city governance; Build a University-Community Partnership in Belfast and assess its development and impact; and Investigate the most appropriate model and rationale for a systematic social economy in Belfast.

Please contact Frank Gaffikin or Ken Sterrett for more details

'Planning Shared Space of a Shared Future' is a multidisciplinary research project established to examine the relationship between changing demography, identity and territory in Belfast, and the role of planning in promoting shared space as a crucial component of a sustainable shared future for the city. In short, this is a participatory action-research project undertaken in partnership with research subjects and designed to impact on policy formation. Moreover, it is inter-disciplinary and comparative in perspective and operation.

This work has been extended with a recent ESRC award into planning methodologies and skills for managing shared places. The work has developed resources, conceptual frameworks and methods to better manage single identity communities as well as opportunities for tackling enclaving and territoriality.

Please contact Frank Gaffikin or Ken Sterrett for more details

Funding has been received from the ESRC (£220,000) for this two-year project, which began in Dec 2008. (RES-062-23-1358) The project seeks evidence of a retirement transition affecting the mobility patterns of the 50-64 year old age group within the UK’s Celtic fringe. The retirement transition concept refers to the behavioural changes affecting pre-retirement age groups, and assumes that the expectation of retirement acts as a catalyst for change, including a change of residence.  Such migration is commonly associated with peripheral and scenically attractive areas. Accordingly, the project focuses on rural areas of Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland. It has two main aims – to examine the retirement transition concept and to evaluate its consequences for an ageing society, individual migrants and rural destination communities.The methodology involves four main stages.

1. An analysis of Census datasets to explore the migration patterns of the 50-64 age cohort. Datasets will include – Special Migration Statistics and Northern Ireland Longitudinal Survey. Data relating to rural areas of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be analysed.

2. A household survey and migrant interviews. These will examine the characteristics, origins, decision-making processes, and consequences associated with pre-retirement and other migration flows. Surveys and interviews will be conducted in rural Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

3. A postal survey of non-movers. This will focus on the migrants’ areas of origin and seeks to determine reasons for not moving (by those age 50-64 years).

4. Interviews with local service providers and local/national policy-makers. These will consider the policy implications of retirement transition migration on an ageing society, rural communities and migrant well-being. A series of stakeholder seminars will also be arranged.

For more information contact: Dr Aileen Stockdale

Click Rural Migration for the Project Website

This research is funded by the Nuffield Foundation to examine the examine the experiences, aspiration and expectations of migrant workers’ in Northern Ireland. Proportionately Northern Ireland has experienced the largest increase of migrant workers within the current migration wave. Little is known about the lived experiences of these groups of people. By focusing on participation in civic life, support networks, access to primary healthcare and quality of life, his research will determine issues affecting migrant communities’ wellbeing. The findings from the research will inform policymakers, researchers and stakeholders as well as providing the basis of a larger research project.

For more information contact: Dr Ruth McAreavey

The SPAN project is an INTERREG funded project that involves partner Universities in the Republic of Ireland, France and Belgium. In Northern Ireland it explores the relationship between countryside housing and the achievement of local development in rural areas. Moreover, given that local development in this context is about looking creatively at ways to improve the existing physical and human resource base, community-led initiatives are central to meeting that challenge. The principal task in this project will be to design with rural communities a series of local planning frameworks that are premised around community preference and environmental responsibility. It is envisaged that the output will be of value to the host communities and to the multiple stakeholders in the wider rural planning policy arena.

Click here for the project website

ISSP is an island of Ireland platform of integrated social science research and graduate education focusing on the social, cultural, economic and spatial transformations affecting Ireland in the 21st Century.  The initiative is funded to the order of €16.5 million by the Higher Education Authority under the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions. It brings together 8 institutions and 19 disciplines, including spatial planning and development. The partners are Queen’s University Belfast, NUI Maynooth, NUI Galway, University College Cork, Dublin City University, Sligo Institute of Technology, Mary Immaculate College, and University of Limerick

Click here for the project website (off-site link)

This research project is a response to a joint invitation by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Academy for Sustainable Communities (ASC) into the development of skills for areas such as spatial planning, social renewal and local; sustainable development. The study aims to open a debate about the skills needed to develop sustainable places and communities in Northern Ireland. The Sustainable Communities agenda has not translated to the regional context with the same pace as the rest of the UK although elements of the broad conceptual approach are recognised in initiatives such as Neighbourhood Renewal, Renewing Communities and the Rural Development Programme. The research informs our on going course development in sustainable communities and argues for a stronger policy context for the development of skills in the region.

Click here for the Project website

Women's Land Army

Linda Price has received a grant from RGS/IBG to conduct research with women who worked in the Women’s Land Army and Timber Corp during World War Two (WLA).  A civilian organization that after years of campaigning were finally awarded with a badge from the Queen in 2008 and allowed to March in the annual festival of remembrance.  Knowledge of the work of the WLA has also been heightened by recent films on television. From 1941 the WLA was one of the options available within female conscription in England, Wales and Scotland.  The project engages with the comprehensive war time planning in relation to food production that was required in order for the country to be self-sufficient.  For the first time food production was centralized and through incentives farmers informed of what they should grow, where and when through a network of Ministry of Agriculture representatives.

Such comprehensive planning for the countryside, it is suggested, has been overlooked within planning which has tended to have an urban bias.  Often notions of comprehensive planning has  been viewed through a focus on post-war city reconstruction  The project aims to begin to redress this bias by talking to women, many of whom will be in their eighties at least, about their experiences.  Most of the women were from cities and the work and living conditions they were faced with presented them with considerable challenges.  Not least was convincing the farmer’s who privatly employed them that they could do the job and replace the many farm workers who left for the higher wages of the armed forces

The women took on skilled and tough manual work.  Often they were the first people to be able to drive tractors which were hastily imported to increase food production.  The extent to which the women felt they were contributing to war time food production through ‘feeding the nation’ will be explored through life history interviews in three case-study locations in England, Scotland and Wales.  The extent to which the women experienced the hostility of younger farming men kept on farms as farming became a ‘reserved occupation’ and had to work with prisoners of war will also be investigated.  Three key areas will be examined in the project providing a springboard to a larger research application providing international comparative perspectives to food planning/production during the Second World War in Canada, New Zealand and Australia where the WLA also operated: 1) The opportunities for work outside of expected norms comprehensive planning/ food production provided 2) The opportunities to develop a range of relationships and the challenges of an urban/rural dichotomy 3) How the women remember their roles in war-time food production and how they this impacted on their post-war lives.