CREATe

Project Name

Researchers

Description

Reducing Energy Consumption through Community Knowledge Networks (REKKN)

Professor Andrew Dobson with Dr Philip Catney, Dr Sherilyn MacGregor, Professor Mark Ormerod, Dr Zoe Robinson (all Keele) and Simon Ross (Marches Energy Agency)

This ESRC-EPSRC funded research project focuses on how knowledge about energy consumption reduction circulates through 'community knowledge networks'. It aims to compare and contrast the energy reduction challenges in two communities. (2011-2013)

The Politics of International Climate Co-operation
(part of the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy)

Led by Professor John Vogler with Dr. Robert Falkner (LSE)

Understandings of the development of international climate governance have been informed by rationality-based appraisals deriving from natural science and the discipline of economics, but they have also been shaped by a wider range of historical and institutional factors. This project seeks to explore these factors so that a fuller understanding of the prospects for the future evolution of global climate governance can be developed.

Friends of the Earth International: Negotiating a North-South Identity

Dr Brian Doherty with Professor Timothy Doyle and Clare Saunders (Southampton University)

The project examined the internal politics of Friends of the Earth Interantional, one of the three major transnational environmental NGOs. It was funded by the ESRC as part of its Programme on Democracy and Particpation between January 2006 and December 2008 and was evlauted as 'oustanding'. We are now working in a book based on the findings which is due to be published by Pagrave in late 2011. See a summary of the Friends of the Earth International Report here.

Regenerating Post-Industrial Medium-Sized Cities

Dr Philip Catney with Professor Chris Phillipson, Professor Graham Allan and Dr Mark Feathestone (all Keele University).

The purpose of this ESRC seminar series is to examine the problems facing medium-sized cities: exploring the barriers inhibiting successful regeneration and the policy levers available for overcoming these.

Multi-level Governance, Europeanization and Urban Politics

Dr Philip Catney with Dr Ian Bache and Professor John Henneberry (both University of Sheffield).

This ESRC-funded project examined three policy sectors within the geographical area of Sheffield to detail the changing nature of multi-level governance at the urban level and to explore the extent to which local actors retain the capacity to coordination and negotiate discourses, policies and processes emanating from ‘higher’ levels of governance.(2008-2009)

The Socio-Politics of Bio-Security

Professor Andrew Dobson with Dr Kezia Barker (Birkbeck University) and Dr Sarah Taylor (Keele University)

Biosecurity systems including political legislation, institutional arrangements and practical enforcement have been developed by countries to protect themselves against these mobile biological risks. These systems demand behavioural changes amongst publics, the realigning and standardizing of local cultural associations to nature, and the justification of the penetration of policy into private arenas. 

This 5-part seminar series seeks to draw this research together, to stimulate and facilitate policy interest and channels of communication, and to encourage further research on the social, political and cultural aspects of biosecurity.

The New British Citizen

Dr Sherilyn MacGragor with Professor Andrew Dobson.

This British Academy funded project investigated the citizenship test and ceremony that have been in place in the UK since 2004-05. The research team examined the history of the adoption of the test and ceremony by the New Labour government and analysed Government policy discourse in order to identify the assumptions about ‘good citizenship’ and social cohesion that have informed the new process. Overall, the findings suggest that the process has achieved a degree of basic integration while failing to create the ‘British citizens’ with the ‘shared values’ that the Government claims will enable greater social cohesion.

Sustainability as a vehicle for competitive advantage: Ecological redevelopment, strategic marketing and the university campus

Dr Stephen Quilley with Professor Andrew Dobson and Dr William Young (Leeds University)

The up-front cost of investment in new hardware and buildings combined with the strategic risks associated with transforming established managerial practices and business models, often makes both public and private sector managers wary of embracing the agenda for sustainable development.

The point of departure for this seminar series was the extent to which the costs of environmental ‘good citizenship’ can be off-set, for first movers, by short-term marketing opportunities as well as the longer-term benefits that may come from anticipating the wider trajectory towards environmental regulation. The ecological redevelopment of universities was used as the focus for an exploration of this topic.

Indian Ocean Research Group

Since 2001, Professor Tim Doyle has Director of Human and Environmental Security

Research efforts have concentrated on both traditional and non-traditional IR and political science theory and practice, most specifically in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), which includes both littoral and non-littoral states in this vast and understudied region.