Global Environment & Society Academy

GESA INNOVATION INITIATIVE FUND REPORT:  RIPPLES Workshop

The GESA Innovation Initiative Fund supported the inaugural meeting of the RIPPLES early career network, held at the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation on 14 – 15 March 2016.

RIPPLES (Researching the Interface between Policy and Practice for Local Environmental Sustainability) is a multi-disciplinary, multi-institution research group, established by researchers at the University of Edinburgh in 2015, which brings together early career researchers whose work explicitly focuses on the interaction between government policy and grassroots practice in achieving local- and community-led sustainability initiatives.

Whilst a substantial volume of research is happening in/with different communities, individual researchers are often isolated, especially early career researchers.  Consequently, RIPPLES seeks to forge productive relationships and collaborations between which will:

  1. enable knowledge exchange between researchers on research findings, methodologies, key literatures and theories, relevant policy and legislation;
  2. identify potential for innovative collaborative research projects;
  3. disseminate our research through comparative/collaborative journal papers, as well as informally through blogs on our website
  4. contribute substantively towards improved understanding of the interplay between local and government actors in achieving more sustainable society.

The Workshop

The agenda of the two day event, co-designed by the network members, was as follows:

 

DAY ONE

“CONNECT”

 

TIME

ACTIVITY

PURPOSE

FORMAT

13:00 – 14:00

Lunch.

 

 

14:00 – 15:00

Introductions.

Get to know each other and get warmed up for collaborative activities.

Ice breaker activity.

15:00 – 16:30

Examine the current ‘state of the art’ (to include policy, industry and third sector, as well as academic research).

Establish where RIPPLES fits in with – and where we can contribute to – what’s currently happening.

Reading group:

Everyone submits a paper (can be academic or ‘grey’) which illustrates a RIPPLES-relevant research frontier.

16:30 – 18:00

Map our research interests.

Identify connections, overlaps and synergies that exist when we consider our research together.

Hands-on mapping exercise.

18:00 onwards

Social.

 

 

 

 

DAY TWO

“CREATE”

 

TIME

ACTIVITY

PURPOSE

FORMAT

9:30 – 10:00

Take stock of Day One and set up Day Two.

The best use of Day Two will probably depend somewhat on the direction of Day One.  

General discussion.

10:00 – 13:00

Friendly mini sandpit:

Draft a collaborative journal paper and/or grant proposal.

A chunk of time and space dedicated to putting in the leg work on a paper or grant proposal.

Work in small groups towards submissions for current open calls.

13:00 – 14:00

Lunch.

 

 

14:00 – 15:00

Is RIPPLES worth pursuing?

Has this been productive? How will we maintain the momentum of the collaboration?

General discussion.

 

Following lunch and introductions, the event started with a discussion of papers that participants had submitted before the event as papers which they identified as particularly influential or inspirational pieces. These revealed that RIPPLES researchers favour papers that combine theoretical with empirical work, and that are accessible and enjoyable to read. Key conceptual themes emerged: placing localism in a multi-level context; critically analysing ideas and practices of “community” to avoid romanticising or dismissing them; and similarly taking a “details matter” approach to broader societal changes like the spread of neoliberalism. As a collective, RIPPLES is keen to explore issues of inequality, justice, and power; and to do empirical work on energy, money, sustainability.

In the next session participants shared the themes of their current research and interests for future projects. As well as the readings themes – especially energy, community, and justice – participants were interested in working on democracy, transparency, planning, cultural economy, and natural resource rights. Methodological points were also raised: about “hybridity” as a theme, about impact as an object of study, and ethical reflexivity as to researchers’ impact on and engagement with the people and practices under study.

The following morning, session organisers grouped the participants into tables around “community and environmental justice”, “economy” and “social impact and democracy”. The “social impact” table made considerable headway towards developing an innovative research project. Others were productive in terms of initial ideas and mechanisms for continuing collaboration to refine them further. Groups and pairs then worked into the afternoon on collaborative paper proposals, again with a wide range of ideas, and some writing partnerships forming.

After a late lunch, the group discussed the way ahead. Time was devoted to the details of ensuring that the website will be fit for the purpose of facilitating further discussion and project development. Establishing a user-friendly online discussion forum was felt to be a key priority. In terms of more face-to-face networking, there will be a RIPPLES-sponsored session at the RGS-IBG conference in London in September, and then a further members event early next year – venue to be confirmed. Various people took on responsibility to draft position papers on some of the issues that had been discussed over the course of the workshop.

There was a strong sense that the answer to the agenda question “Is RIPPLES worth pursuing?” was “Yes!”. People then trickled away to their homes and trains, with the words “see you on the forum” ringing in their ears.