I have successful led and acted as Co-Investigator for 13 projects since 2005 and I am regularly involved in leading and participating in various bids (e.g. PI for H2020 or co-director for a £20M GCRF Hub). I have secured as PI and Co-I over £2M from external funders - UKRI and French research councils, British Council, Regional Studies Association, as well as internal (Institute for Advance Studies and Institute for Global Innovation at the University of Birmingham and UMR CNRS Pacte). This track record highlights my ability to bridge disciplines across urban studies opening new avenues for intellectual endeavour supported by grant capture.
The current ESRC NRF SAPER I am leading with an initial focus on the curriculum and teaching methods used in urban and spatial planning education has widened its contribution by, specifically developing a focus on understanding the needs and challenges of planning practitioners in South Africa, and in exploring the implications this has for planning education, before and after graduation . Along with SACPLAN and CAP we are currently working towards different forms of engagements with national governments . In the ASAP-EAST Africa project, where I am Co-Investigator and co-lead of the two social sciences work packages, I play a key role in bridging disciplines and ensuring that urban planning is assessed systemically to understand current and future air pollution urban planning policy as well as implementation and enforcement challenges; here the ability to account for the unplanned and skill shortages is key. Some of my other past projects have allowed me to position the concept of temporary urbanism as a cross-over and pluri-disciplinary analytical framework or argue for the need for non-siloed thinking to shape the directions of a new urban planning agenda and the future of urban economies.
The current ESRC NRF SAPER I am leading with an initial focus on the curriculum and teaching methods used in urban and spatial planning education has widened its contribution by, specifically developing a focus on understanding the needs and challenges of planning practitioners in South Africa, and in exploring the implications this has for planning education, before and after graduation . Along with SACPLAN and CAP we are currently working towards different forms of engagements with national governments . In the ASAP-EAST Africa project, where I am Co-Investigator and co-lead of the two social sciences work packages, I play a key role in bridging disciplines and ensuring that urban planning is assessed systemically to understand current and future air pollution urban planning policy as well as implementation and enforcement challenges; here the ability to account for the unplanned and skill shortages is key. Some of my other past projects have allowed me to position the concept of temporary urbanism as a cross-over and pluri-disciplinary analytical framework or argue for the need for non-siloed thinking to shape the directions of a new urban planning agenda and the future of urban economies.
Research Projects (current and past)
2016 – 2020: The appropriateness, usefulness and impact of the current urban planning curriculum in South African Higher Education (ES/P00198X/1) (one year no-cost extension granted till 31 July 2020)
Principal Investigator– Value: £480, 188 FEC
UK Team: Dr. Lauren Andres (PI), Dr. David Adams, Dr. Mike Beazley, Dr. Phil Jones
SA Team: Mr. Stuart Denoon-Stevens (PI), Prof. Verna Nel, Dr. Elsona Van Huyssteen, Dr. Emmie Smit; Martin Lewis.
Total Value ESRC/NRF: circa £ 599,188
www.saperproject.com
This project is part of ESRC-NRF Newton call for collaborative research on Higher Education in South Africa. This research is positioned at the crossover between urban planning and geography and has been developed in close partnership with two planning accreditation bodies, SACPLAN in South Africa and RTPI in the UK. The research aims to investigate the social and economic value of planning education in South Africa exploring questions of equity and diversity in Higher Education. It queries the urban planning undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum while reflecting on planners needs, once in the field, in a very complex and diverse urban environment. Lessons for policy and practice are sought for South Africa and the wider African continent.
2017-2020 - "A systems approach to air pollution in East Africa (ASAP)" (DFID)
Co-Investigator and Research Coordinator. Co-leading two inter-disciplinary work-packages. End date: 30 May 2020. Principal investigator: Prof. France Pope - Value: £1.2M
www.asap-eastafrica.com
ASAP brings together leading UK and East African researchers in air pollution, urban planning, economic geography, public health, social sciences and development studies to provide a framework for improved air quality management in East African cities (Nairobi, Kampala and Addis Ababa). This timely and responsive programme of activity will enhance local decision-making abilities to improve urban air quality, reduce the effects of air pollution upon human health, and allow for sustainable development to proceed without further deterioration in air quality. Central to the project’s aims are strengthening research capabilities and technological expertise in East Africa, with local stakeholders and experts involved in the conception, implementation, and uptake of the programme and its outcomes.
2018- 2020 - Resilient Cities Programme, Institute for Global Innovation (IGI), University of Birmingham
Member of the programmeled by Dr Jonathan Radcliffe with a specific focus on ‘policies and governance process of urban and economic regeneration” and lead for the sub-theme: Cities and urbanisation in the South: tacking key challenges at European level.
This is one of the four inaugural themes selected by the newly launched Institute for Global Innovation. The ‘City Resilience’ theme investigates the drivers of urban distress and the conditions for securing city resilience, with a focus on global cities that are undergoing transitions at different levels of analysis: individual; community; city; national.
2018 – 2019: Re-inhabiting the City: Bringing new life to city centres of emerging economies in a changing climate (EPSRC/FAPESP) - completed
Co-Investigator. Principale Investigators: Dr Lucelia Rodrigues (UoN), and Dr Joana Soares Gonçalves (University of Sao Paulo). Value : £ 25,000
www.reinhabitingthecity.com
This project explored the issue of 'Re-Inhabiting the City' and questioned the re-use/re-design of vacant spaces in Sao Paulo's vacant urban core. It aimed to support the sustainable reoccupation of underused or abandoned buildings, creating places that are comfortable, resilient to climate change and occupied by a vibrant healthy community. It also aimed to address key urban challenges such as the reintegration of derelict sites into the urban fabric, lack of social cohesion, loss of socio-cultural values, lack of free spaces and public realm, social exclusion and inequality, reduced public health and wellbeing, and increased criminality.
2017-2018- Mega-event legacies and sustainable, greener, climate-resilient cities (GCRF IAA fund and GEES pump-priming fund)
Co-Investigator. Principal Investigator: Emma Ferranti (PI). Value : £ 18,779
This project utilised partnerships and research developed during previous EPSRC-IAA-funded on urban mobility in Brazil to (i) to examine the transport legacies of mega-events in the global south (2014 FIFA World Cup, Brazil; 2016 Summer Olympics Rio De Janeiro; 1963 Pan-American Games (São Paulo); 2014 FIFA World Cup, South Africa); and in doing so, (ii) pump-prime new research on mega-event legacies and sustainable, greener, climate-resilient cities.
2012-2014: Regeneration Economies: Transforming People, Place and Production
Institute for Advanced Studies Inaugural Theme – University of Birmingham
Co-PI with Prof. John Bryson (Birmingham Business School)
Value: £ 50 000
The economic crisis that commenced in 2007 has been associated with calls to rebalance the economy. This reflects political interest in economic restructuring to enhance competitiveness through diversity combined with localism. Academics have developed disciplinary approaches to understanding regional problems that require interdisciplinary solutions. Existing approaches are no longer appropriate for understanding cities that are experiencing an on-going process of economic regeneration. The Regeneration Economies theme included three interrelated strands of activity:
- The development of an integrated approach to understanding regional regeneration economies, more holistic or less partial than existing conceptualisations.
- An exploration of the consequences of the major developments in engineering which will revolutionise production systems and transform the functioning economic geography of regional economies by developing a distinctive research dialogue between engineering and the social sciences.
- An understanding of the relationship between firms, regional competitiveness, skills and training.
2012: Regeneration Economies in an Age of Uncertainty: Transformation, Innovation and Economic Growth
Institute for Advanced Studies – University of Birmingham
Co-PI with Prof. John Bryson (Birmingham Business School)
Value: £3600
The economic downturn that commenced in 2008 is associated with a new focus on enhancing local economic development and on rebalancing local economies in an age of uncertainty. This notion of ‘balance’ reflects a new emphasis on manufacturing as a key driver of economic growth. The project’s rationale was to explore the development of a new set of approaches to understanding the transformation of local and regional economies that have experienced considerable turbulence. The development of our new concept of ‘regeneration economies’ has had the potential to act as a distinctive framework for researching and understanding economic transformation in places like the West Midlands, Chicago and Randstad. A feature of these workshops was to consider the interactions between a set of local and global processes as they are being played out in regeneration economies. Workshop 1 developed a research approach to exploring places through the conceptual lens of ‘regeneration economies’ that was tested in Workshop 2.
2011-2013: Mega-Events and Regional Development
Regional Studies Association
Co-PI with Prof Graeme Evans, Middlesex University and Dr Bas Van Heur, Maastricht University
Value: 3000€
The aim of the research network was to situate mega-event led regeneration within regional studies and both to theorise the concept and transfer accumulating knowledge and develop methods of planning, impact evaluation and measurement of their effects over time. The outcome of the research network was to develop a regional perspective and typology of mega-events and related regeneration policies and processes, and better understand their regional scope and impact within both local-regional-national contexts and as a global phenomenon. Four workshops were held in London and Maastricht, plus special sessions convened at the AAG in New York (2012) and Chicago (2015) and at the 2015 Regional Studies Association annual conference in Piacenza where 2 sessions were organised. Over 40 presentations including by academics (senior, mid and early career), research students, practitioners and policy-makers, have been made to audiences, totalling 160 people, with attendance at each event ranging from at least 20 to 50.
2010-2011: Persistence resilience and marginal communities
University of Birmingham – Resilience Initiative
Co-I with Dr. John Round (PI), Dr. Oleg Golubchikov, Prof. Chris Barber, Dr. Charlotte Ross, Prof. Isabelle Szmigin, Dr. Andrew Quinn and Prof. Anthony Beech
Value: £30 000
How communities develop resilience to more mundane, everyday pressures has been inadequately explored. To fill this lacuna this project, gathering a range of academics from various discipline (geography, urban planning, engineering, management, psychology and modern languages) examined how communities deal with ongoing economic, social, cultural, political contextual challenges/pressure placed upon them by adopting various coping tactics. These tactics might be built thanks to volunteerism, social networks, the emergence of local leaders or other ‘bottom up’ initiatives. By exploring how communities develop persistent resilience the project demonstrated how such networks and tactics can be strengthened.
2010-2011 Internationalising Higher Education in Russia
British Council
Co-I with Dr. John Round (PI), Dr. Oleg Golubchikov and Dr. Irina Kuznetsova-Morenko
Value: £4000
The project aimed to assess how urban development teaching in Russia can be modernised to European standards focussed on encouraging increased industry (such as construction and energy companies), practitioner and community involvement in the teaching of urban development modules at undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing professional development levels.
2006-2008: Représentations, légitimités et traductions des démolitions-reconstructions dans les projets de renouvellement urbain de quartiers (Representations and narratives developed for the regeneration of social housing estates)
Plan Urbanisme Construction Architecture (PUCA)
Co-I with Dr. Duarte (PI), Dr. Ambrosino and Mme Seigneuret
Value: 59 000€
This project assessed the policy narratives that are used in order to justify the demolition and reconstruction of housing blocks in four deprived social neighbourhoods in Grenoble, Romans and Hem. It also assessed how the development of new urban forms participates to an overall reshaping and branding of the area
2006-2007: Alarm procedures and hazard mitigation in urban areas: linking hazards mitigation to sustainable development
UMR-CNRS Pacte
Co-I with Prof. Mancebo (PI)
Value: 5000€
Hazards issues, whether environmental, bio-health and medical or technological, and warning systems that respond to them, have always been part of the way human beings manage and organize their urban areas. Fear of catastrophic events have been having a strong influence on urban planning, especially as far as sustainable development policies are at stake. The importance of these issues for urban societies is embedded in the diversity of warning systems, disaster management and hazard mitigation. It is thus crucial to wonder about the type of social fears which serve as a basis for the construction of these alert procedures. The aim of the project was to create an international research network on alarm procedures and hazard mitigation.
2005-2007: Sustainable urban development: a cross-disciplinary topic for doctoral researchers
Co-PI with Dr. Sadoux and Mr. Faraco
UMR-CNRS Pacte
Value: 2000€
Sustainable development in urban areas is an area of concern for scientists going beyond the sole focus of urban planning. It is an areas of research for a range of doctoral researchers in the disciplines of geography, political science, earth sciences, political sciences or history. There is a need to allow more dialogue between research and policy to discuss the new challenges faced by sustainable urban development. This initiative which comprised 6 seminars aimed to convene academics, practitioners and policy makers around a set of themes to discuss the various features of sustainability.
2016 – 2020: The appropriateness, usefulness and impact of the current urban planning curriculum in South African Higher Education (ES/P00198X/1) (one year no-cost extension granted till 31 July 2020)
Principal Investigator– Value: £480, 188 FEC
UK Team: Dr. Lauren Andres (PI), Dr. David Adams, Dr. Mike Beazley, Dr. Phil Jones
SA Team: Mr. Stuart Denoon-Stevens (PI), Prof. Verna Nel, Dr. Elsona Van Huyssteen, Dr. Emmie Smit; Martin Lewis.
Total Value ESRC/NRF: circa £ 599,188
www.saperproject.com
This project is part of ESRC-NRF Newton call for collaborative research on Higher Education in South Africa. This research is positioned at the crossover between urban planning and geography and has been developed in close partnership with two planning accreditation bodies, SACPLAN in South Africa and RTPI in the UK. The research aims to investigate the social and economic value of planning education in South Africa exploring questions of equity and diversity in Higher Education. It queries the urban planning undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum while reflecting on planners needs, once in the field, in a very complex and diverse urban environment. Lessons for policy and practice are sought for South Africa and the wider African continent.
2017-2020 - "A systems approach to air pollution in East Africa (ASAP)" (DFID)
Co-Investigator and Research Coordinator. Co-leading two inter-disciplinary work-packages. End date: 30 May 2020. Principal investigator: Prof. France Pope - Value: £1.2M
www.asap-eastafrica.com
ASAP brings together leading UK and East African researchers in air pollution, urban planning, economic geography, public health, social sciences and development studies to provide a framework for improved air quality management in East African cities (Nairobi, Kampala and Addis Ababa). This timely and responsive programme of activity will enhance local decision-making abilities to improve urban air quality, reduce the effects of air pollution upon human health, and allow for sustainable development to proceed without further deterioration in air quality. Central to the project’s aims are strengthening research capabilities and technological expertise in East Africa, with local stakeholders and experts involved in the conception, implementation, and uptake of the programme and its outcomes.
2018- 2020 - Resilient Cities Programme, Institute for Global Innovation (IGI), University of Birmingham
Member of the programmeled by Dr Jonathan Radcliffe with a specific focus on ‘policies and governance process of urban and economic regeneration” and lead for the sub-theme: Cities and urbanisation in the South: tacking key challenges at European level.
This is one of the four inaugural themes selected by the newly launched Institute for Global Innovation. The ‘City Resilience’ theme investigates the drivers of urban distress and the conditions for securing city resilience, with a focus on global cities that are undergoing transitions at different levels of analysis: individual; community; city; national.
2018 – 2019: Re-inhabiting the City: Bringing new life to city centres of emerging economies in a changing climate (EPSRC/FAPESP) - completed
Co-Investigator. Principale Investigators: Dr Lucelia Rodrigues (UoN), and Dr Joana Soares Gonçalves (University of Sao Paulo). Value : £ 25,000
www.reinhabitingthecity.com
This project explored the issue of 'Re-Inhabiting the City' and questioned the re-use/re-design of vacant spaces in Sao Paulo's vacant urban core. It aimed to support the sustainable reoccupation of underused or abandoned buildings, creating places that are comfortable, resilient to climate change and occupied by a vibrant healthy community. It also aimed to address key urban challenges such as the reintegration of derelict sites into the urban fabric, lack of social cohesion, loss of socio-cultural values, lack of free spaces and public realm, social exclusion and inequality, reduced public health and wellbeing, and increased criminality.
2017-2018- Mega-event legacies and sustainable, greener, climate-resilient cities (GCRF IAA fund and GEES pump-priming fund)
Co-Investigator. Principal Investigator: Emma Ferranti (PI). Value : £ 18,779
This project utilised partnerships and research developed during previous EPSRC-IAA-funded on urban mobility in Brazil to (i) to examine the transport legacies of mega-events in the global south (2014 FIFA World Cup, Brazil; 2016 Summer Olympics Rio De Janeiro; 1963 Pan-American Games (São Paulo); 2014 FIFA World Cup, South Africa); and in doing so, (ii) pump-prime new research on mega-event legacies and sustainable, greener, climate-resilient cities.
2012-2014: Regeneration Economies: Transforming People, Place and Production
Institute for Advanced Studies Inaugural Theme – University of Birmingham
Co-PI with Prof. John Bryson (Birmingham Business School)
Value: £ 50 000
The economic crisis that commenced in 2007 has been associated with calls to rebalance the economy. This reflects political interest in economic restructuring to enhance competitiveness through diversity combined with localism. Academics have developed disciplinary approaches to understanding regional problems that require interdisciplinary solutions. Existing approaches are no longer appropriate for understanding cities that are experiencing an on-going process of economic regeneration. The Regeneration Economies theme included three interrelated strands of activity:
- The development of an integrated approach to understanding regional regeneration economies, more holistic or less partial than existing conceptualisations.
- An exploration of the consequences of the major developments in engineering which will revolutionise production systems and transform the functioning economic geography of regional economies by developing a distinctive research dialogue between engineering and the social sciences.
- An understanding of the relationship between firms, regional competitiveness, skills and training.
2012: Regeneration Economies in an Age of Uncertainty: Transformation, Innovation and Economic Growth
Institute for Advanced Studies – University of Birmingham
Co-PI with Prof. John Bryson (Birmingham Business School)
Value: £3600
The economic downturn that commenced in 2008 is associated with a new focus on enhancing local economic development and on rebalancing local economies in an age of uncertainty. This notion of ‘balance’ reflects a new emphasis on manufacturing as a key driver of economic growth. The project’s rationale was to explore the development of a new set of approaches to understanding the transformation of local and regional economies that have experienced considerable turbulence. The development of our new concept of ‘regeneration economies’ has had the potential to act as a distinctive framework for researching and understanding economic transformation in places like the West Midlands, Chicago and Randstad. A feature of these workshops was to consider the interactions between a set of local and global processes as they are being played out in regeneration economies. Workshop 1 developed a research approach to exploring places through the conceptual lens of ‘regeneration economies’ that was tested in Workshop 2.
2011-2013: Mega-Events and Regional Development
Regional Studies Association
Co-PI with Prof Graeme Evans, Middlesex University and Dr Bas Van Heur, Maastricht University
Value: 3000€
The aim of the research network was to situate mega-event led regeneration within regional studies and both to theorise the concept and transfer accumulating knowledge and develop methods of planning, impact evaluation and measurement of their effects over time. The outcome of the research network was to develop a regional perspective and typology of mega-events and related regeneration policies and processes, and better understand their regional scope and impact within both local-regional-national contexts and as a global phenomenon. Four workshops were held in London and Maastricht, plus special sessions convened at the AAG in New York (2012) and Chicago (2015) and at the 2015 Regional Studies Association annual conference in Piacenza where 2 sessions were organised. Over 40 presentations including by academics (senior, mid and early career), research students, practitioners and policy-makers, have been made to audiences, totalling 160 people, with attendance at each event ranging from at least 20 to 50.
2010-2011: Persistence resilience and marginal communities
University of Birmingham – Resilience Initiative
Co-I with Dr. John Round (PI), Dr. Oleg Golubchikov, Prof. Chris Barber, Dr. Charlotte Ross, Prof. Isabelle Szmigin, Dr. Andrew Quinn and Prof. Anthony Beech
Value: £30 000
How communities develop resilience to more mundane, everyday pressures has been inadequately explored. To fill this lacuna this project, gathering a range of academics from various discipline (geography, urban planning, engineering, management, psychology and modern languages) examined how communities deal with ongoing economic, social, cultural, political contextual challenges/pressure placed upon them by adopting various coping tactics. These tactics might be built thanks to volunteerism, social networks, the emergence of local leaders or other ‘bottom up’ initiatives. By exploring how communities develop persistent resilience the project demonstrated how such networks and tactics can be strengthened.
2010-2011 Internationalising Higher Education in Russia
British Council
Co-I with Dr. John Round (PI), Dr. Oleg Golubchikov and Dr. Irina Kuznetsova-Morenko
Value: £4000
The project aimed to assess how urban development teaching in Russia can be modernised to European standards focussed on encouraging increased industry (such as construction and energy companies), practitioner and community involvement in the teaching of urban development modules at undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing professional development levels.
2006-2008: Représentations, légitimités et traductions des démolitions-reconstructions dans les projets de renouvellement urbain de quartiers (Representations and narratives developed for the regeneration of social housing estates)
Plan Urbanisme Construction Architecture (PUCA)
Co-I with Dr. Duarte (PI), Dr. Ambrosino and Mme Seigneuret
Value: 59 000€
This project assessed the policy narratives that are used in order to justify the demolition and reconstruction of housing blocks in four deprived social neighbourhoods in Grenoble, Romans and Hem. It also assessed how the development of new urban forms participates to an overall reshaping and branding of the area
2006-2007: Alarm procedures and hazard mitigation in urban areas: linking hazards mitigation to sustainable development
UMR-CNRS Pacte
Co-I with Prof. Mancebo (PI)
Value: 5000€
Hazards issues, whether environmental, bio-health and medical or technological, and warning systems that respond to them, have always been part of the way human beings manage and organize their urban areas. Fear of catastrophic events have been having a strong influence on urban planning, especially as far as sustainable development policies are at stake. The importance of these issues for urban societies is embedded in the diversity of warning systems, disaster management and hazard mitigation. It is thus crucial to wonder about the type of social fears which serve as a basis for the construction of these alert procedures. The aim of the project was to create an international research network on alarm procedures and hazard mitigation.
2005-2007: Sustainable urban development: a cross-disciplinary topic for doctoral researchers
Co-PI with Dr. Sadoux and Mr. Faraco
UMR-CNRS Pacte
Value: 2000€
Sustainable development in urban areas is an area of concern for scientists going beyond the sole focus of urban planning. It is an areas of research for a range of doctoral researchers in the disciplines of geography, political science, earth sciences, political sciences or history. There is a need to allow more dialogue between research and policy to discuss the new challenges faced by sustainable urban development. This initiative which comprised 6 seminars aimed to convene academics, practitioners and policy makers around a set of themes to discuss the various features of sustainability.