High-quality and impactful planning research has once again been celebrated at the annual Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Awards for research excellence.
The award-winners were announced on 7 September at an online ceremony hosted by the RTPI. The judging panel for this year’s Research Awards comprised 30 public and private sector representatives as well as academics.
The RTPI Awards for Research Excellence recognise and promote high quality, impactful spatial planning research carried out by chartered members and accredited planning schools from around the world. 17 projects were selected to compete across the four award categories. The submissions and shortlisted entries included research reflecting an interest in cross-cutting issues such as the links between planning and health, and how to deliver sustainable communities.
For a sixth year, Idox has been pleased to sponsor three of the Awards categories – the Planning Practitioner Award, the Student Award, and the Sir Peter Hall Award for Research Excellence.
The Sir Peter Hall Award for Research Excellence
The Sir Peter Hall Award for Research Excellence was awarded to Professor Anthony Crook from the University of Sheffield and Professor Christine Whitehead from the London School of Economics for their entry Capturing development value, principles and practice: why is it so difficult? The paper looks at how far ‘unearned increments’, particularly those arising with planning permission, should be taxed for the public good.
The judges, considered this research to be of critical importance to contemporary planning debate:
“Drawing on English experience, it provides transferable lessons and will no doubt be a key resource for understanding value capture generally and planning-based value capture in particular.”
Student Award
The winner of the Student Award was Jacob George of Newcastle University for his research entitled Accommodation Through Deregulation: Understanding the Social Impacts of Office-Residential Permitted Development in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Jacob’s research investigated the much-debated permitted development right for office-to-residential conversions, focusing uniquely on its social impacts in a city in northern England.
The judges commended the research’s intellectual rigour, methodology and presentation:
“Through evaluating the impacts of the expansion of Permitted Development Rights in the North-East of England this entry brings a much needed wider geographical scope to this area of research and discussion.”
Planning Practitioner Award
The Planning Practitioner Award went to Lucia Cerrada Morato and Becky Mumford of the Place Shaping Team at the London Borough of Tower Hamlets for their High Density Living Supplementary Planning Document.
The research, exploring the lives of residents living in high density and tall buildings will be used to develop and evidence design guidelines to ensure that future development supports good quality of life for all residents living and working in these buildings.
The judges were impressed by the scale of the survey work, and looked forward to more local planning authorities taking up practical research in this way.
Shining a light on planning research
A further award in the Early Career Researcher category was won by Dr Hannah Budnitz from the University of Birmingham, with Professor Lee Chapman, also from the University of Birmingham, and Dr Emmanouil Tranos from the University of Bristol. Their research found that proactively addressing the accessibility of non-work destinations, planners can help telecommuters travel more sustainably.
The judges described the research as “thorough and robust, offering the potential for further research into sustainable land use and transport planning, with wider application internationally.”
RTPI President Sue Manns FRTPI said: “The Research Awards are one way the Institute promotes high-quality and impactful research and ensures it helps to improve planning practice across the UK and Ireland.
“This year’s award entries addressed a diverse range of issues faced by the planning profession in its delivery of high quality, sustainable and healthy communities. They shine a light on fantastic research from Chartered members and accredited planning schools from around the world.”
David Meaden, CEO at Idox said:
“Idox is very pleased to be continuing our relationship with the RTPI and supporting the RTPI Awards for Research Excellence for another year”.
Further information about the 2020 RTPI Awards for Research Excellence, including the winners, judges and sponsors are available here.
You can also read our guest blog featuring the winner of the 2016 Sir Peter Hall Award, Dr Paul Cowie from the University of Newcastle, about the impact of winning the award for the Town Meeting project, which used theatre to engage communities in planning.
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