Idox is pleased once again to be supporting the RTPI Awards for Research Excellence for 2021.

These awards recognise and promote high quality, impactful spatial planning research from RTPI accredited planning schools and planning practitioners in the UK, the Republic of Ireland and internationally.

The 2021 Awards competition is now open and there is still plenty of time to enter – the deadline for entries is 17 May 2021.

About the Awards

The RTPI Awards for Research Excellence are intended to:

• recognise the best spatial planning research from RTPI accredited planning schools;
• highlight the implications of academic research for policy and practice;
• recognise the valuable contribution of planning consultancies to planning research; and
• promote planning research generally.

The award categories are:

• Early Career Researcher Award, aimed at researchers at the beginning phase of their academic careers;
• Student Award, for students who are working towards or have recently completed a non-research university degree;
• Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement, which recognises high-quality research that is likely to make an immediate impact beyond academia;
• Planning Practitioner Award, open to non-academic planning practitioners and organisations conducting valuable research with the potential to inform planning policy and/or practice.

Idox: supporting the planning profession

As the UK’s leading provider of planning and building control solutions to local authorities, Idox actively engages with issues affecting the planning profession. And here at the Knowledge Exchange, we see our core mission as improving decision making in public policy by improving access to research and evidence.

This is the seventh time that Idox has given its support to the RTPI Awards for Research Excellence, and we will once again be sponsoring the Planning Practitioner Award, the Student Award, and the Sir Peter Hall Award for Research Excellence.

Winners in 2020

In 2020, 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 research looking at how far ‘unearned increments’, particularly those arising with planning permission, should be taxed for the public good.

Jacob George of Newcastle University won the Student Award for his research into the much-debated permitted development right for office-to-residential conversions, focusing uniquely on its social impacts in a city in northern England.

The Planning Practitioner Award for 2020 went to Lucia Cerrada Morato and Becky Mumford of the Place Shaping Team at the London Borough of Tower Hamlets for their research exploring the lives of residents living in high density and tall buildings.

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 by proactively addressing the accessibility of non-work destinations, planners can help telecommuters travel more sustainably.

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Further details on the award categories, application guidance and entry forms, are available from the RTPI here. The closing date for applications to the awards is 5pm on Monday 17 May 2021.

The winners of the RTPI Awards for Research Excellence 2021 will be announced at an awards ceremony, to be held virtually by Newcastle University on the afternoon of Wednesday 8 September 2021.