Tag Archives: RTPI Research Excellence Awards

Idox congratulates the winners of the RTPI Awards for Research Excellence 2019

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Working across professional boundaries was a key theme among the winners of the 2019 Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Awards for Research Excellence, which were announced this week. The awards were presented at the opening ceremony of the UK-Ireland Planning Research Conference at the University of Liverpool.

Idox is proud to have supported the awards since 2015, and this year we again sponsored three of the five awards – the Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement, the Consultancy Award, and the Student Award.

The judging panel of 28 experienced academics and leading voices from the public and private sector, considered submissions from across the UK and around the world, and the winning entries reflected this diversity.

Entries were on a range of topics, including climate change, spatial justice, physical and mental health, rural development, neighbourhood planning and community engagement.

Award winning research from around the world

RTPI President Ian Tant, who presented the awards, commented that: “High quality and impactful research forms a vital basis for planning practice. This year’s Research Awards have again shone a light on fantastic planning research from around the world.”

Henk Heerink, Director of Idox Content, said: “It was inspiring to see the research showcased in this year’s award applications. At Idox, we have a close relationship with the research community via RESEARCHconnect, our end-to-end solution which supports researchers and institutions to find funding or research partners.”

“It is again a pleasure to see these awards bestowed on researchers who are leading the way in showing how planning research can help shape the world we live in.”

Supporting communities in neighbourhood planning

The Sir Peter Hall Award was awarded to Gavin Parker, Kat Salter and Matthew Wargent (University of Reading – Real Estate & Planning, Henley Business School) for their book and supporting website designed to help communities to engage with community-led planning. This work is the result of extensive research in neighbourhood planning and community involvement in planning led in the past five years by the Neighbourhood Planning academic research hub at Reading University.

The judges found that the project had succeeded in “engaging a wider audience, mobilising an impressive research output and communicating it in an innovative and clear way.”

Planning for healthier outcomes

All four shortlisted entries for the Consultancy award were for research undertaken by Lichfields in different parts of the UK. The ultimate winner was Myles Smith, for their annual review of Local Plan progress under the NPPF 2012. The detailed review of Inspectors’ reports and the qualitative application of planning judgements within them has set the standard for future research in this area.

The judges found the research “eminently relevant for planning practice and research and extremely well-documented.”

Cross-cutting impactful research

The Academic Award went to Dr Chinmoy Sarkar, Prof Chris Webster (University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Architecture, Department of Urban Planning and Design) and Prof John Gallacher (Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford) for their study ‘Residential greenness and prevalence of major depressive disorders: A cross-sectional, observational, associational study of 94,879 adult UK Biobank participants’.

The Early Career Award went to Dr Guibo Sun for his work with Prof Chris Webster and Xiaohu Zhang (University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Architecture, Department of Urban Planning and Design): ‘Connecting the city: A three-dimensional pedestrian network of Hong Kong’.

The Student Award went to Richard Lundy (Cardiff University, School of Geography and Planning) for his Masters dissertation: ‘Incompatible Imagery: The conflict between heritage and development at Liverpool Waters’.

For the first time, two Practitioner Research Awards were also made. RTPI members who are practising planners were invited to submit research proposals and the winners received £5,000 of research funding.

The full list of winners and shortlisted finalists for the 2019 RTPI Awards for Research Excellence are available here.

We interviewed the winner of the 2016 Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement, 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.

Idox congratulates the winners of the RTPI Research Excellence Awards 2018

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Quality of placemaking and the role of planning in supporting wellbeing were key themes among the winners of the 2018 Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Awards for Research Excellence, which were announced this week.

These awards are unique in recognising the best spatial planning research from the RTPI’s accredited planning schools, and highlighting the positive contribution of academic research and consultancy within policy and practice.

Idox is proud to have supported the awards since 2015, and this year we again sponsored three of the five awards (the Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement, the Consultancy Award, and the Student Award).

Tom Kenny, RTPI’s acting deputy head of policy and research, was enthusiastic about the winners and commended entries:

“The winners and highly commended entries have demonstrated how academic researchers can positively reach out to practitioners and policymakers with insights and findings to inform and influence their work.”

Setting standards for green infrastructure

The Sir Peter Hall Award went to a project exploring how green infrastructure can be better planned and recognises the wide benefits of the creation of the UK’s first green infrastructure benchmark.

The “Building with Nature” benchmark defines and sets the standard for high quality green infrastructure design and aims to address the gap between policy aspirations and practical deliverability. It results from the team’s research which revealed that uncertainty surrounds what constitutes high quality green infrastructure and that delivery is inconsistent.

The project brought together partners from academia and the third sector – Gemma Jerome (Gloucester Wildlife Trust and the Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments, University of the West of England), Danielle Sinnett, Nick Smith, Tom Calvert, Sarah Burgess, Louise King (Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments, University of the West of England).

Planning for healthier outcomes

The Consultancy Award was awarded to a study that helped planners in Southwark, London, achieve healthier outcomes. The research found that building trust with local communities is crucial to understanding perceptions around health issues, and that there is concrete evidence showing that changes in built environment design such as street layouts can improve the health of residents.

The winning project was ‘Healthy Planning and Regeneration: Innovations in Community Engagement Policy and Monitoring’ involved Helen Pineo (BRE and Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering, UCL), Simon Bevan, Andrew Ruck, Clizia Deidda (Southwark Council).

Cross-cutting impactful research

A study led by a team at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London won the Academic Award for exploring the issue of the low quality of residential dwellings converted from offices without the need for planning permission, following the deregulation of the planning system in England in 2013.

Just 30% of converted ‘studio flats’ meet national space standards, and many office conversions in the middle of industrial estates have undergone barely any changes to make them fit for habitation.

The winning project was ‘Assessing the Impacts of Extending Permitted Development Rights to Office-to-Residential Change of Use in England’ – Ben Clifford, Jessica Ferm, Nicola Livingstone, Patricia Canelas (Bartlett School of Planning, University College London).

The Early Career Award went to the project ‘Estimates of Transaction Costs in Transfer of Development Rights Programs’ – Sina Shahab (School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy, University College Dublin), J. Peter Clinch (Geary Institute, University College Dublin), Eoin O’Neill (University College Dublin)

And the Student Award went to ‘What do they know? The Power and Potential of Story in Planning’ – Jason Matthew Slade (Department of Urban Studies and Planning, University of Sheffield).

The full list of shortlisted finalists for the 2018 RTPI Awards for Research Excellence are available here. We also interviewed the winner of the 2016 Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement, 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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The Town Meeting: the award-winning planning engagement project, one year on

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Scene from the "Town Meeting"

Scene from the “Town Meeting”

In this guest blog post, Dr Paul Cowie from the University of Newcastle reflects on an exciting year for the Town Meeting project, which uses theatre to engage communities in planning.

It’s now a year since we started the Town Meeting project and 7 months since the project won the Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement at the 2015 RTPI Research Excellence awards.

The Town Meeting uses theatre as a way of co-producing research into public participation in planning with communities themselves. The Town Meeting has been performed in 12 communities across the north of England. The use of theatre in this way is unique and has engaged audiences in the issues in a way that traditional forms of research cannot. If you are interested to find out more about the project and the play, we have written a blog about it here and produced a ‘behind the scenes’ podcast about the development process here.

The impacts of the RTPI award

One of the major impacts of winning the award has been to develop the credibility of the project with both professionals and funders. The initial phase of the research was all about understanding the issues in more detail. We’ve now had a chance to do that and the second phase of the project has been to try to change planning practice to address some of the concerns raised by the participants in the project.

To undertake this new phase of the project we have been fortunate to get funding from the ESRC Impact Accelerator Account scheme and Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal. Having the research recognised by a professional body, the RTPI, through the Research Excellence Awards was invaluable in making the case for further funding.

The new phase of the project aims to take the lessons learnt from the play and turn that into a tool which planners can use to co-produce knowledge which can inform strategic planning.

Bringing planning and health together

So far we have worked with health professionals and planners to explore how planning and health can be reunited. In the workshop, health professionals and planners were presented with a proposal to build a super-casino in a run-down seaside town. The play provided a forum for the planners and health professionals to discuss the wider implications of development proposals in a new way.

The event highlighted the lack of understanding that health professionals have of the planning system. It’s often felt that planning can be the solution to many problems but it has been clear from the project how little citizens and professionals alike understand the process of planning and its limitations.

Collaborative planning

We are now about to start working with Northumberland National Park Authority to assist in the development of their new local plan. Through a new version of the play it is hoped communities can understand the importance of the local plan in framing any later planning decision that may affect them.

Previous performances of the play and discussions with audiences have made it clear people only get involved in planning issues at the point when it’s often too late to have any meaningful impact on that decision. The paradox is that at the point at which they can make a meaningful difference, the preparation of the local plan, it is often difficult for communities to see the relevance to them.

Using a play as a tool in collaborative planning can therefore turn the abstract process of preparing a local plan into something meaningful by showing how it has a direct impact on later planning decisions which may affect them greatly. The play also allows the community the freedom to create a vision for their local area, in this case the National Park.

Gaining the trust of planners from the National Park was helped greatly by the award. There is a degree of risk on their part in taking on this untested, and some may say frivolous, method of plan production. The award has given the planners the confidence to take that risk.

We are hopeful that the next year will lead to some concrete outcomes for the project, and to the play making a meaningful difference to the way communities and planners co-produce knowledge about places that matter to them.

Final thoughts

At a recent performance of the play in Cockermouth, the ‘Blennerhasset Village Parliament’ was mentioned. I had not heard of this and asking around the department, neither had any of my colleagues. Started in 1866 as a way involving the whole population in the governance of the community, the village parliament was an example of community governance in the 19th Century.

It was a reminder that sometimes we think we are being innovative when in fact we are merely repeating history – and of the fundamental value of engaging people in the process of research.

Dr Paul Cowie is a Research Assistant in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at the University of Newcastle. Paul’s research focuses on community planning and community representation in the planning process. In 2015, Paul and his project The Town Meeting won the Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement at the RTPI Awards for Research Excellence.

This year, the Idox Information Service will again be sponsoring the RTPI Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement, as well as the Student and Planning Consultancy Awards.

The closing date for applications to the awards is 31 May 2016. Further information and application forms are available here.

National planning research awards highlight creativity and innovation

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rtpi_awards_for_research_excellence_logo_300x208By Morwen Johnson

As part of our ongoing relationship with the RTPI, we were pleased to sponsor two of the categories of this year’s RTPI Awards for Research Excellence.

The winners have just been announced today and represent a showcase of high quality, impactful spatial planning research with clear implications for policy and practice.

Worthy winners

The Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement went to Dr Paul Cowie, School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University for his collaborative project, The Town Meeting. Developed with Cap-a-Pie theatre company, the immersive theatre piece uses the issues faced by a fictional town to help audiences explore how communities plan for their future. This is especially relevant given the new context of the changes around localism and neighbourhood planning.

Andrew Riley, Chief Operating Officer, Idox plc said: “Innovation comes from doing and seeing things differently. Dr Paul Cowie’s project, The Town Meeting, which has received The Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement, offers a creative perspective on public engagement and is bringing the complexities of planning policy to life for the public in a way which is new and exciting.”

Meanwhile, Emma Thorpe, a student in the School of Planning and Geography, Cardiff University won the Student Award for her research Getting Wales Active: Exploring Secondary School Students’ Attitudes Towards Active Commuting.

Andrew Riley, Chief Operating Officer, Idox plc commented: “The development of a new generation of talented young researchers is vital and we are pleased to be working with the RTPI in recognising gifted planning research students who are early in their careers. Emma Thorpe from Cardiff University produced research with impact. Her work can be used by planners to develop more effective active travel planning policies.”

Increasing the links between practice and research

Announcing the winners, Janet Askew, RTPI President said: “The RTPI’s Awards for Research Excellence are an important way of increasing the links between practice and research.  I am delighted to see that this research, often carried out in conjunction with practitioners and communities, really can make an impact to create better places.  By recognising this, we can show Government and the public that students and academics in our accredited planning schools are working on very relevant research which will make a difference.”

As the UK’s leading provider of planning and building control solutions to local authorities, Idox actively engages with issues affecting the planning profession. We are proud to support the RTPI Awards for Research Excellence and congratulate all the winners and commended entries for their achievements.

The Idox Information Service has also introduced a new individual membership offer in partnership with the RTPI which offers a 30% discount on the normal price.

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