News & Events
For news items before March 2010, please see our news archive.
Results of Delphi Study on Climate Change Adaptation and Spatial Planning
November 2011
As part of the GRaBS programme of work, Jeremy Carter and Graeme Sherriff have conducted a two-stage Delphi survey that seeks to enhance understanding on the relationship between spatial planning and climate change adaptation. The report (pdf) of this research is now available.
EUCO2 Project Report Published
October 2011
Reporting on the development of energy scenarios for 2050 in the context of climate change mitigation, 'EUCO2 80/50 Stage 2' (48mb) is now available to download. A summary document (9.9mb) is also available.
Innovative Framework for Sustainable Innovation wins two prizes
18th July 2011
An innovative idea, which aims to support learning and design for a sustainable future, has won two prizes in the first Low Carbon and Environment Competition held at the University of Manchester.
Dr. Joanne Tippett from the School of Environment and Development has been working with a wide range of people to develop a new framework for sustainability innovation, called the RoundView. This has been tested and developed with over 200 members of staff in Tesco in action research funded by the Sustainable Consumption Institute.
These prizes will enable Joanne to work with both University of Manchester Intellectual Property (UMIP) and University of Manchester Incubator Company (UMIC) to develop the RoundView and enable it to be spread further.
Tony Walker of UMIC said: "RoundView has a significant potential to become a framework for influence in a move toward a sustainable future. Again it could be a Manchester "first" in its contribution to global economic and social well being, it was great to be able to support the further development of Dr Tippett and her work in what I hope will be a globally recognised philosophy for positive change."
Professor Alistair Ulph, Director of the Sustainable Consumption Institute said: "It is gratifying to see Dr Tippett's research recognised by these two significant prizes. As lead investigator on two SCI research projects, her team identified the skills necessary to embed sustainability in the workplace. Their research has been presented widely, at prestigious events and organisations such as the World Economic Forum and UNESCO, and as importantly, has created a programme of accessible training on sustainability which is set to be rolled out further afield." Dr. Tippett is currently working with the Ellen Macarthur Foundation to develop further learning tools and to make the RoundView more widely available.
Dr. Joanne Tippett awarded an AESOP Excellence in Teaching Prize 2011
18th July 2011
Dr. Joanne Tippett of the School of Environment and Development, has been awarded an AESOP Excellence in Teaching Prize 2011.
AESOP is the Association of European Schools of Planning, and the prize was awarded at the World Planning School Congress in Perth (Australia), which was held 4th-8th July, 2011.
The award was for innovative teaching methods developed for the second year module, Settlement Project. In the announcement of the award, AESOP said: "the jury appreciated the innovative way to teach a very large studio class in an interactive approach, in a student-centred way without needing excessive tutor support. This is a challenge that is awaiting most of the European university courses with more demanding students and diminishing funding and resources. The interactive approach is developed by a specific and original technique [Ketso], which appears well tested and which shows its efficacy in supporting "student oriented teaching".
Climate Change Adaptation Delphi Survey
24th June 2011
As part of the GRaBS programme of work, Jeremy Carter and Graeme Sherriff are conducting a two-stage Delphi survey that seeks to enhance understanding on the relationship between spatial planning and climate change adaptation.
Launch of new network on Health and Planning
24th June 2011
On 23rd June, Graeme Sherriff gave a presentation on transport and health at the 'Spatial Planning for Health' conference at the University of the West of England to launch a new network of researchers, practitoners and policy makers, SPAHG (Spatial Planning and Health Group). Their report 'Steps to Healthy Planning', also launched at the conference, contains recommendations based on work funded by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.
GRaBS Project Final Conference - London, 8th June 2011
9th June 2011
Members of CURE joined GRaBS project partners in London to present findings and share ideas in a conference that attracted researchers, planners, policy makers and others with an involvement in climate change adaptation across the EU. Professor John Handley chaired the conference. Jeremy Carter gave a presentation on the importance of climate change Adaptation Action Plans and joined Aleksandra Kazmierczak, Graeme Sherriff and Joanne Tippett in running a workshop on ways forward for adaptation planning. The conference, organised in partnership with the TCPA, culminated in a reception at the House of Commons, with an address from Sir Peter Hall.
The future of learning in the civil service
6th June 2011
A report was published from a 'Speed Ketso' session hosted by the National School and Civil Service Learning at Civil Service Live, Birmingham.
Nigel Ward from the National School of Government facilitated a workshop using Ketso (a spin-off from research in CURE) at Civil Service Live.
More information: press release
Climate Change and Environmental Governance Masterclass
19th May 2011
Dr Iain White and Dr Paul O'Hare organised a one-day masterclass on climate change and environmental governance to visiting urban planners from China. The delegates were part of the national executive programme for regerating old industrial cities. Dr Seb Carney also presented his climate change mitigation research and Richard Kingston discussed toolkits for climate adaptation.
Climate Adaptation Workshop
18th May 2011
Dr Iain White, Dr Paul O'Hare, Dr Melanie Lombard and Dr Alfredo Stein hosted a workshop to explore the potential for developing new research projects combining climate adaptation between the global north and south.
CURE Lunchtime Seminar
5th May 2011
Landuse and Development in the City Region. Joe Ravetz, CURE, and Jasper van Vliet (Research Institute for Knowledge Systems, Maastricht).
13:00-14:00 Thursday 5th May. Boardroom, 2nd Floor, Arthur Lewis Building. Cold drink supplied - bring a sandwich.
more information (pdf)
Enhancing the student experience - London
9th May 2011
London South Bank University is hosting a cross-University dialogue with the Ketso team. This free workshop offers a chance to learn from each other and develop new ideas for enhancing the student experience, as well as to experience Ketso in action. Download flyer with registration information here.
National Meeting on Flood Resilience
13th April 2011
Dr Iain White, Dr Paul O'Hare and Nigel Lawson hosted a workshop exploring designing a road map for flood resilience technology within the EU.
More information: http://www.floodresilience.eu/
Research development workshops into refugee, asylum seeker and migrants issues
14th March 2011
Joanne Tippett of CURE ran a day of workshops hosted by GRAMNET at the University of Glasgow. The first brought together Masters students and their partners to develop collaborative Masters Projects. This is an innovative new project run by GRAMNET to enable research projects in the area of asylum, migration and refugee research to be carried out with partner organisations, but led by Masters students. One participant commented: "I can't believe how much work we got done in just over an hour! I thought that would take three weeks."
The second workshop brought together the wider community of GRAMNET to explore current issues around migration, refugees and asylum seekers. The discussion was lively and led to interesting insights around the nature of the public debate and media, as well as a better understanding amongst partners of the existing work that is going on and creative possibilities for future actions and research.
New publication - Climate change and the future occurrence of moorland wildfires in the Peak District
30th December 2010
The research titled "Climate change and the future occurrence of moorland wildfires in the Peak District of the UK", has been published in a special issue of the journal Climate Research, "Climate change and the British uplands". The paper finds little change in wildfire incidence is projected in the near future, but as climate change intensifies, the danger of summer wildfires is projected to increase from 2070, therefore fire risk management will be necessary in future.
It is currently available with open access via the website of Climate Research. For more information, contact Gina Cavan.
SMARTest project meeting in the Netherlands
10th December 2010
As part of the SMARTest Project, Iain White, Nigel Lawson, Adam Barker and Paul O'Hare attended a two day research meeting on Flood Resilience in TU Delft in the Netherlands.
More information from Iain White and www.floodresilience.eu.
Delivering Value in a time of budget cuts - a multi-stakeholder dialogue
3rd December 2010
24 people attended the first workshop entitled 'Delivering Value in a time of Budget cuts', held at the University of Manchester and facilitated by Dr Joanne Tippett of Manchester University and Fraser How of Ketso. The participants were drawn from the following organisations:
* Environment Agency
* Manchester City Council
* Mersey Forest
* Mind in Manchester
* Participatory Budgeting Unit
* Salford's Local Strategic Partnership
* Universities of Manchester and Salford
* Vision TwentyOne
* Winning Pitch
A lively discussion around creative ways forward during a time of budget cuts ensued. The plethora of ideas will be made available shortly on the Ketso website and will be added to the synthesis report from the series of workshops that Joanne and Ketso are running across the country.
Joanne.Tippett@manchester.ac.uk tel: +44(0)161 275 6866.
International Conference focuses on skills, jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities in a 'cradle to cradle' or 'closed materials loop' economy
29th November 2010
Dr Joanne Tippett of Manchester University, together with two of the team from her university spin off company, Ketso, were invited to attend the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Bradford Ten +One conference. Joanne commented afterwards that she was both excited and inspired by the calls for redesign, creative thinking, new ways of learning and working together.
Engaging with dyslexic students: a hands-on approach to active learning and development
17th November 2010
Dr Joanne Tippett of Manchester University ran an interactive workshop at Leeds Metropolitan University for the West Yorkshire Dyslexia Tutor Forum. Tutors were able to experience being 18 again, through playing roles as first year undergraduate students exploring their careers options - luckily some of them decided at the end that their favourite careers were indeed the ones they ended up with! In the process they were able to explore alternative career paths and discuss the relative merits and disadvantages of different career options, as well as what they would need to do to achieve their chosen careers. Several agreed that they wished they had had an exercise like this when they were 18! Ideas were developed in the subsequent discussion about how to best support students with dyslexia. These will be posted soon on the Ketso website - there were some great ideas developed and some interesting resources shared.
Joanne.Tippett@manchester.ac.uk tel: +44(0)161 275 6866.
Creative engagement in research and knowledge exchange
11th November 2010
Free workshop to be held at the University of Bristol on 11 November 2010, 2-5pm in Room 1.7, Queen's Building (Faculty of Engineering)
This workshop will introduce Ketso, a hands-on toolkit for creative group work. Ketso was launched as a social enterprise in 2009, and is a spin off from Joanne Tippett‚s research into community engagement at the University of Manchester.
Since then, the toolkit has been used in a wide range of contexts, including consulting on policy, project planning and transferable skills development, including enterprise training, at the Universities of Cambridge, Newcastle, Durham, Sussex, Southampton, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester. You may wish to see reports developed from similar workshops we ran across the country earlier this year to gain an idea of how the kit can be used.
The workshop is co-hosted by the Centre for Public Engagement at the University of Bristol and the UK Systems Society South West and Wales regional group.
Participants will work together to explore the topic - 'Planning for sustainability in the South West and Wales in a time of budget cuts'. This exercise has been chosen to both give an experience of using Ketso and also to allow participants to develop creative ideas for this challenge.
To register for the workshop, please contact Elaine Speakman - Elaine@ketso.com
'How to Engage Research Staff' - Dr Tippet's success at the VITAE Researcher Development Conference 2010 leads to an invitation to their Research Staff Conference in London
4th November 2010
Following on from the success of the workshop she ran at the VITAE Researcher Development Conference entitled 'Creative engagement with the public - a hands-on approach to building capacity', Dr Tippett of Manchester University was invited to run another workshop for VITAE at their Research Staff Conference. This time she focused on 'How to Engage Research Staff', using Ketso, the hands-on kit for creative group work, to consider the research environment and examined issues that impact on research staff across institutional and disciplinary barriers. further information
Ketso Workshop at the Big Society & Environment Workshop
27th October 2010
65 people from a wide range of organisations involved in environmental issues across the North West attended this afternoon workshop. As part of the proceedings, the participants were split into two groups, facilitated by Dr Joanne Tippett from the University of Manchester and Paul Mahoney from Countryscape and asked to explore opportunities and barriers posed by the new Big Society agenda, followed by some creative brainstorming of solutions to these barriers. The hands-on toolkit for creative groupwork, Ketso, was used to gather participants' ideas and to allow a picture of the discussion to be built.
More info on the Ketso website and from Joanne Tippett.
EcoCities stakeholder workshop: From Blueprint to Action
12th October 2010
On 12 October 2010 EcoCities held its annual stakeholder workshop, From Blueprint to Action, at the Manchester Town Hall. This event was attended by 100 stakeholders, including researchers, developers, local councillors, community groups and businesses. The event was opened by Prof Rod Coombs (Deputy President and Deputy Vice-Chancellor, the University of Manchester) and Michael Oglesby (Chairman of the Bruntwood Group), and chaired by Prof Simon Guy (EcoCities Director). The EcoCities researchers then presented some recent research outputs, which was followed by a faciliatated workshop by Countryscape.
For more information contact: Gina Cavan, email gina.cavan@manchester.ac.uk, phone 0161 306 6426
'Water and the City' Dr. Iain White and Professor John Handley invited to give Keynote speech
29th September 2010
Iain White and John Handley have given a keynote speech at the recent Deltas in Times of Cliamte Change conference in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The presentation was entitled, "Water and the City: Risk, Resilience and Planning for a Sustainable Future".
For more information on the please contact Iain White on iain.white@manchester.ac.uk
Creative engagement with stakeholders in research and knowledge exchange
21st September 2010
This 3 hour workshop, faciliated by Dr Joanne Tippett of Manchester University, was hosted by the Edinburgh Beltane Beacon for Public Engagement, at the University of Edinburgh. The 24 participants came from a range of Universities and organisation across Scotland, including the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Strathclyde and Heriot-Watt, and Genecom and Renewnet. There were two exercises using Ketso, the hands-on toolkit for creative groupwork; one looking at how to improve stakeholder engagement in the participants’ own projects, and the second exploring ideas for a Sustainable Edinburgh. More info on the Ketso website and from Joanne Tippett.
Guest Lecture: Dr Hugh Ellis - 'Localism or Vandalism?'
16th September 2010 17:00 - 18:00
Title: 'Localism or Vandalism?' Do the Government environmental reforms destroy the last chance we had for tackling climate change?
Venue: Cordingley Lecture Theatre, Humanities Bridgeford Street
The University of Manchester
The event is co-hosted with MARC and CURE and will be followed by a wine reception (6-7pm). further information
New publication: "Investigating homeowners' interest in property-level flood protection"
25th August 2010
The research article titled "Investigating homeowners' interest in property-level flood protection" by Dr Aleksandra Kazmierczak and Prof. Erik Bichard, University of Salford, has been published by the International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment (Vol 1, No 2). The paper investigates the perceptions of climate change impacts, willingess to make physical improvements, and preparedness to pay for them among homeowners in flood risk zones in Salford, UK
for further information: Dr Aleksandra Kazmierczak
Creative Entrepreneurship: effective collaboration and planning at the University of Sussex
23rd June 2010
In one of two workshops hosted by the Business and Enterprise team and led by Dr. Joanne Tippett from the University of Manchester, participants were given useful tools and techniques through a series of hands-on exercises. The founder of Ketso, Dr Tippett gave a practical demonstration of the difference Ketso can make to the quality and productivity of group interactions. Participants came from organisations including: Creative Partnerships, Business Link South East, local social enterprises and charities, Brighton & Hove City Council, East Sussex Credit Union, Routledge, Wealden Local Strategic Partnership and the Asian University for Women Support Foundations. More info on the Ketso website and from Joanne Tippett.
Budget Cuts & A Sustainable Port, Portsmouth
17th March 2010
Hosted by the UK Systems Society and the Community of Practice - 'Making a Difference & Making it Happen', the Navy, the Ministry of Defence, the City and County Council, Universities and Involve, facilitated by Dr Joanne Tippett from Manchester University, explored ‘budget cuts’ from a creative angle and also discussed how to move towards a sustainable port in Portsmouth. During two interactive workshops they used Ketso, the hands on kit for creative engagement to organise and record their discussions. More info on the Ketso website and from Joanne Tippett.