Departmental Research

Developing a Department in which a research culture flourishes and in which research reinforces teaching is central to the Department's Mission. It is important that research is relevant to practitioners and is widely disseminated. Accordingly emphasis is placed upon publication in the academic and professional press.

In the 1996 national Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) the Department was awarded a rating of 3a,
that is its research was judged to be equal to:-

"attainable levels of national excellence in a substantial majority of the sub-areas of activity, or to international level in some and to national level in others together comprising a majority".

In addition the Department was awarded "Flagged Research Group" status for its work in Local Economic Development. This reflects the fact that assessment panel felt that the work in this area was of higher quality than the rest of the submission.

Following staff changes the Department has redefined and refocused its main research areas. Its main area of specialism is now the broad area of Regeneration which includes Local Economic Development. This is defined as:-

"The set of processes whereby the resources of the public, private voluntary and community sectors are mobilised to overcome economic, environmental and social problems and to enable opportunities to be exploited".

The Department's focus is mainly upon urban issues. Regeneration is mainly interpreted therefore in an urban context, albeit that this is not exclusively so.

Work is now well underway to ensure that in the next RAE, which will take place in 2001, the Department can increase its rating to at least a 4.

To help with this process the Department set up the Centre for Economic Development and Area Regeneration (CEDAR) in 1997. This is a free standing unit within the Department devoted to research and consultancy in the areas of project appraisal and evaluation, strategy formulation for economic and physical regeneration and programme monitoring and evaluation. Since its launch CEDAR has won a number of high profile contracts, especially in the areas of monitoring and evaluation and community involvement in regeneration. It currently employs one full-time member of staff whilst another three academics are closely associated with its work.

Recent key externally funded regeneration projects include:-

• the impact of the private finance initiative upon local authority joint venture companies;

• a variety of project evaluations including ones of Employee Ownership Scotland, the Crown Street Mid-Term Review and the Community Regeneration Partnership's "Housing Plus" initiative;

• an examination of the relationships between planning authorities and infrastructure providers;

• developing a monitoring and evaluation framework for the Inverclyde Partnership, the public body charged with the regeneration of the Greenock and Port Glasgow areas; and

• a number of evaluations of community empowerment and capacity building organisations, including the Greater Easterhouse Community Empowerment and Strategy project, the largest Urban Programme empowerment project in Scotland.

These projects have been commissioned from a range of bodies including local authorities, the major research charities, regeneration agencies and central Government departments.

The key staff working in these areas include:-

• Dr Frank Ennis whose main research area is the relationship of the development industry and infrastructure providers with the planning system;
• Professor John Fairley whose interests cover economic development and public sector policy making;
• Dr P. Ache whose main areas of expertise are in urban regeneration and European funding and strategy;
• Professor Keith Hayton whose work is mainly in the areas of economic development and community capacity building; and
• Dr Andy McArthur whose main interests are community empowerment, local economic development and urban regeneration

They are assisted by John Gray, the Department's Local Economic Development Officer.

Other staff have complementary research interests. These include:-

• Peter Booth whose main interests are design and landscape, cultural policy and environmental assessment;
• Janet Brand who is interested in sustainability, statutory planning and gender issues;
• Dr Dory Reeves whose research covers gender issues, including the gender sensitivity of planning policies, the planning process and community involvement;
• Emeritus Professor Urlan Wannop who has published extensively on regional planning. His recent book, "The Regional Imperative", was described by Peter Hall as "uniquely valuable".

Staff have disseminated the results of this work widely. For example over the last three years over sixty papers have been delivered to conferences and papers have been published in a wide range of outlets, from books and book chapters through peer group refereed international journals to commentaries in the planning professional press.

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