sustainable uplands: our pathway to impact

Our Pathway to Impact

Mark Reed

Plan

• The impact

• Video

• The pathway

1 The Impact

• £1M RELU/LWEC & ESRC funded project helping people anticipate and adapt to future change across UK uplands since 2005

• Almost £1M co-funding from research users

• Interdisciplinary team of 25 people from 5 Universities & 2 NGOs

• Findings featured prominently in evidence gathering initiatives used to inform policy:

– National Ecosystem Assessment

– EFRA Inquiry on Farming in the Uplands

– CRC’s Inquiry on the Future of England’s Uplands

– IUCN Commission of Inquiry on Peatlands

– Government Office for Science’s Foresight Land Use Futures project

The Impact

The Impact

• Contributed to policy processes: – Inputting evidence to a review, best practice

guidelines and Action Plan re: Payment for Ecosystem Services as part of DEFRA’s Natural Environment White Paper

– Guiding DEFRA to develop a UK Peatland Carbon Code to facilitate private investment in peatland restoration

• Used by water companies to justify using land management to reduce water treatment costs

• Analysing upland/catchment management case studies across the UK, comparing RELU to other RCUK and NGO/business projects

• Workshops with KE academics/professionals

• Best practice principles

• LWEC’s Knowledge Exchange Guidelines

• RCUK Impact Toolkit?

2 A short film

2 Our pathway

Knowledge exchange with stakeholders:

• Co-generation of knowledge with small but representative groups of highly connected, influential stakeholders, selected via Social Network Analysis

• You Tube and DVDs – as requested by stakeholders concerned about the abstract nature of the GIS outputs we’d suggested

• Articles in professional journals/magazines

• Newsletters

• Project websites

• Policy briefs

• Presentations to policy makers, policy advisors and practitioner groups

• DEFRA placement

• Consultancy contracts

Public engagement:

• Twitter (now over 1600 followers) www.twitter.com/reluuplands

• Interactive website www.ouruplands.co.uk

• Schools resources (Summer 2012)

Arts:

• Song and music video by award-winning photography collective

• Jazz composition by Huw Warren

• Fairytale told by storyteller and made into book

• Conceptual art by Dalziel & Scullion (hunting bag)

www.sustainableuplandresearch.org m.reed@abdn.ac.uk