Research Roundup November/December 2009 (no. 2009/6)
Project News
As part of the Rural Business Survey 2009 project, Arthur Affleck, Terry Carroll and Jane
Atterton have completed reports for the North Pennine Dales and Northumberland
Uplands LEADER groups based on the responses of businesses in the two areas. The
reports highlighted the importance of home working, pluriactivity and part-time
employment in both areas and the important contribution made by in-migrants in
starting new businesses. The Rural Business Survey team also joined forces with Bob
Newbery to co-present the results of the business survey and Bob's preliminary PhD
analysis on the role of business associations in market towns, to the Barney Guild, the
Morpeth Chamber of Trade and the Hexham Business Forum. The main rural business
survey report will be available by the end of February.
Jane Atterton, Carmen Hubbard and Arthur Affleck have started work on a new project
funded by the Higher Education Innovation Fund Round 4 which is exploring the
relationship between the Newcastle Science City initiative and rural businesses in the
North East region. Building on the rural business survey database, the project will review
existing links between rural businesses and higher education institutions and the recent
innovative behaviour of rural businesses. The project will bring together rural business
owners and those involved in Science City in a series of workshops to explore how
businesses across the region can benefit from the Science City initiative.
In November, Mark Shucksmith made a plenary presentation to the ESPON conference
in Malmo, Sweden, on the 14-country EDORA project which is developing a typology of
rural areas' opportunities and challenges across the enlarged European Union to help
inform the reform of EU policies from 2013. Hilary Talbot also attended this meeting.
The 3-year Relu project, Knowledge Controversies in Flood Risk Management, held its
end-of-project conference at St Anne’s College, Oxford, on 10 and 11 December. The
project brought together researchers from Newcastle, University of East Anglia (UEA),
Durham and Oxford. Sue Bradley presented an account of the public engagement
research that she and Neil Ward (UEA) have conducted as part of this project. Philip
Lowe, Relu Programme Director, gave the closing address, commenting on key aspects
of the project in relation to the wider aims of Relu.
Rural Economy and Land Use
Relu Director, Philip Lowe, has provided a social science perspective on food security
for the BBSRC's new blog. His contribution and the discussion it has stimulated can be
accessed at http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/blog/index.php/2009/12/the-human-andtechnological-dimension/#comments.
In November, the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser Professor John Beddington
launched the book "What is land for? The Food Fuel and Climate Change Debate"
edited by Matt Lobley and Michael Winter which includes contributions from across the
Relu programme. The event was hosted by the Relu team, Philip Lowe, Anne Liddon
and Jeremy Phillipson, The first chapter on the book can be downloaded at
http://www.relu.ac.uk/links/What_Is_Land_For_Ch1.pdf.
Policy and Practice
Relu published three more Policy and Practice Notes in their regular series:
Does Carbon Labelling Give Developing Countries a Bad Deal?
http://www.relu.ac.uk/news/policy%20and%20practice%20notes/EdwardsJones/Edwards-Jones.pdf
Social and Environmental Inequalities in Rural Areas
http://www.relu.ac.uk/news/policy%20and%20practice%20notes/EdwardsJones/Edwards-Jones.pdf
The Sustainability of Hill Farming
http://www.relu.ac.uk/news/policy%20and%20practice%20notes/Armsworth/PP13%20fo
r%20WEB.pdf
In November, Philip Lowe, addressed the British Veterinary Association Policy Group on
the future of food animal veterinary practice and the Royal Veterinary College on the
future of the veterinary profession.
Amy Proctor, Sue Bradley and Philip Lowe (chair) attended the second meeting of the
Veterinary and Social Science Collaboratory (VSSC), which was held at the Royal
Veterinary College on 16 November. The VSSC was set up by CRE in April 2009 for
veterinarians and social scientists to explore the potential for collaborative
engagement. Sue presented oral history recordings she has been making with Mary
Brancker, the first woman president of the British Veterinary Association, and two
veterinary surgeons who worked in her practice in the 1950s. It was agreed that such
material could have a role in educating vets about the social aspects of their work as
well as the profession’s history. Sue is now seeking funds to develop a full-scale oral
history of veterinary practice.
In November Philip Lowe ran a seminar for the Research Councils (RCUK) on “Excellence
with Impact: Benefiting from Collaboration” at the Government Conference on Science
and Innovation at the QEII Conference Centre, London.
In December Philip Lowe met with the Chief Veterinary Officer to discuss Defra’s
Departmental Strategic Objective, DSO4, covering public health and the economy
protected from animal-related threats.
Mark Shucksmith was invited as a speaker at a policy seminar in Edinburgh on the future
of EU rural policy. In December, the Crofting Reform Bill, based on the
recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry chaired by Mark Shucksmith in 2007/08,
began its committee stage in the Scottish Parliament.
In November, Jeremy Phillipson gave briefings to the Research Councils on a
methodology for accounting for knowledge exchange processes and impacts,
including RCUK's Knowledge Transfer and Economic Impact Group and a NERC
workshop on Measuring Economic Impact.
In November Jane Atterton travelled to Serbia to give a presentation on the role of
village schools in rural development drawing on her research experience in England
and Scotland. The presentation was given to a meeting of representatives of the FAO,
the Serbian Ministries of Education and Agriculture, and the National Council for
Education and members of the Education Committee at the Serbian Academy of
Sciences and the Education Forum. The second day of the trip involved a field visit to
several schools in Mionica, a rural part of Serbia, to talk with teachers about the
challenges and opportunities facing small schools in Serbia.
Publications and Conferences/Seminars
The CRE took the lead in a newly-published special issue of Regional Studies. It features
authors from across CRE, writing on a range of rural issues in regional development, from
social exclusion and older people in the countryside, to the Common Agricultural
Policy. “Placing the Rural in Regional Development”, Regional Studies, 43(10),
December 2009 is guest edited by Neil Ward and David Brown. Papers and
Contributors:
Ward, N. and Brown, D.L. (2009) Placing the Rural in Regional Development, Regional
Studies, 43 (10), 1237-1244
Shucksmith, M., Cameron, S., Merridew, T and Pichler, F.(2009) Urban – Rural Differences
in Quality of Life across the European Union, Regional Studies, 43 (10), 1275-1289
Gorton, M., Hubbard, C and Hubbard L. (2009) The Folly of the European Union Policy:
Why the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) does not fit Central and Eastern Europe,
Regional Studies, 43 (10), 1305-1317
Lowe, P. and Ward, N. (2009) England’s Rural Futures: A Socio-Geographical Approach
to Scenarios Analysis, Regional Studies, 43 (10), 1319-1332
Matthew Gorton co-authored two more papers. One emerged from the WATERWEB
project on agricultural water management in the Western Balkans. The other draws on
the EU INTAS project on the agrifood sector in the former Soviet Union:
Gorton, M., Sauer, J., Peshevski, M., Bosev, D., Shekerinov, D. And Quarrie, S. (2009),
Water Communities in The Republic of Macedonia: An empirical analysis of membership
satisfaction and payment behaviour, World Development, 37 (12), 1951–1963.
Gorton, M. and White, J. (2009), Export strategies and performance in the CIS: case
study evidence from the dairy sector, Post Communist Economies, 21 (4), 475–494.
Liz Jackson co-authored a paper entitled 'Sociological factors affecting agricultural
price risk management in Australia published in Rural Sociology’ and published in Rural
Sociology: Jackson, E.L., Quaddus, M., Islam, N. and Stanton, J. 2009, 'Sociological
factors affecting agricultural price risk management in Australia', Rural Sociology, 74 (4),
546-572.
Philip Lowe, Alan Woods, Anne Liddon and Jeremy Phillipson contributed with a chapter
entitled “Strategic Land Use for Ecosystem services to the book "What is land for? The
Food Fuel and Climate Change Debate" edited by Matt Lobley and Michael Winter.
In December, Hillary Talbot attended the final policy workshop of the FP FARO project in
Brussels.
Awards
On December 18th Philip Lowe, was awarded ACSS at the President’s Luncheon of the
Academy of Social Sciences in London.
Two CRE research students, Luke Dilley and Paul Cowie, have been selected to
undertake three month ESRC internships. Luke Dilley has been selected for a
Defra/ESRC internship, within the Sustainable Behaviours Unit in London. Paul Cowie's
internship is with the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills based in the
Economic Policy Analysis Unit in London.
Staff and Other News
In December, Emma Giles passed her viva exam, defending her research on ‘Young
Adults and Healthy Lifestyles: Food, Alcohol and Physical Activity – A Total Lifestyle
Approach’.
Kathryn Wilkinson, after successfully passing her PhD viva in November, graduated in
December. Katy’s PhD thesis is entitled “Bureaucracy and Other Stories: Organizing
Policymaking in Defra”.
Visitors
We welcome Masahiro Nakajima, a Senior Assistant Professor from the Department of
Ecoregion Science, Tokyo University, who has joined the CRE as a guest member of staff
from November 2009 until September 2010. Masahiro’s main research interests are
related to rural depopulation and countryside ageing and governance and
community planning in rural areas.
In December, David Brown, Professor at Cornell University and a CRE Honorary Fellow
visited the CRE and gave a seminar on Challenges and Opportunities presented by the
OECD’s “New Rural Demography”.