CSCR News
Call for participants: Well-being and Place: An International Conference
Abstracts are invited for an international conference organised by CSCR, the SWSJ Research Cluster in the Department of Geography and the Wolfson Research Institute on 7th-9th April 2009 to be held at Durham University. The aim of the conference is to draw together research that explicitly links well-being and place in order to advance knowledge and stimulate future directions that are both intellectually creative and timely for contemporary policy debates. We welcome contributions from the academic and policy communities that focus on the relationship between well-being and place, broadly defined. Abstracts (200 words) for paper presentations and proposals for panel discussions can be submitted up to 30th November 2008. Please send to Sara Fuller: s.k.fuller@durham.ac.uk
(19 Oct 2008)
Harriet Bulkeley awarded Climate Change Leadership Fellowship
CSCR Associate Director Dr Harriet Bulkeley has been awarded a Climate Change Leadership Fellowship by the Economic and Social Research Council. Harriet's research aims to advance our understanding of urban socio-technical systems and their response to climate change. During the fellowship Harriet will analyse how global and mega cities are responding to climate change mitigation and adaptation. She will focus on climate change ‘experiments’, innovation niches where the seeds of change are being sown, in the housing and energy systems. To date, there has been a lack of comparative analysis of how cities are responding to climate change, and this new body of knowledge will address this gap. This empirical research will consider how transformations in response to climate change are being achieved and managed, how responsibilities for addressing climate change are being allocated, and how issues of socio-environmental justice enable and constrain the possibilities for rapid transitions in response to climate change. This analysis will contribute to our understanding of how urban transitions are, or are not, responding to the challenges of climate change, and how we might best involve stakeholders and communities in this process. The research will involve working with organisations such as the World Bank and the Building and Social Housing Foundation, and will benefit from the support of group of international experts. The project seeks to make a difference both to how we think about the response of socio-technical systems to climate change, and to how we develop our global cities for a climate changed future.
(29 May 2008)
Call for papers: Unmaking England?: Policy and Infrastructure in the Production of New State Spaces
Abstracts are invited for a workshop co-organised by SURF (Salford University) and CSCR (Durham University) on 15th-16th January 2009 to be held in Manchester. The workshop concerns the way in which the public policy and infrastructure priorities of national states may increasingly privilege particular forms and scales of connection within national and international urban systems so delinking national urban systems in the process. Please send a title and one page abstract to Simon Marvin (s.marvin@salford.ac.uk) and Stephen Graham (S.D.N.Graham@durham.ac.uk) before May 1st 2008.
(13 Mar 2008)
Urban Informatics
A special issue of the journal Information, Communication and Society has been published showcasing the research presented at the Colloquium on Urban Informatics held in Durham in December 2006. The colloquium was hosted by CSCR and the University of York's Social Informatics Research Unit and funded by the ESRC's eSociety Research Programme. The special issue was edited by Nick Ellison (University of Leeds) and Roger Burrows and Simon Parker (University of York)
(1 Feb 2008)
Harriet Bulkeley wins Leverhulme Prize
CSCR Associate Director Dr Harriet Bulkeley has been awarded a prestigious Philip Leverhulme Prize in “compelling recognition of [her] research achievements” in the field of environmental governance. Harriet’s research has: provided new insights into the processes and practices of environmental governance within the nation-state; detailed the significant ways in which climate change is reconfiguring urban policy and cities are seeking to govern climate change; and opened up new areas of analysis in relation to the emerging transnational sphere of climate change governance. Harriet’s future research plans centre on understanding the ‘new’ politics of climate change emerging in-between and beyond the world of states.
(30 Oct 2007)
Crossrail may widen North-South divide says CSCR Director
CSCR Director Joe Painter has criticised the decision to build the trans-London Crossrail scheme without equivalent investment to enhance North-South rail links. Interviewed for an article in the Sunday Sun newspaper (14 October 2007) Prof Painter argued that Crossrail could bring big economic benefits to London and the South-East, but that other parts of the country could lose out as a result unless a new high-speed rail link was developed to link London, northeast England and Scotland.
(14 Oct 2007)
The International Relations of the European Regions
CSCR Director Joe Painter (far left) joins ISPI panel on regions
On 25 September CSCR Director Joe Painter joined a panel of European policy-makers in Milan to discuss the international role of regions in Europe. The panellists included Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino, the EU's Deputy Director General for Regional Policy, Michele Pasca Raymondo, Vice-Preseident of the Committee of the Regions, Luc van den Brande, and representatives of the governments of Catalonia and the Lombardy region. The event was organized by Italian foreign affairs think-tank ISPI (Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale) and took place at ISPI's Milan headquarters, the Palazzo Clerici.
(25 Sep 2007)
CSCR welcomes visitors from Cleveland Ohio
CSCR and SASS - the School of Applied Social Sciences - are delighted to welcome three distinguished visitors from Cleveland, Ohio for two days of academic exchange and policy debate in Tees Valley and Durham. Dr W Dennis Keating is Distinguished Professor at the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs and Chair of the Department of Urban Studies at Cleveland State University. Dr Claudia J Coulton is Lillian F Harris Professor of Urban Research & Social Change in the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University. Dr Sharon E Milligan is Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development in the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences Case Western Reserve University. Two special seminars have been arranged during the visit on the 10th and 11th of September - see www.dur.ac.uk/cscr/events/ for more details.
(5 Sep 2007)
CSCR Announces New Research Themes
CSCR has set out the thematic priorities for its research. The new themes are: Cities and Security; Living Cities; Political Economy of Cities and Regions; Sustainability and Environmental Justice; and Urban Materialities. The development of each theme will be led by a different member of CSCR's Management Group.
(27 Jun 2007)
Why local politics is boring
CSCR Director Joe Painter has identified limits on the powers of local councils as one reason why people have switched off from politics. Interviewed by the Sunday Sun newspaper (28 Jan 2007) Prof Painter commented: 'Because of the restrictions placed on what councils can and cannot do, local politics has become boring. It's understandable why people don't bother to vote when they don't feel it's going to make much difference who wins.'
(28 Jan 2007)
Call for papers: Comparing Organic Urban Places
Proposals are invited for papers for a CSCR-sponsored session at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, April 17-21, San Francisco 'Comparing Organic Urban Places (COUP): Learning about periurban food systems around the world' Central questions of human geography can be explored in contemporary turns to organic and local foods. Why do people adapt differently to similar places? Or, similarly in different places? What urban parameters trigger organic consumption? A stereotype persists of the organic consumer as an affluent, educated, white woman. Yet, Hartman (2004) notes over 50% of organic purchases in the US are by non-whites. What are the social-economic and regulatory factors that spur organic consumption in cities around the world? One goal of this session is to explore the methodological dis/advantages of inter-national comparative research (qualitative, quantitative, or ethnographic) on alternative food networks (AFNs). Topics include sustainable urban food systems and actors such as local governments, NGOs, retailers, farmers' markets, and out-of-home (Ausserhausverflegung) consumption of organics in restaurants and institutions. We invite you to explore other factors influencing urban food systems, such as food scares, family farm structural change, and globalization. While the methodology of comparing cities is tricky (inviting the charge of comparing apples and oranges), there is promise in turning this charge on its head: Why can cities as different in cultural tradition and residential patterns as Munich (Germany) and Portland (OR) have such similar organic networks? We welcome you to comparing organic urban places. Key words: int'l comparative research, methodology, rural-urban organics Please send abstracts under 250 words, plus 5 keywords to convenors: Bruce Scholten (Durham Geography, UK) bruce.scholten@btopenworld.com & www.durham.ac.uk/b.a.scholten; and Melissa Schafer (Technical University Berlin) mschafer@wzw.tum.de immediately or soon after Oct/02/06.
(17 Oct 2006)
Dr Colin McFarlane joins CSCR
Dr Colin McFarlane will join Durham Univeristy in October from his current position as Research Fellow at the Open University. Colin has interests in urbanization in South Asia, with particular reference to Bombay/Mumbai.
(11 Aug 2006)
Dr Niels Beerepoot: - CSCR visitor
Dr Niels Beerepoot of the University of Amsterdam was a visiting researcher with CSCR from January to June 2006.
(1 Jul 2006) » More about Dr Niels Beerepoot: - CSCR visitor
Dr Martin Sirak - CSCR visitor
Dr Martin Sirak of the Centre for Active Regional Policy, Analysis and Training, (Slovakia) was a visiting researcher with CSCR January to March 2006.
(1 Apr 2006)
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