‘The Collaborative Coast’: Resources from the EARC Conference 2022
This year our conference was focussed on our coast. Stretching from the Wash in the north to the Channel in the south, it offers huge opportunities – but also significant challenges.
Our conference was a chance for academics and regional stakeholders to come together to discuss key questions facing the coast, from addressing health inequalities to preparing for climate change, from harnessing renewable energy to supporting our creative community.
160 delegates joined us at Wivenhoe House Hotel on the University of Essex campus. They came from the three EARC universities, but also from local authorities, NHS Trusts, charities, funders and other organisations.
Together, they heard about a diverse range of initiatives and projects, engaged with each other and explored ways forward in collaborating for the benefit of our coast. This page brings together the slides, recordings, photos and other resources that came from the Conference.
Programme and background information
For the original programme, abstracts and speaker biographies, go to the original Conference webpages here.
Photos
Our Flickr photostream has an album dedicated to photos of the day. You can browse it here.
Slides and recordings
Slides from the presentations are available below. In addition, six recordings were made from the sessions that took part in the plenary rooms. These are embedded below, and are available together on our YouTube channel.
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Much of the narrative around the regeneration of coastal towns is based on a historic view of their prosperity, focusing on the economic high water mark of the late nineteenth century.In his keynote, Jules Pretty OBE suggested that future prosperity will not come from this model, which sees the sea as a barrier and a problem for movement and growth. Rather, we need to face out, seeing the sea as a unifier, bringing together communities with similar locations around the southern North Sea and beyond.
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Chair: Murray Smith (Kent)- Discussants: Sarah Dance (England’s Creative Coast, Creative Estuary) and Emma Wilcox (Creative Estuary)
This session examined two parallel but separate programmes that supported creative engagement with the coast. England’s Creative Coast aimed to shift the approach to cultural tourism in the South East of England. Creative Estuary is an ambitious programme to develop the creative industries spanning both sides of the Thames Estuary from Southend to Margate.
Sarah Dance (Project Director for Creative Coast and Chair for Creative Estuary) and Emma Wilcox (Project Director, Creative Estuary) explored the opportunity and value of such initiatives, and the part they have to play in place-making, identity and levelling-up.
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Chair: Koldo Casla and Dr Lyle Barker (Human Rights Centre, University of Essex)- Discussants: Lucy Davies (Essex Law Clinic, University of Essex, and Suffolk Law Centre), Benjamin O’Connell (Student Director at University of Essex Law Clinic), and Michelle Wilkinson (Beacon House Clinic)
Launched in 2020, Human Rights Local is a project of the Human Rights Centre of the University of Essex that aims to make human rights locally relevant. It challenges the notion that international human rights laws and principles are somehow alien to people’s daily lives.
The session included a case study on addressing emergency homelessness assistance. The right to housing and shelter is a basic human right. Given limited provision of specialist housing advice in the region and limited collaboration, how can we identify issues and solve them and ensure rights and responsibilities known about?
Slides from the session are available below.
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Chair: David Watson (UEA)- Discussant: Pinar Guven Uslu (UEA and the Eastern Health Services Network), and Esmee Wilcox (Socially Adept)
Regional approaches to health and social care are being overhauled with the introduction of Integrated care systems (ICSs).
These are a new form of organisation that will integrate health and social care across different organisations and settings. They will be in charge of joining up hospital and community-based services, physical and mental health as well as health and social care.
In England there are 42 ICSs which will have statutory duties from July 2022. The ICSs in the East of England are currently designing their work processes that will shape health and social care delivery in the next few years.
This session brought together researchers and regional stakeholders to have an open dialogue about challenges and opportunities of introducing ICSs particularly in coastal regions and the role of communities in place-based approaches to wellbeing.
Slides from the session are available below.
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Chair: Sheng Qi (UEA) and Christa Brunnschweiler (UEA).- Discussants: Shalk de Beer (Central Pharma Biotechnica), Willie Athill (Norfolk Seaweed Ltd), Nigel Hargreaves (Synfo), Tiziana Luisetti (Cefas), Gill Malin (University of East Anglia), Rikke Nagell-Klaven (Hethel Innovation), Katy Owen (Norfolk County Council)
Climate change is forcing coastal communities to rethink the way they manage coastal environments. This can bring challenges but also potential opportunities, for example for capturing green (or blue) finance, opening up ecotourism, and protecting inland areas.
This session presented one such area of opportunity, namely seaweed farming. Prof Sheng Qi (UEA) and colleagues will look at how a sustainable seaweed circular economy in the East of England can fix carbon rapidly and provide biomass, rich in nutrients, that can be made into valuable products through onshore processing.
In the second part, the discussion opened out into a wider exploration of opportunities with representatives from CEFAS, UEA Low Carbon Innovation Fund, regional government, conservation charities, as well as the seaweed farming initiative.
Slides from the session are available below.
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Chair: Michael Tymkiw (University of Essex)
Following on from the morning’s session on art as a driver for place-making and levelling-up, this session heard from three projects that engaged with local communities to develop a sense of identity, understanding and pride. The projects were:
- AR ‘scapes: Voices from the Concrete Barges
- The Unfiltered Coast
- Finding Emerson Open
Slides from the session are below.
AR ‘scapes: Voices from the Concrete Barges (Kate McLean, University of Kent)
The Unfiltered Coast (Lavinia Brydon and Rob Barker, University of Kent)
Finding Emerson Open (Julia Devonshire (originalprojects) and Marián Arribas-Tome (UEA))
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Chair: Juliane Thieme (University of Kent)- Discussants: Graham Galpin (Placechangers), Wei Liu (University of Essex), Paul Rabbits (Southend on Sea City Council)
The aspiration to revive seaside resorts comes with many opportunities but also significant challenges. This session examined these, from new businesses and entrepreneurs, employment opportunities in tourism and hospitality (but also staff shortages), gentrification, community involvement (e.g. in planning) and community reliance (e.g. services the councils do not/cannot provide such as beach clean-ups), guest responsibilities and how to address them.
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Chair: Tracey Loughran (University of Essex)- Discussant: Farah Virani (Kent County Council), Susan McPherson (University of Essex), Edyta McCallum (Kent County Council)
Kent and Medway Listens was the largest and deepest county-wide engagement exercise ever undertaken focusing on the mental wellbeing of the population.It was a partnership between various community partners. It took the form of interactive, online workshops to give stakeholders, residents of Kent and Medway and those who have not been listened to, the opportunity to come together to hear what is impacting the population.Farah Virani was involved in running the project and discussed the outcome of the project, lessons learnt from it. She was then be joined by Edyta McCallum (Research, Innovation & Improvement (RII) Senior Programme Lead, Kent County Council) who spoke about what KCC was doing now in terms of developing a Joint Health & Wellbeing Strategy.Finally, Susan McPherson (Professor of Psychology and Sociology in the School of Health and Social Care, University of Essex) talked about the wider and more general challenges of building mental health research capacity within a region.Slides from the session are available below.
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Chair: Jenny Fairbrass (UEA)- Discussants: Ian Pease (Orbis Energy / GENERATE), Fiona Gilmore (Suffolk Energy Action Solutions (SEAS))
Offshore wind is a central element of the UK government’s energy strategy. The South North Sea (SNS), which borders East Anglia and Suffolk, has a large number of existing and planned offshore wind projects (22GW) and is therefore a crucial area for offshore wind development and the achievement of national objectives.
The rapid, large-scale development of offshore wind in the SNS presents opportunities in terms of energy security, industrial development, job creation and coastal regeneration for the whole region. At the same time, offshore wind projects have also attracted controversies and been challenged by local communities, triggering local opposition focussed on disruption, wildlife destruction and landscape impacts.
This session explored the challenges and opportunities of offshore wind development across the Eastern Arc from a multidisciplinary perspective.
Slides from the session are available below.
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Chair: Professor Chiara Di Cesare (Essex)- Video presentation: Professor Chris Whitty
- Discussants: Lucy Wightman (Essex County Council), Ed Garratt (Suffolk and NE Essex ICB) and Abraham George (Kent County Council)
In 2021 the Chief Medical Officer looked at health in coastal communities, and suggested that the available data on health and wellbeing were poor. He recommended that this should be addressed. Eastern Arc has taken the first steps towards doing this with two workshops in July exploring the challenges of coastal health data, but what else could or should be done?
This session began with a recorded address from Prof Chris Whitty, followed by a panel discussion with external stakeholders and policymakers.