Resilient Coastal Communities and Seas Programme
ARISE is part of the £14.8m Resilient Coastal Communities and Seas Programme, funded by UKRI and Defra, which will take a transdisciplinary approach to understanding and boosting the resilience of coastal communities in all four nations of the UK.
Simultaneously, ESRC is also investing £9.5m in five projects that will research place-based approaches to an environmentally sustainable future, providing evidence to support local and national decision making.
In addition to ARISE, details of the nine other large projects are given below.
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Project Lead: Karen Alexander, Heriot-Watt University
As the world transitions from oil and gas to offshore renewable energy, this project studies the impact on coastal communities.
The project will examine lessons from two previous transitions. These are the transition through the use of whale oil for lighting in the 1800s, and the transition into offshore oil and gas that started in the 1970s.
Past transitions like these have often had negative (as well as positive) effects on coastal communities. For example, bringing boom and bust cycles and impacts on the quality of the environment.
By exploring how the natural environment and people in coastal communities experience these changes, TRANSECTS aims to inform approaches to the current energy transition that increase the resilience of coastal communities and seas – and also underpin the success of important blue economy industries.
Their research will involve collaborating with researchers across different disciplines, with coastal communities in Scotland and England and with artists and cultural organisations.
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Project Lead: Kate Spencer, Queen Mary, University of London
Coastal flooding and erosion will accelerate under climate change. Our past industrialisation has left a pollution legacy of 1000s of historic coastal landfills and contaminated sites also at risk from coastal flooding and/or erosion. Many are already releasing wide-ranging pollution, including heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants, medical waste, plastics and asbestos to our coasts and the marine environment.
Working in three ‘at risk’ UK geographic areas RACC will assess the harm this pollution will do to coastal habitats and communities and investigate the future risks associated with climate change. We will work with stakeholders and communities to understand the environmental and social challenges involved and together develop new policies and sustainable management options to protect the coast and future generations.
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Project Lead: Tim Acott, University of Greenwich
Coastal communities in the UK are faced with many pressing social, economic, and environmental resilience challenges. Addressing these in an inclusive, holistic, and sustainable way requires a transformation of the way research and governance work and interact.
TRACC will bring together different forms of knowledge from diverse social groups and movements, decision-makers, researchers, and other stakeholders to co-design new approaches to tackle coastal challenges and help positively shift values, goals, and paradigms towards sustainability and resilience.
TRACC will work across the UK, in Mid-North Wales, the Humber Estuary, Lough Foyle and the Firth of Clyde, and lessons learned will be shared nationally through a new UK Resilience Assembly.
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Project Lead: Briony McDonagh, University of Hull
COAST-R puts communities at the heart of a new network of transdisciplinary research, innovation and practice. Aiming to foster an inclusive, cross-sector Community of Practice, the network will improve understanding of coastal change to enhance the resilient management of UK coastal seas and communities.
Spanning five coastal universities and over 20 marine, coastal and governmental, civic and industry partners, COAST-R draws on the knowledge and experience of communities and researchers to grow, extend and nurture impactful work on resilient coastal communities and seas over 4.5 years of exciting co-devised activities and events.
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Project Lead: James White, University of Glasgow; with Cardiff University, Dalhousie University, University of Sheffield, University of the West of England, and University of Ulster
URBAN RETROFIT UK will work with partners across all four nations of the UK and internationally to investigate urban retrofit successes and challenges, including barriers to scaling up.
The team will work with UK partners to identify and examine place-based urban retrofit case studies being delivered through local planning and development systems in Belfast, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow and Sheffield.
The team will co-produce a framework mapping the critical points of intervention required to close the implementation gap between national policy and local delivery. This will form the basis of a toolkit for planning authorities, property developers and communities. An international urban retrofit hubs network will also be established to share learning.
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Project Lead: Rebecca Jane Sandover, Exeter University
Delivering sustainability transitions across the UK necessarily entails changes in how we live and work.
The changes associated with sustainability transitions can be perceived in terms of winners and losers, and often act as focus of disagreement. For example the recent controversy about ’15-minute cities’.
These ‘flashpoints’ are relevant not only to the places in which they emerge, but also for debate and policy action on delivering sustainable places nationally. They raise important issues about how common sustainability transitions are governed.
Accordingly, we need to understand what makes for a flashpoint issue on sustainable living, how such issues emerge, how they are framed, and how we can work with communities to overcome them.
The GSF team will work with local agencies in Devon, UK, to investigate ‘flashpoints’ – and to make recommendations for national policy and practice. Their ultimate aim will be to find sustainable outcomes that are fair, inclusive and effective.
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Project Lead: Moya Kneafsey, Coventry University; with Garden Organic, and Social Farms & Gardens
Small-scale farmers, growers and food and drink producers have traditionally been excluded from selling to schools, hospitals and other public sector procurement contracts. Yet public sector food buyers are increasingly interested in sourcing from local producers, motivated by a desire to make their food supply systems more resilient. This project will extend a 2023 pilot, carried out in Wales, which successfully brought together multiple small-scale producers in a single online ‘hub’ hosted by the Open Food Network (OFN). The hub sourced the produce from their local growers, farmers and producers and delivered the produce to the buyers.
Now the OFN’s platform will be extended in four case studies based across the UK that will help us learn how to increase local food procurement in ways that can deliver economic, social, nutritional and environmental benefits. The overall aim is to help build more sustainable food systems in different places in the UK.
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Project Lead: Joanna Williams, University College London; with Cranfield University
REGENYSYS brings together leading experts in circular bioeconomy; ecosystems and ecosystem services; systems thinking; design thinking and action research.
The REGENYSYS project aims to build the capacity for a circular bioeconomy in the Thames Estuary. The circular bioeconomy restores local ecosystems to benefit local food production, wildlife, flood management, soil quality, aid in carbon sequestration and provide recreational opportunities for local people. It also harvests organic waste to produce feedstock, pharmaceuticals, construction materials and produce bioenergy. These activities offer new economic opportunities for residents living near the Estuary.
The team will create a living lab in the Thames Estuary to explore the potential for creating a circular bioeconomy of wellbeing. It will engage with to local stakeholders and seek to develop experimental projects with them to benefit the local community.
The team will also develop an educational programme for young people living near the estuary, so they too can be part of his transformation process. The team will monitor the ecological and social impact of these efforts and further explore their potential to transform the Thames Estuary.
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Project Lead: Paul Dewick, Manchester Metropolitan University
Using Greater Manchester as a test bed, the Circular Society Innovations (CSI) team led by Manchester Metropolitan University will explore the processes by which places can become more equitable, inclusive and environmentally sustainable. The project’s focus goes beyond notions of the circular economy to explore the development, implementation, and scaling-up of circular society innovations, where social justice and wellbeing are central and where outputs, outcomes and approaches are inclusive and participatory.
The Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Manchester City Council, and Stockport and Oldham Metropolitan Borough Councils will collaboratively participate in the development and delivery of the project, with additional support and input from the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, ReLondon, and international partners from Hogeschool Utrecht (Netherlands), University of Turku (Finland) and the Illinois Institute of Technology (USA).
The CSI team will develop recommendations for UK policymakers, practitioners and civil society organisations to stimulate place-based CSI. Findings from across the project will be shared with policymakers, CSI practitioners, public and international partners through an international conference, a handbook and virtual futures-thinking international workshop.
