Birmingham City University : RELU

This is a project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council as part of the RELU initiative (Rural Environment and Land Use).  For more information contact the Project Director, Alister Scott, or visit our Twitter feed.

The spaces where countryside meets town are often among society's most valued places, yet arguably lack sufficient understanding and integrated management within the UK.

What are we doing?

• This interdisciplinary project will undertake research to inform future policy and practice across the UK addressing management issues concerning environmental change within the rural-urban fringe.

• Initially, social and natural science concepts of spatial planning and ecosystem services are explored to create a theoretical lens to identify and evaluate management issues and needs.  From these, strategic principles are proposed and applied within two rural-urban fringe case study areas and incorporating local stakeholders' perspectives.  A project monitoring evaluation component also assesses research team learning and impact on resulting work practices.

• Collectively, these outputs will promote an integrated and spatial model for rural-urban fringe management, and signpost further research addressing the environmental change agenda.

How are we doing it?

• A unified team of academics, practitioners and professionals committed to sustainable management and planning across both urban and rural and social and natural science boundaries will work together to harness their collective experience and knowledge to create a better model within which strategic planning for the rural-urban fringe might flourish.

• Our approach allows academic and policy specialists to work collectively throughout the research process, crossing traditional rural/urban and natural/social science boundaries, to share knowledge and experience incorporating the latest theoretical and policy contributions from spatial planning and ecology as they relate to environmental change.

• All results will be disseminated through reports, papers, real/virtual conferences, the project website and podcasts.