UNIVERSITY NEWS LAST UPDATED : 03 AUGUST 2016
A team of academics from Birmingham City University’s School of Engineering and the Built Environment, have been named as finalists in the Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement category at the 2016 Royal Town Planning Institute’s (RTPI) Awards for Research Excellence.
Alister Scott, Professor of Environment and Spatial Planning, led a multi-partner team with Claudia Carter and David Adams from Birmingham City University exploring the impact of games as effective decision making tools. ‘Participology’ was the creation of academic, policy and practice partners working collaboratively to design, test and evaluate a board game format with guidance and associated resources to help address complicated land use and building issues.
The Awards for Research Excellence are run by the RTPI to recognise and promote high quality, impactful spatial planning research from RTPI accredited planning schools, and planning consultancies around the world. There was tough competition to be named a finalist, with 87 entries to this year’s awards, a more than 40 per cent increase on last year.
On being named as one of this year’s finalists, Professor Scott said:
Dr Michael Harris, RTPI’s Head of Research, said: “The RTPI Research Awards have gone from strength to strength. The growing body of high quality research work in planning is impressive but more importantly, it is a positive sign that more academic researchers want to reach out to practitioners and policymakers with insights and findings that can inform and influence their work. This is what the Awards celebrate and I am pleased that RTPI planning schools and planning consultancies have responded.”
Andrew Riley, Chief Operating Officer at Idox plc commented: "High-quality research is key to increasing our understanding of how planning can help create sustainable places for people to live and work. As the UK’s leading provider of planning and building control solutions to local authorities, Idox is very proud to be continuing our relationship with the RTPI and supporting the RTPI Awards for Research Excellence in 2016.”
Jonathan Manley at Routledge/T&F said “As RTPI’s publisher, Routledge/T&F are delighted to continue our sponsorship of the RTPI Research Awards. RTPI’s mission to reward the best in planning research complements our own ambition to publish the work of not only those with an established reputation in the field but also scholars at the dawn of their career”.
The winners will be announced on 7 September during the 2016 UK-Ireland Planning Research Conference at Cardiff University.