Research in this area examines topics such as land use, sustainability, livelihoods, and social, economic, and cultural wellbeing and the complex interactions between these and other related themes.
Lorna Philip, John Farrington, Colin Hunter are currently working on the ESRC funded PolicyGrid II project (http://www.policygrid.org/). This project exploits Digital Social Research applications that could change the culture of academic practice, offering academics new ways of collaborating, managing and documenting resources generated by their research projects.
Rowan Ellis is working on a project that investigates the role of water in urban social life, questioning the logic and outcomes of emerging environmentalisms in the global South.
David Watt’s research interests include the role of food in rural development and he has worked on ESRC funded research into the ‘relocalisation’ of food. He is currently undertaking research, funded by the Carnegie Trust, into the potential for local and regional food to contribute to rural development in Scotland.
Bill Neill’s research is focused on understanding the importance of place and representations of place in the creation of cultural and civic identity. Current work includes an investigation of the role of Titanic heritage in the rebranding of the ‘post-conflict’ city of Belfast. He is a promoter of the concept of a ‘counter-Titanic’ movement in Belfast and is pursuing this concept in a comparison of Northern Ireland and German experiences.
Colin Hunter recently led a large team of investigators on the ESRC/MRC/BBSRC–funded BeWEL UIBEN project (http://www.esrc.ac.uk/my-esrc/grants/RES-355-25-0020/read), also involving Jillian Anable and Mark Reed, designed to explore links between interactions with nature, personal well-being and pro-environment behaviour. This built in part on the first completed ESRC/Scottish Government Joint Collaborative PhD Studentship project. The theme of behaviour change is also evident in his work on gastrointestinal disease risk perception and management as part of Research Council-funded projects under the Rural Economy & Land Use (ESRC/BBSRC/NERC) and Environmental & Social Ecology of Human Infectious Diseases (MRC/NERC/ESRC/BBSRC) programmes, work undertaken in collaboration with David Watts and John Farrington. Other recent and on-going research has focused on aspects of sustainable rural tourism development including Partner status on an EU Northern Periphery Programme grant on hunting tourism with David Watts.
Antonio Ioris and Sergei Shubin are currently working on a project examining ecosystem services and poverty alleviation in the Amazon region, funded by the ESPA programme (NERC/ESRC/DFID). Antonio Ioris and Colin Hunter have also undertaken research assessing water sustainability in Scotland and in Brazil.
Mark Reed is leading the ESRC/RELU/LWEC Sustainable Uplands project - www.see.leeds.ac.uk/sustainableuplands. He has conducted work for DEFRA exploring the barriers and opportunities for using payments for ecosystem services was involved in the IUCN Commission of Inquiry into Peatlands ‘Policy measures for sustainable peatland management’.
PhD Students
Sharon Flannigan (nee Phillips) (Hunter and Blackstock)
Dereje Tadese (Pinard, Philip and Mauthner)
John Goodlad (Philip and Coull)
Annabelle McLaren-Thomson (Hunter and Watts)
Laura MacRitchie (Strachan and Hunter)
Emily Lambert (Hunter, Smith and Pierce)
Diana Feliciano (Hunter, Smith and Slee)
Hamdan Al-Shaer (Hunter and Ioris)
Sarah de Rees (Watts, Heddle, Smith and Varley – in partnership with UHI)
Gina Maffey (van der Wal, Reed, Irvine)
Diana McNamara (Ioris and Miles)