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planning & sustainability RESEARCH cluster

The Planning and Sustainability Research Cluster unites interests that attach to the analysis, improvement and pedagogical transformation of problems arising within the context of an increasingly globalised world. Research is conducted at a host of scales and involves a wide range of actors and social structures and shares a focus on the transformative power of alternative visions. These latter may emerge in the context of resistance movements, urban and regional planning practices or in the formation of sustainable policies and lifestyles; as a result, analyses require a diverse range of methodological approaches. At the same time, thematic and theoretical work in the group remain anchored in a shared belief in the need to critically interrogate policies and representations that contribute to the persistence of non-sustainable social practices.					*Environmental Change* *Geopolitics and Justice* *Planning and Sustainability* *Rural Studies*

Contact: Dr Frances Fahy

FACULTY MEMBERS

- Dr Patrick Collins
- Dr Frances Fahy
- Dr Wesley Flannery
- Dr Valerie Ledwith
- Dr Marie Mahon
- Prof. Micheál Ó Cinnéide
- Dr Jessica Pape
- Dr Kathy Reilly
- Prof. Ulf Strohmayer

Graduate Students

PhD
Brídín Carroll Perceptions of consumers in Ireland of sustainability in food systems
Wesley Flannery An effective collaborative model for marine spatial planning in the Irish context
Mary Greene Communities in transition: the role of civil society in energy transitions towards low carbon futures
Dubheasa Kelly Alternative forms of Settlement: Irish Perceptions and Realities
Mary Jo Lavelle Attitudes and behaviours towards sustainable household consumption in Ireland
Alexandra Lima Revez Flood management in Ireland: the role of public participation
Bríd Walsh Effective and inclusive decision-making in wind energy development in Ireland

MLitt
Emer Henderson Unpacking public understandings of energy efficiency

Postgraduate funding sources incl ude Hardiman Scholarship, IRCHSS and EPA.

RECENT VISITING RESEARCHERS

Dr Mikel Gurrutxaga - Universidad del País Vasco (UPV-EHU); June – August 2012

Research Projects

		’CreativeEDGE: Creating a platform for Creative Industries in the Periphery’ (Large-scale project €1.1 million funded by the Northern Periphery Programme under Interreg 4C). The ’Creative Edge’ project brings together universities, development agencies and industry bodies from Ireland, Northern Ireland, Finland and Sweden to identify the current breadth and future scope of the creative economy in peripheral regions. The project seeks to put in place a number of measures that will promote creative industries in peripheral regions. Contact: Dr Patrick Collins (See http://www.nuigalway.ie/cisc/research/creative_edge.html for full project details)

		'ConsEnSus – Consumption, Environment and Sustainability’ (Large-scale project approx €1m funded under the EPA/STRIVE programme 2009-2013) This four year interdisciplinary project is an exploration of household consumption in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. This project is managed by Dr Frances Fahy in conjunction with partners from the School of Political Science and Sociology NUI Galway and the School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin. Contact: Mary Jo Lavelle, Dr Jessica Pape, Dr Frances Fahy (See http://www.consensus.ie/ for full project details)

		'MARNET – Marine Atlantic Regions Network’ (Large-scale EU project €1.3m funded by the ERDF through the EU Interreg Atlantic Area Programme 2012-2015) MARNET (Marine Atlantic Regions Network) is a 2.5 year collaborative transnational project involving maritime regions from the Basque country of Spain, Brittany in France, Stirling in Scotland, Porto in Portugal as well as the Border Midland and West region of Ireland. NUI Galway is the lead scientific partner of the MARNET project which is mapping the value of the Atlantic marine economy through the development of socio-economic indicators. The members of the NUI Galway MARNET research team are Dr Frances Fahy, Dr Stephen Hynes, Dr Amaya Vega and Rebecca Corless.

		’Policies to Promote Cycling in Galway’ (Small-scale project funded by the HSE, Galway City Council and WHO Healthy Cities) The overall goal of this small-scale project is to explore public support for a number of policies that could potentially promote and enable cycling in Galway City. The project involves the development of a survey to investigate public attitudes towards cycling with the aim of understanding the extent of public support for policies that would eventually increase the number of cyclists in Galway City. Contact: Dr Frances Fahy, Dr Wesley Flannery

		Enhancing Academic Capacity to Address Increased Flood Management Challenges (Small-scale project funded by IRCHSS) Contact: Alexandra Revez, Dr Marie Mahon, Dr Frances Fahy

		ANDROID (Academic Network for Disaster Resilience to Optimise Educational Development) 2012-2015 ANDROID is an Erasmus academic network that aims to promote co-operation and innovation among European Higher Education to increase society’s resilience to disasters of human and natural origin. Alexandra Revez from the Planning and Sustainability Cluster at NUI Galway, whose current research looks a flooding issues in Ireland, is a partner in the ANDROID project. The project, which is funded by the EU and led by University of Salford’s Centre for Disaster Resilience, is a consortium of partners from 64 European higher education institutions, joined by three institutions from Australia, Canada and Sri-Lanka. For further information on the ANDROID project please visit the website at http://www.disaster-resilience.net/.

RECENT conferences & events hosted

NUI Galway Researchers Launch Marine Atlantic Regions Network Project, Bilbao November 2012

Researchers from the Planning and Sustainability Research Cluster in Geography NUI Galway, along with members of the Border, Midland and Western (BMW) Regional Assembly, officially launched the new MARNET project at a major EU Commission Marine conference in Bilbao, Spain on the 12th of November 2012.

MARNET (Marine Atlantic Regions Network) is a three year co-operation project involving regional authorities and marine socio-economists in Ireland, Spain, France, Portugal and Scotland. The initiative will establish an EU Atlantic Marine Socio-Economic Network that will map the value of the Atlantic Marine economy through the development of reliable and comparable socio economic data throughout Atlantic Regions. NUI Galway is the lead scientific partner on this large scale EU INTERREG project.

Attending the launch, Dr Frances Fahy, Lecturer in Geography at NUI Galway and MARNET researcher, said: “The main aim of the MARNET project is to develop a Marine Atlantic Regions Network and to establish formal co-operative links between marine socio-economic research institutions and other bodies operating in the European Atlantic coastal zone.”

Planning and Sustainability Cluster Research Day

To mark the 50th anniversary of Geography in NUI Galway, the Planning and Sustainability Research Cluster will host a symposium on Friday the 16th of November 2012 in the Moore Institute Seminar Room, near the Bank of Ireland campus branch. This cluster unites research interests that relate to the analysis of social and environmental problems arising within the context of an increasingly globalised world.

The symposium will include overviews of current cluster research which spans topical issues such as planning for sustainable food futures, imagining new urban design, marine spatial policy and planning, exploring the potential of the arts and creativity sector to rural and Gaeltacht communities, examining what household washing, eating and energy practices be like in 2050, public participation in flood management in Ireland, the planning of eco-villages and alternative forms of settlement in the Irish context and research exploring the relationships between quality of life, standards of living and environmental behaviour.

The day will also include a panel of geographers and planners from around Ireland discussing potential impacts of recent amendments to the local and regional planning regulations in Ireland.

Please see here for up-to-date details of the schedule for the day.


	Prof. Micheál Ó Cinnéide

Hack the City – INTERSTITIAL INSERTIONS: URBAN MAPPING AND EVOLUTIONARY MORPHOLOGIES, Science Gallery, 14th-19th August 2012

Coordinated by Dr Alma Clavin from the Planning and Sustainability Research Cluster, NUI Galway Interstitial Insertions was a five day workshop, which focused on enhancing and transforming the function and resilience of the city, through the creation of ideas that address liminal, in-between and left over spaces in the city. Working with experts and academics in the fields of urban theory, sustainable architecture, ecological design and critical urban geography, selected participants worked with a team of mentors to: reflect and refine project ideas and urban interventions; develop propositions that translate into workable designs and unpack the discourse and critically examine the idea of the city as a complex, super-organism and system. The event took place in the Science Gallery, Dublin between the 14th and the 19th of August 2012. Links to the event are here:
http://sciencegallery.com/interstitialinsertions
http://sciencegallery.com/hackthecity

Consensus International Conference – Challenging Consumption: Pathways to a more Sustainable Future, NUI Galway, 18th– 20th May 2012 Download programme here

The Consensus International Conference on sustainable consumption took place at the National University of Ireland, Galway on the 18th, 19th and 20th of May, 2012. Keynote speakers at the conference included Maurie Cohen (New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA), Kate Soper (London Metropolitan University), Elizabeth Shove (Lancaster University), Mike Goodman (King's College London) and Inge Ropke (Technical University of Denmark).For more information see: www.consensus.ie/events.html Funded by the EPA.

Enhancing academic capacity to address increased flood management challenges: a multidisciplinary symposium, NUI Galway, 8th March 2012 Download programme here

Researchers with the Planning and Sustainability Research Cluster recently hosted a very successful symposium which was organised to consolidate academic capacity to meet the growing challenges associated with flood management in Ireland. Funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, this international symposium enabled the coming together of researchers in this field from Universities in England, Scotland and Ireland. The multi-disciplinary event comprised expertise from a variety of disciplines such as Geography, Political Science, Sociology Civil Engineering and Environmental Engineering. The symposium aimed to facilitate the introduction and discussion of various intellectual perspectives as well as policy and practice expertise. The overall event provided a platform for leading experts to present their work and offer new insights into this topic; the symposium also encouraged wider debate and discussion, such as new methodological strategies, problem solving debates and the bridging of cross disciplinary knowledge contributions. Funded by the Irish Research Council: New Ideas Grant

Discipline of Geography
National University of Ireland, Galway, University Road, Galway, Ireland
Tel.: +353 (0)91 49 2643
This page was last updated Monday, February 25, 2013