ESRC research projects
The challenge of learning from what works in the development of sustainable communities: closing the skills gap by raising competencies
Napier University and University of Salford
Dr Mark Deakin
- Aims to learn about what generic skills are needed to shift the knowledge base.
- Aims to demonstrate how a shifting knowledge base (from subject-specific to generic) can be used by core occupations (architecture, planning, engineering and surveying) to raise social competencies.
Previous evidence-based reviews of neighbourhood renewal have suggested 'learning from what works' provides the means to close the skills gap and raise the competencies of the core occupations responsible for the development of sustainable communities. The common thread running through all these reviews, be they governmental, academic, or professional, is their perception of the problem (the skills shortage) and the solution (closing the skills gap by raising the competencies of core occupations).
The reviews draw particular attention to over-dependence on 'subject-specific', as opposed to generic, skills and the need for the core occupations to redress this by shifting their knowledge base away from the technical domains of the former and towards the social competencies required by the latter.
Learning about the generics of what works is how the reviews propose the core occupations should go about this. Yet, this tends to raise as many questions as it answers:
- What exactly are the generic skills in question?
- What has been learned about how they work in the development of sustainable communities?
- How does this shift the knowledge base?
- How can this, in turn, be used as a platform to raise the social competencies required for the development of sustainable communities?
Finding answers to these questions will qualify the success of the core occupations to learn from what works in the development of sustainable communities. This research proposal wholeheartedly agrees with this interpretation of what needs to be done to effectively meet the challenge which the Egan Review (2004) poses the core occupations of architecture, planning, engineering and surveying.
The research proposal contends that, until now, learning has not been given the attention it deserves and, instead of being seen as lying at the centre of the exercise (sustainable community development), it is something which has been peripheral to the diagnosis of the problem (skills shortages) and solution (shifting the knowledge base as a platform for raising social competencies).
If we are to turn the situation around and put sustainable community development on the right track, the task is to learn about what generic skills are needed to shift the knowledge base and how to use this as a platform for raising social competencies in the shared enterprise of inclusive visioning. For while the Egan Review (2004) ranks these as 'first order' priorities, it fails to set out what can be learned about them, or how the core occupations can successfully put them to work.
The research proposes that, in order to turn the situation around and put sustainable community development back on the right track, we need to learn about the generic skills of inclusive visioning as a 'first order' priority and show how this shifting knowledge base can be used by the core occupations as a platform which raises the social competencies required for this shared enterprise to be successful in making them work.
ESRC is the UK's largest research funding agency for social and economic issues.
