ESRC research projects
Enabling sustainable communities: supporting effective skills development for current and future core built environment professionals
Kingston University
Professor Sarah Syce
- Investigates whether the skills required for stakeholder consultation processes are present amongst professional practitioners and local community stakeholders.
- Evaluates what skills are the most effective in ensuring positive stakeholder engagement.
- Where clear gaps are identified recommendations will be made as to the types of skills required and how they should be delivered.
The challenge to deliver sustainable communities is placing new pressures on professional practitioners and local communities alike.
The requirement that new developments and master plans are subject to a public consultation process has become a central tenet within spatial planning policy and regulation. This process is considered an important element in achieving sustainable communities; it is the major forum through which local communities can have a direct input into a process that influences the environment within which we spend our lives.
It is therefore disappointing that local community participation in consultation tends to be very limited. It is also presenting a significant barrier to the successful delivery of sustainable communities. However it is not necessarily surprising.
Engagement with a stakeholder consultation process requires at the very least specific skills of facilitation, debate, assimilation and presentation of ideas and conflict resolution.
This research investigates the extent to which those skills are currently present, both amongst professional practitioners and local community stakeholders and which skills are found the most effective from the perspective of both 'consultor' and 'consultee'.
Research has been carried out that identifies the particular skills needed to deliver sustainable communities. This work will take that process a stage further and identify from the perspective of the practising built environment professional and the local community stakeholder, what skills are the most useful and effective in ensuring positive stakeholder engagement.
The results of this process will be cross-checked against the skills delivered in professional courses to determine the extent to which they are being delivered through undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, and the skills available within the local community.
Where clear gaps can be identified, recommendations will be made as to the types of skills that should be delivered through higher education programmes and through community action initiatives.
The research will use a case study-based approach to evidence gathering as a means of learning from and disseminating the experiences of others.
The successful completion of the work will support local communities in participating in the delivery of sustainable communities, practising professionals in understanding the skills they need to make the consultation process most effective, and professional bodies and higher education institutions in delivering the most appropriate skills for the graduates of the future.
ESRC is the UK's largest research funding agency for social and economic issues.
