1. CONNECTED COMMUNITIES
Connected Communities
‘Summit’
Birmingham, 28/29 June 2010
Professor Shearer West
Director of Research
AHRC

2. Programme Vision
To mobilise the potential for
increasingly inter-connected
communities to enhance self-
reliance, regeneration,
sustainability, health & well-
being by better connecting
research, stakeholders and
communities.

3. Aims
To contribute to:
• community self-reliance
• community resilience
• active citizenship
• flourishing diverse & cohesive
communities
• health & well-being
• regeneration
• cultural vibrancy
• sustainable development

4. The Coalition:
our programme for government
Vision to:
• “completely recast the relationship between
people and the state: citizens empowered;
individual opportunity extended; communities
coming together to make lives better”.
• “end the era of top-down government by giving
new powers to local councils, communities,
neighbourhoods and individuals”
“The Government believes that the innovation and
enthusiasm of civil society is essential in
tackling the social, economic and political
challenges that the UK faces today. We will take
action to support and encourage social
responsibility, volunteering and philanthropy,
and make it easier for people to come together
to improve their communities and help one
another”

5. The Coalition: our programme for
government
• “We will promote the radical devolution of power and greater
financial autonomy to local government and community
groups”
• “We will … give neighbourhoods far more ability to determine
the shape of the places in which their inhabitants live”
• “We will introduce new powers to help communities save local
facilities and services threatened with closure, and give
communities the right to bid to take over local state-run
services”
• “We will implement the Sustainable Communities Act, so that
citizens know how taxpayers’ money is spent in their area and
have a greater say over how it is spent”.
• “We will support the creation and expansion of mutuals, co-
operatives, charities and social enterprises, and enable these
groups to have much greater involvement in the running of
public services”

6. The Coalition: our programme for
government
• “We will train a new generation of community organisers and
support the creation of neighbourhood groups across the UK,
especially in the most deprived areas”.
• “We will introduce National Citizen Service. The initial flagship
project will provide a programme for 16 year olds to give
them a chance to develop the skills needed to be active and
responsible citizens, mix with people from different
backgrounds, and start getting involved in their communities”.
• “We will take a range of measures to encourage volunteering
and involvement in social action, including launching a
national day to celebrate and encourage social action, and
make regular community service an element of civil service
staff appraisals”

7. A UK-wide Agenda
• England: “Communitybuilders is a £70m investment
fund which takes forward a commitment within the
Communities in Control: real people, real power
White Paper to build more cohesive, empowered
and active communities”
• Scottish Government National Outcome Indicator:
“We have strong, resilient and supportive
communities where people take responsibility for
their own actions and how they affect others”
• Welsh Assembly Government: “Our vision for Wales
calls for strong, safe communities that people will
want to live in now and in the future. Wales has a
strong tradition of community identity and self-
help. We want to enhance this identity by giving
people the confidence to develop local solutions to
community problems and by providing them with
the funding and support to do so.”
• Northern Ireland: “People and Place – A strategy for
Neighbourhood Renewal” “to develop confident
communities that are able and committed to
improving the quality of life in the most deprived
neighbourhoods”

8. Community Perspectives
“The welfare state that was build up after the
great economic crisis of the 1930s was designed
to address Britain's material needs - for jobs,
homes, health care and pensions. It was
assumed that people's emotional needs would
be met by close knit families and communities.
Sixty years later psychological needs have
become as pressing as material ones: the risk of
loneliness and isolation; the risk of mental
illness; the risk of being left behind. New
solutions are needed to help the many people
struggling with transitions out of care, prison or
family breakdown, and to equip people with the
resilience they'll need to get by in uncertain
times”.
Sinking & Swimming Understanding Britain’s Unmet Needs Young
Foundation 2009

9. Community Perspectives
A community led agenda for urban sustainability
research:
• 1. Crime and Safety
• 2. Eco-Social Housing
• 3. Affordable Green Energy Services
• 4. Urban Food Production and Consumption
• 5. Sustainable Urban Transport
• 6. Greenspace, Parks and Places to go
• 7. Rubbish and Recycling
• 8. Community Cohesion and Empowerment
• 9. Shopping and Local Services
• 10. Health and Well-being
http://www.suscit.org.uk/

10. What do we mean by ‘Community’?
• For the purposes of this Programme, and subject to further
consultation, we are currently thinking of ‘communities’ as:
“cooperative or interactive groups sharing a virtual or
physical environment and aspects of identity (such as
location, race, ethnicity, age, history, occupation), culture,
belief or other common bonds and/or a shared interest in
particular issues or outcomes”.
• We recognise that such communities are nested and
overlap and are interested both in the relationships within
these communities and the interactions between
communities and their outcomes for broader society and
economy.

11. Why Connected?
In terms of the research:
• Focus covers both the changing connections
between individuals and groups within communities
and the connections between different communities
– communities as complex webs of inter-
connections.
• Interest the connections between communities and
their broader environments
• Aim to examine the connections between research
issues often considered in isolation to deliver more
integrated understanding of the roles of, and impacts
on, communities.

12. Why Connected?
In terms of how the Programme will achieve its
objectives:
• Connecting researchers, knowledge and data from
across disciplines to deliver more integrated
understanding
• Connecting UK and international research
• Connecting researchers, stakeholders and
communities in the co-production of knowledge
and knowledge exchange.

14. Understanding Patterns of Connectivity and Change within & between Communities
Community
Community
participation, Community Sustainable
Community cultures,
self-reliance Health and community
Regeneration diversity and
and well-being environments
cohesion
resilience
Connecting Research on Communities
Connecting Research with Communities & other Stakeholders, Stimulating Research
Partnerships and Enhanced Harvesting of Research for Impact

15. Cross-Cutting Themes: Understanding
Changing Connectivity & Communities
Some key cross-cutting questions
• What are communities for in modern societies?
How do they contribute to quality of life? What
do flourishing communities look like? How are
community values and identities changing?
• Changing connections within and between
communities. Inter-relationships and networks.
Ties to communities & places.
• Understanding communities as complex systems
• Factors shaping changing communities –
interfaces between technological,
environmental ,social, cultural & economic
factors

16. Cross-Cutting Themes:
Connecting Research on Communities
• Already c. £40 million p.a. of RCUK funding
in communities-based research , but
discovering more all the time!
• Aim to add value to this base - potential for
major additional impact building on this
existing base
• Improved co-ordination and alignment of
research
• Potential for strategic additional
investment and partnerships to facilitate
added value & address key needs & gaps

17. Museums and Galleries
Programme
DESIGN
AGAINST
CRIME
Research on culture & regeneration

18. Centre for Charitable
Giving & Philanthropy
UKCRC Public Health Research
Centres of Excellence

19. Environment,
pollution and
human health
Environmental
UKPopNet
Exposure &
Health Initiative
(EEHI)

20. National
Prevention
Research
Initiative
NPRI
MRC-HPA Centre for
Environment & Health MRC Social & Public Health
Sciences Unit
MRC/Scottish Collaboration for
Public Health Research and Policy Understanding Individual EuroSTRESS:
Stress and Mental
(SCPHRP) Behaviour (MRC/ESRC) Health

21. Suburban Neighbourhood
Adaptation for a Changing
Climate (SNACC)
Energy &
Communities

22. Cross-Cutting Themes:
Connecting Research on Communities
• Funding from other stakeholders is
fragmented, often small-scale or focused on
specific area
• Connecting researchers across disciplines
and subject domains
• Conceptual and methodological
development e.g. modelling, systems,
complexity, networks, data, ethnography etc
• Designing and learning from community
initiatives, case studies and interventions,
including evaluation methods
• Learning from the past and across cultures
(incl. international collaborative research)

23. Cross-Cutting Themes:
Connecting with Stakeholders, Partnerships
& Harvesting for Impact
•Partnerships and co-production to
address strategic research gaps
•Support knowledge exchange
with key stakeholders e.g. CLG
•Stimulating innovative ways of
engaging communities in and with
research
•Better ‘harvesting’ of existing
research: synthesis, review,
translation…

24. Action plan for 2010
• Today’s ‘Summit’
• Convene first meeting of expert group
• CLG Policy seminars (ESRC/AHRC)
• Civility project (AHRC, ESRC, Young Foundation)
• Collaboration with RSA Citizen Power in Peterborough Programme
• Collaboration with CABE on ‘Beauty’ (AHRC)
• Commission initial scoping studies
• Highlighted cross-disciplinary networking call and Fellowship
scheme highlight in 2010 (AHRC )
• BIS SIN US network event on communitarianism
• Enhance interim webpages
• Workshop on ‘crime & communities’, 27 July 2010 (tbc) led by ESRC
• Plan for possible ‘ideas collision’ on culture & regeneration in 2011

25. Aims of the Summit
• Map the research landscape to identify areas of
intersection & potential synergies
• Stimulate and support research connections
between participants & beyond
• Promote novel cross-disciplinary connections &
broader collaborations with policy-makers &
communities
• Identify ways in which the Programme can add
value in the field
• Identify potential research gaps / needs & help to
shape future priorities for the Programme