Report on Transition Town Research Workshop, Bristol University, 22nd May 2008
Around 20 academics and post-graduate students attended an event designed to build links between the Transition movement and academia.
Noel Longhurst began by giving an introductory presentation on the meeting objectives. There are three areas where academia and Transition Towns overlap:
- University OF Transition: A network of courses and institutions relevant to transition
- University IN Transition: How universities adapt themselves to a low carbon future
- Collaborative Research: research related to Transition matters that benefits both the researcher and the transition movement / initiative
Noel stressed that the Transition Network was keen to encourage reciprocal research, where both the researcher and the transition initiative benefit, particularly where the initiative is required to commit scarce resources to the research process. There is a desire to work with Masters, PhDs and full scale academic projects.
Ben Brangwyn from Transition Network spoke briefly about the ideas for a University of Transition and Universities in Transition. There were then three short presentations on academic work that has already engaged with the Transition movement.
Simon Snowden (University of Liverpool) spoke about his work with Transition Town Totnes in developing Oil Vulnerability Audits (OVAs) for businesses (and other organisations) to assess their vulnerability to high oil prices. This work has entailed training TTT volunteers and some financial payment to community members who have supported the research and is a good model for future collaborative work.
Yoko Kanemasu (University of Cardiff) spoke about the etude project which is looking at Transition Town Totnes in the context of a pan-European collaborative study of approaches to rural sustainability.
Noel Longhurst (University of Liverpool) spoke about his own participatory research approach to his PhD and involvement with the Totnes Pound project. He discussed both the benefits and drawbacks of undertaking research in this way.
Research
After lunch there was the opportunity for people to express their own research interests and raise any particular issues that they wanted to discuss. There was then an Open Space session with four volunteer to convene sessions:
- Collaborative Research (Noel Longhurst): Building on the discussions in the morning a group discussed how to facilitate and co-ordinate the research on Transition Towns.
- Politics and methods (Pete North): A group discussed some of the politics around the transition movement and touched on methodological isses. Here are the notes for that group.
- Mass Teach-in (Jody Boenhert): Plans being developed for a mass teach-in were discussed by a third group.
- Sustainability Knowledge Co-op (Molly Scott Cato): A fourth group discussed the idea of a Sustainability Knowledge Co-op which would ensure that those who created knowledge on sustainability were able to benefit from it.
Next Steps
One of the primary purposes of the event was to discuss how to manage the burgeoning research interest in Transition Towns so that that it complements the movement rather than absorbing vital resources. Discussion throughout the day led to the conclusion that it is not practical to control this process centrally, nor do the resources exist to do so. Therefore, at this point the best option was to provide the tools that allow co-ordination and effective collaboration. Mostly this would be through the provision of online resources including:
- An education and universities forum and a research forum where:
- researchers can post details of their research including the proposed location, topic and timescale so other people can see which initiatives are being researched and which research questions are being addressed and thus avoid over researching specific sites and duplication of topic
- Transition initiatives can propose research topics, academics can post ideas for collaboration or details of opportunties for student collaboration etc
- A webpage where presentations / papers / data / essays / reading lists etc can be shared.
- Guidelines from the Transition Network for students and researchers addressing the issues of reciprocity and working with communities effectively
- Guidelines from the Transition Network for transition initiatives so that they fully explore the issues before engaging in research projects
Tools
The new JISCMAIL email list faciltitates the development of a network of researchers who are interested in this idea. Future plans include further conferences and a journal. However, it should be noted that there is no resource underpinning this network at the moment, so what it does will depend on the activities and interests of the participants. For this reason as well the network is expected to grow virally, with members encouraged to spread awareness to others who may be interested.
The Emerging Sustainability project involving the University of Hull Business School will be launching a open source website which may be able to fulfil the requirements for a suitable online space. This is due to be launched in July (see attached flyer). In the mean time a few participants have volunteered to help Ben build on the existing webpages.
Molly Scott Cato also volunteered to take forward the idea of the Sustainability Knowledge Co-operative.
Thanks to the Geography Departments of Bristol and Liverpool Universities for their support in putting on this event.