Design Innovation and Land-Assets (DI&L)
Lead Research Organisation:
Glasgow School of Art
Department Name: The Innovation School
Abstract
The Design Innovation and Land Assets (DI&L) network will be made up of academics, practitioners, specialists in rural sustainability, human geography, cultural policy and groups undertaking community land reform projects. In working to develop a framework, the network will focus on the context of community landownership in the Hebrides in Scotland as an exemplar case. This rationale is based on the prominence and maturity of the issue, and its special relevance for the subject of land-asset decision-making. Drawing on the network's expertise in this area, it is expected that the resulting framework will have wide applicability, knowledge exchange and transferability to other contexts in the UK and beyond. The proposed DI&L team from the GSA's Innovation School comprises of Dr. Lynn-Sayers McHattie as Principal Investigator and Dr. Brian Dixon as Co-Investigator with one part-time research assistant. Lynn has extensive experience of directing and delivering UKRI projects, including AHRC funding bids. The team will be supported by Prof. Frank Rennie at the University of Highlands & Islands. Frank's research involves the animation of grassroots community development, especially mechanisms for participation in integrated rural development initiatives. His expertise extends to the practical systems for securing sustainable development and the attendant cultural and social issues as a mechanism for development. Further stakeholders in the network will include those involved in rural land use and shared land assets who in turn would mobilise their networks allowing for enhanced engagement and impact. It is intended that these organisations and experts would include Scottish Government representatives, Highlands and Islands Enterprise; design leaders, experts in land-reform; and academics working in the area of regional specialisation and policy; as well as three Hebrides communities that are currently in the process of undertaking community landownership projects.
DI&L will take place over the course of eighteen months and will involve three inter-related phases. The DI&L launch would take place at the Innovation School's Winter School in January 2020, a two-week long seasonal school at GSA's Highlands & Islands Campus bringing together over 100 Post Graduate students and international academics. We envisage DI&L partners would convene to scope and visually map potential opportunities and challenges, related to governance and decision making, the legalities of land reform and wider socio-cultural issues. The insights from this event would then inform the design of three workshop events based in Hebridean contexts, the Research Assistant who has been identified is actively engaged in community land reform. The DI&L team are experts in design innovation approaches, which can be applied to support democratic engagement and decision-making in relation to the specific opportunities and challenges identified. Based on the findings, a series of initial parameters and principles for a decision-making framework would be formulated. The project would conclude with a symposium, which will aim to simultaneously draw together, evaluate and disseminate the initial framework amongst the wider network. Impact beyond academia will be an embedded component within the project, in the sense that real democratic issues will be explored in the workshop settings with community members and activists. Dissemination of the project will be through the production of a publication/report, visual assets (videos and photography) and academic publications to be distributed both physically and digitally amongst all network partners, relevant regional and international policy-makers and wider publics. Equally, it is intended that all network events will be live-streamed, allowing multiple external stakeholders to input at various stages in the process and enhancing the project's ecological and environmental positioning by avoiding unnecessary travel.
DI&L will take place over the course of eighteen months and will involve three inter-related phases. The DI&L launch would take place at the Innovation School's Winter School in January 2020, a two-week long seasonal school at GSA's Highlands & Islands Campus bringing together over 100 Post Graduate students and international academics. We envisage DI&L partners would convene to scope and visually map potential opportunities and challenges, related to governance and decision making, the legalities of land reform and wider socio-cultural issues. The insights from this event would then inform the design of three workshop events based in Hebridean contexts, the Research Assistant who has been identified is actively engaged in community land reform. The DI&L team are experts in design innovation approaches, which can be applied to support democratic engagement and decision-making in relation to the specific opportunities and challenges identified. Based on the findings, a series of initial parameters and principles for a decision-making framework would be formulated. The project would conclude with a symposium, which will aim to simultaneously draw together, evaluate and disseminate the initial framework amongst the wider network. Impact beyond academia will be an embedded component within the project, in the sense that real democratic issues will be explored in the workshop settings with community members and activists. Dissemination of the project will be through the production of a publication/report, visual assets (videos and photography) and academic publications to be distributed both physically and digitally amongst all network partners, relevant regional and international policy-makers and wider publics. Equally, it is intended that all network events will be live-streamed, allowing multiple external stakeholders to input at various stages in the process and enhancing the project's ecological and environmental positioning by avoiding unnecessary travel.
Planned Impact
The impact of the Design Innovation and Land-Assets (DI&L) programme beyond academia will be as follows.
1. The key impact of this programme will result from the re-application of the lands-asset decision-making framework by other interested parties from in non-academic sectors, whether in government (e.g., by the Land Commission) or beyond (e.g., specific regional communities). This may occur in the UK or, equally, in other, comparable parts of Europe. The framework's re-applicability/transferability will be a core concern for the network. As such, from the very beginning it will be informed by the insight and expertise of the network's specialists including communities and members of the public who have experience in this context. Its broader applicability/transferability will derive from knowledge exchange in the final Symposium and its evaluation through ongoing inter-organisational communication. In order to ensure impact, the programme has embedded dissemination within its activities-through, for example the final Symposium-and, equally, beyond the activities with plans to address key stakeholders through events such as the Land Commission conferences in 2020 and 2021.
2. Another key area of impact will occur through the identification and specification of the key areas of knowledge and practical skills required to best support community-based decision-making in distributed rural community and peripheral contexts. Insights will be developed through the literature review, the Hebridean workshops and through the subsequent final Symposium. In terms of offering out these insights to wider audiences and publics, it is envisaged that impact will be enabled through the report and website and in collaboration with communities working on land-related projects who seek to reapply it in their own contexts. Tracing such instances and providing support if required will be a priority for the DI&L core team.
3. More immediately, it is expected that the programme will have direct and meaningful impact for the participating Hebridean communities. By working closely with the participants to explore their innovation challenges and introduce participatory and co-design methods and tools. It is envisaged that they will be equipped with the appropriate tools to transform their decision-making practices and possibly, also, their approaches to governance. Again, it will be a priority for the DI&L core team to ensure that guidance and support will be available if it required beyond the immediate timeline of the funded programme.
4. Taking a general view, it also envisaged that the network's non-academic partners' ability to work collaboratively and launch initiatives aimed at tackling challenges in the area of community-based decision-making related to land will be strengthened and enhanced through the immediate network interactions. In order to ensure this occurs, every effort will be made to involve partners in the decision-making process, and, again to ensure that they have access to the wider network, as required.
5. Finally, it is proposed that, once complete, the programme will provide a compelling case demonstrating the value of arts and humanities perspectives in land-asset contexts that will enable creativity. This relates particularly to Design Innovation, the programme's grounding practice, which underpins successful creative engagement and embeds collaborative ways of working through a process of design-led enquiry, and is given form that allows innovation to be communicated, shared and applied in practice with people and communities.
1. The key impact of this programme will result from the re-application of the lands-asset decision-making framework by other interested parties from in non-academic sectors, whether in government (e.g., by the Land Commission) or beyond (e.g., specific regional communities). This may occur in the UK or, equally, in other, comparable parts of Europe. The framework's re-applicability/transferability will be a core concern for the network. As such, from the very beginning it will be informed by the insight and expertise of the network's specialists including communities and members of the public who have experience in this context. Its broader applicability/transferability will derive from knowledge exchange in the final Symposium and its evaluation through ongoing inter-organisational communication. In order to ensure impact, the programme has embedded dissemination within its activities-through, for example the final Symposium-and, equally, beyond the activities with plans to address key stakeholders through events such as the Land Commission conferences in 2020 and 2021.
2. Another key area of impact will occur through the identification and specification of the key areas of knowledge and practical skills required to best support community-based decision-making in distributed rural community and peripheral contexts. Insights will be developed through the literature review, the Hebridean workshops and through the subsequent final Symposium. In terms of offering out these insights to wider audiences and publics, it is envisaged that impact will be enabled through the report and website and in collaboration with communities working on land-related projects who seek to reapply it in their own contexts. Tracing such instances and providing support if required will be a priority for the DI&L core team.
3. More immediately, it is expected that the programme will have direct and meaningful impact for the participating Hebridean communities. By working closely with the participants to explore their innovation challenges and introduce participatory and co-design methods and tools. It is envisaged that they will be equipped with the appropriate tools to transform their decision-making practices and possibly, also, their approaches to governance. Again, it will be a priority for the DI&L core team to ensure that guidance and support will be available if it required beyond the immediate timeline of the funded programme.
4. Taking a general view, it also envisaged that the network's non-academic partners' ability to work collaboratively and launch initiatives aimed at tackling challenges in the area of community-based decision-making related to land will be strengthened and enhanced through the immediate network interactions. In order to ensure this occurs, every effort will be made to involve partners in the decision-making process, and, again to ensure that they have access to the wider network, as required.
5. Finally, it is proposed that, once complete, the programme will provide a compelling case demonstrating the value of arts and humanities perspectives in land-asset contexts that will enable creativity. This relates particularly to Design Innovation, the programme's grounding practice, which underpins successful creative engagement and embeds collaborative ways of working through a process of design-led enquiry, and is given form that allows innovation to be communicated, shared and applied in practice with people and communities.
Description | The DI&L programme focused on the articulation of island communities shared land assets and use in relation to social, cultural, economic factors and associated wellbeing domains. Early impact resides in sharing design-led innovation approaches and co-design methods to equip island communities with the skills to transform their decision-making practices at both local and national scales. Dialogue with communities is critical - whilst community-based organisations may excel in sharing information transparently and ensuring that communities can understand how decisions are made - the emphasis to impact communities or the 'difference made' includes reciprocity, exchange and action for communities to influence policy. In small island communities, transitory spaces within the land can function as more visible and inclusive venues for stimulating, sustaining and extending such influence in democratic decision-making. The DI&L land-asset decision-making framework constitutes not just an original research outcome in its own right, but also a pathway to aggregate pre-existing decision-making frameworks in this area, which are qualitative in nature, for example, Shetland Arts Development Agency's Social Outcomes Framework. |
Exploitation Route | Design-led Innovation approaches |
Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy Creative Economy Environment Culture Heritage Museums and Collections |
Description | The DI&L programme focused on the articulation of island communities shared 'land-assets' and use in relation to social, cultural, economic factors and associated wellbeing domains. Early impact resides in sharing design-led innovation approaches and co-design methods to equip island communities with the skills to transform their decision-making practices at local, regional and national scales. Ongoing dialogue with communities, stakeholders and policy makers is critical to ensure that communities can navigate the complex land decisions system and in doing so contribute to how land and landscape decisions are made that can have positive impact on communities. The DI&L team developed a conceptual Landscape Decision-Making Framework that supports communities to navigate this complex and multilayered system. Recognising that community engagement must be supported by reinforcing connections and collaborations amongst multilevel stakeholders and systems as a means of enabling consistent and accessible guidance and information. The Landscape Decision-Making Framework addresses barriers to resourcing and capacity within decision-making ensuring that informal interaction leads to meaningful participation, and in turn, to actionable change. It highlights and signposts opportunities to bring together networks, knowledge, skills, roles and resources across these geographic and systemic scales that support people and communities to participate in effective landscape decision-making. An important aspect is the integration of this co-created framework with extant frameworks, structures and models. The Landscape Decision-Making Framework functions as a resource to aggregate pre-existing decision-making frameworks, which are qualitative in nature, for example, Shetland Arts Development Agency's Social Outcomes Framework. As such, this work can be positioned as a key reference for practitioners and communities seeking to enact design-led innovation processes that empower communities and engender sustainable change. |
First Year Of Impact | 2022 |
Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Environment,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
Impact Types | Cultural Societal Economic Policy & public services |
Description | Creative Futures - Re-imagining creative education and digital learning in Shetland through collaborative creative practice |
Amount | £75,000 (GBP) |
Funding ID | 2436897 |
Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 08/2020 |
End | 02/2024 |
Description | Design Innovation & Cultural Resonances (Resonance): Place based Collaboration |
Amount | £110,795 (GBP) |
Funding ID | AH/W009080/1 |
Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 01/2022 |
End | 01/2023 |
Description | Design Innovation and Land-Assets: Towards New Thinking & Communities |
Amount | £80,837 (GBP) |
Funding ID | AH/T01234X/1 |
Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 02/2020 |
End | 10/2021 |
Title | A Hybrid Method |
Description | DI&L followed a transdisciplinary approach grounded in the practice of Design-led Innovation. Design-led Innovation can be described as the successful creative engagement with people and communities that promotes collaborative ways of working as the means by which new knowledge is generated, shared and applied in practice. Methodologically, we endeavour to pay attention to: the situated contexts of our work; asset valuing; mutual learning; reflexivity (rigour through self-examination); emergence (of insights, consequences, actions); community empowerment; self-actualisation; building sustainable capacity; and insights for the long term (policy). DI&L developed a hybrid approach blending in-person insights from project partners and practitioners located in island communities with digital and distributed methods, tools and techniques. Hybrid methods enable diverse people and communities to coalesce and to stimulate dialogue within distinct contexts at different scales. Creative and participatory approaches mediate cultural, geographic and technological barriers to engagement towards capturing insights and outcomes that address complex social and cultural challenges pertaining to land-decisions. |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | Hybrid methods that seek to strengthen community resilience at the hyperlocal scale can often lead to immediate impact (Manzini, 2020). Pathways to impact include cultivating a network of sustainable relationships that could evolve into hybrid "communities of place", which contribute to and support communities approaches to land-assets, land use and democratic decision-making. |
Title | Impact-film |
Description | Co-produced contextually located video |
Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | Place-based social and cultural impact |
Description | Shetland Arts Development Agency |
Organisation | Shetland Arts |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | The PI has worked extensively with Shetland Arts Development Agency (SADA) and Graeme Howell, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) over the last eight years. The collaboration with SADA acts as a fulcrum to collaborate with wider stakeholders from: Shetland Community Planning Partnership; The Centre for Island Creativity; The Shetland Island Council; The Shetland Amenity Trust; Shetland Local Authority - Economic Development Department; Highlands & Islands Enterprise; and Creative Scotland. |
Collaborator Contribution | The PI in collaboration with SADA have co-designed approaches to support creative practitioners and the wider cultural economy in Shetland aligned to SADA's Social Outcomes Framework. |
Impact | AHRC Funding AH/W009080/1 |
Start Year | 2020 |
Description | Shetland Arts Development Agency (SADA) |
Organisation | Shetland Arts |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | Resonance foregrounds KE and translational research to connect local communities with design-led innovation relevant to place-based capacity building. The series of co-design workshops will enable the development of place-based collaborations and innovation capability towards embedding wider socio-cultural impacts at a regional scale. |
Collaborator Contribution | Co-design methods and tools. |
Impact | Workshops and Events Impact-films and Screenings Academic Journal Articles |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | Co-Design: Design-led Innovation |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Mapping as Method: three maps of decision-making processes and provocations were co-designed with individuals and groups with experience of facilitating community participation in landscape decision-making from contrasting perspectives, for example, private landowners with sustainability targets and community trust development representatives. Each map functions at a separate scale - and combine to form a multi-level Land-Assets Decision-Making Framework: (1) the land-assets decision-making in Scotland Map, which outlines the policy, legislation, organisations, mechanisms and tools that influence land decision-making across Scotland. This map provides a national system-wide view of all the roles and stakeholders involved within land decision-making; (2) the local and-assets decision-making Influence Map, which can be used by communities to map assets within their landscape, relevant stakeholders and the influences they have over land and asset decision-making. This map takes a pragmatic and contextually situated approach to mapping both tangible and intangible assets in a specific locality with a focus on directions and scales of influence; (3) the local land-assets decision-making Mapping Tool, which can provide communities with prompts to build an equitable and participatory land and asset decision-making model, bespoke to their area and community needs. This map takes a conceptual approach and prompts community groups to consider the key thematic requirements of equitable community land decisions. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020,2021 |
Description | Stravaig |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Stravaig - July 2021 - DI&L engaged with people, practitioners and community-led organisations in the Highlands & Islands of Scotland, specifically the Western and Northern Isles to explore individual and collective relationships to land, opportunities for hyper-local decision-making and the priorities needed to support communities at local, regional, and national levels. The Summer Stravaig - a two-week immersive digital and distributed symposia and showcase - allowed for extensive creative engagement with communities and stakeholders including those involved in design, policy, environmental ecology and heritage. DI&L Project Partners Prof. Frank Rennie, Chris Fremantle and Dr Katherine Champion chaired sessions on land in Scotland, land-use and cultural assets, whilst Dr Saoirse Higgins and Graeme Howell, Shetland Arts Development Agency contributed insights into the 'lived experience' of island communities. Further presenters included Carey Doyle of Community Land Scotland, Finlay MacLennan from Community Land Outer Hebrides and Morven Gibson from the Southwest Mull and Iona Development Trust. International contributors extended to: James Oliver the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) Australia; Dr. Nicola St John and Dr. Yoko Akama (RMIT); Professor Davide Fassi and Professor Ezio Manzini Politecnico Milan, Italy; and Liesbeth Huybrechts Hassalt University, Belgium. The Stravaig traced themes of: Land in Scotland; Cultural Assets; Dialogue; Policy & Governance; Design for Reimagining Communities; Hope & the Future; and Frameworks for Decision Making; concluding with a final Plenary. The Stravaig created opportunities for a distributed network of communities, activists, practitioners, researchers, Post Graduate Research students, stakeholders and policymakers to exchange "lived experiences" of landscape, participation and practice to generate insights, approaches, and collectives towards "reimagining communities". The Stravaig advanced multi-disciplinary discourses through exploring diverse heritage and cultural values within island archipelagos in the Highlands & Islands of Scotland and the role design innovation plays in enhancing decision-making in relation to landscape, land-use and land assets. This presented a timely opportunity to explore how notions of democracy, governance, ownership and empowerment are understood in relation to land in Scotland; how these can be integrated into advancing "political agency"; how communities become aware of the opportunities policy affords; and how policy can be enacted to benefit communities, such as, the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 and other supporting land reform policies. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |