Design Innovation and Land-Assets (DI&L)

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.

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.