Sustainability Studies Seminar Series

UHI Sustainability Research Network Seminar Series

The UHI sustainability research seminar series for the 2011-2012 academic year has now ended. Below you can find links to all the talks held over the past year (links to posters, slides and video-conference recordings of all presentations). It is planned to resume the seminar series in the next academic session, 2012-2013. 

All members of the UHI sustainability network are asked to contribute towards a seminar once every two years and everyone is encouraged to attend, whether active researchers, PhD students or other students/staff with an interest. Occasionally, the sessions may be used for general discussion about particular research topics e.g. collaboration, methodological challenges etc..

If you have any suggestions for discussion topics, would like to give a seminar, or have any general questions, please contact Jayne.glass@perth.uhi.ac.uk (series co-ordinator), or Eddie Graham edward.graham@lews.uhi.ac.uk (web organiser). Seminars are usually held by video-conference every Friday (13h00-14h00) during semester time (please book your VC connection through your local contact, see list at bottom of page).

Full Seminar Programme, Semester 2, 2011-2012 (pdf)

• Friday 27th April 2012, 1-2pm

Dr Michael Smith, Lews Castle College, University of the Highlands and Islands

"Delivering Sustainability through widening educational opportunities: The quality factors that influence the online learning experience"

Online education requires a radical new approach to the conventional content-driven traditional teaching methods. It is a new and emerging profession building on the well established distance learning techniques of the past. It is an area of sustained growth in the education sector. For example HE Course Growth per annum was estimated to be 19% p.a. in US (2009) Vs 1.5% for traditional courses. This significant annual growth in online courses, 35.6% per annum worldwide (Sun, 2008), is in direct response to a range of increasing competitive and structural advantages of this form of education in the 21st century information society. 

Yet online education is not a quick fix, is not a cheap means to deliver education and is not less time consuming for staff. A quality online education experience can only be delivered through highly trained and highly motivated staff whose time dedicated to non-teaching elements of online education is recognised by their institution. Attracting and subsequently retaining students is of key importance. A social constructivist approach should arguably be the goal for the successful online educator seeking to deliver a quality product which retains high numbers of students to completion. This seminar will seek to shed some light on the activities and approaches required for staff involved in online education to deliver a quality online product.

Poster advertisement

Powerpoint slides

Video Conference recording (Enter ID: 030220133)  

• Friday 20th April 2012, 1-2pm

Dr Eddy Graham, Lecturer, University of the Highlands and Islands

The quality of astronomical viewing depends on a large number of meteorological variables, among them principally being cloud cover, the amount of atmospheric water vapour and the degree of atmospheric turbulence. The last of these (turbulence) - which contributes to the shimmering or "twinkling" effect of stellar images - is perhaps the most important, but it is also the most difficult to predict and quantify.

Currently 70% of the world's largest and most powerful telescopes are to be found in the Atacama desert of northern Chile. At the European Southern Observatory's Paranal observatory site, the frequency of optimal viewing conditions has decreased significantly since the commencement of operations in 1998, coincident with an increase in surface turbulence brought about by more prevalent north-easterly winds. It will be shown during this seminar that the decrease in viewing conditions can be traced to a Pacific-wide shift in climate conditions over the same time period.

Poster advertisement

Powerpoint slides

Video Conference recording (Enter ID: 030220132)  

• Friday 30th March 2012, 1-2pm

Dr Malcolm Murray, Product Manager at GreenspaceLive Ltd (Lews Castle College, University of the Highlands and Islands)

"Semantic Energy - How the Web can help manage Sustainable Energy Information"

Information technology plays an increasingly important part in representing, managing, and driving the field of sustainable energy. Building Information Modelling (BIM) is one example of this, and has been gaining serious traction in the building industry. However, while a lot is happening in this area – it tends to be done on a singular basis where information sets do not always connect, leading to problems of information management and limiting the usefulness of the data. A solution to managing this data is to build on Web technology! 

This seminar will give a brief overview of how Web based technology can be, and is being, used to connect energy focused information at international, national, and building levels, and the potential impacts of this. The seminar will also highlight some of the research, and commercialisation work, taking place within the UHI, and spin-off company GreenspaceLive, in developing Web based solutions for managing energy based information.

Poster advertisement

Video Conference recording (Enter ID: 030220131) 

• Friday 23rd March 2012, 1-2pm

Dr Andrew Copus, Senior Research Fellow (University of the Highlands and Islands and Nordregio)

"Urban-Rural Cooperation and Linkages: A Tool for Rural Development?"

This presentation explores the rationale for policy approaches which aim to stimulate growth in rural areas by strengthening urban-rural cooperation and linkages. It argues that since growth pole theory was discredited in the 1980s there has been a tendency for European spatial planning and regional development policy documents to advocate a range of concepts, such as ‘city regions’ and ‘urban-rural partnerships’ without fully developing the underpinning ‘intervention logic’. Cities are increasingly described as ‘the engines of growth’, and rural spill-over benefits assumed to follow, as if by a natural law, for which no evidence is considered necessary. In the absence of an explicit rationale there is a risk that implementation of policy to support urban-rural linkages will tacitly draw on anachronistic stereotypes, rather than acknowledging the twenty-first century realities of a globalised rural economy and society.

This presentation outlines a way in which this ‘theory deficit’ may be addressed, and then brings the argument closer to home by considering the rationale behind the recently published Scottish Government policy document “Scotland’s Cities; Delivering for Scotland”. A number of questions for discussion arise:

• Are cities THE drivers of growth, to which rural areas must look as a source of economic activity, innovation, etc?

• Cooperation assumes common interests/goals, together with contributions from and benefits to all partners – is this the common perception in relation to urban and rural areas in Scotland? Are there any aspects of the ‘rural’ side of the deal which should receive greater emphasis?

• Are there any dangers to rural areas from the urban-centric view of regional economic development?

• To what extent is rural development policy missing the point by concentrating on ‘rural’ (i.e. land based) industries, rather than the opportunities emanating from nearby cities?

• Who or what should be involved in the ‘cooperation’ – councils? planning authorities? HIE? Private Sector? How can this process be managed for the benefit of rural areas?

• Is globalisation taking us in the direction of strong U-R linkages/cooperation, or weaker. Is the ‘City Region’ a forward looking approach or will it look increasingly anachronistic as the years pass?

Poster advertisement

Published paper on same theme

• Friday 16th March 2012, 1-2pm

Amy Nimegeer, Research Fellow, Centre for Rural Health, University of the Highlands and Islands

"Facilitating Engagement with Hospital Grounds Greenspace: Design, Development and Management for Health and Wellbeing"

The use of greenspace has been shown to have significant health benefits and also has the potential to enhance the health benefits of various therapies.  At present, NHS Scotland owns several greenspace sites adjacent to clinical facilities such as hospitals. These greenspaces have the potential to positively impact on the health of patients, staff and the wider community. This seminar will describe a current Centre for Rural Health project that uses participatory action research and participatory mapping techniques to engage different groups in the design, development, use and management of hospital-adjacent greenspace in an effort to harness  (and evaluate) its wellbeing potential.  The seminar will discuss findings from the literature review and two Highland case studies as well as from the mapping and engagement workshops.

Poster advertisement
Video Conference recording (Enter ID: 030220129) 

• Friday 9th March 2012, 1-2pm

Tim Braunholtz-Speight, Centre for Remote and Rural Studies, Inverness, University of the Highlands and Islands

"Community, power and land reform in the Highlands and Islands"

"Sleat is not a community. I don't mean it's broken down - it never was one community - there are lots of them" (Sleat resident, June 2011).

Community land ownership has moved from a few pioneering examples in the 1990s (e.g. Assynt, Eigg) to an established part of the rural development picture in the Highlands and Islands. It is widely heralded as "community empowerment" by governments and think-tanks. My research involves understanding what community empowerment might mean, and what it looks like in practice, in the work of two community land initiatives. In this seminar, I will explore some of the implications of the "community" side of community empowerment. Themes emerging from my ongoing research in the Sleat peninsula of Skye include: multiple understandings of geographical communities; community and collective identity; community development vs developing a sense of community; and the complexities of micro-level democracy.

Video Conference recording (Enter ID: 030220128) 

Powerpoint slides

• Friday 2nd March 2012, 1-2pm

Esther Renwick, Shetland College, University of the Highlands and Islands

"The Roman Wall Blues: Issues of authenticity and sustainability on Hadrian's Wall"

“Over the heather the wet wind blows,
I've lice in my tunic and a cold in my nose.

The rain comes pattering out of the sky,
I'm a Wall soldier, I don't know why.” 

(From “The Roman Wall Blues” WH Auden)

Over the last few years archaeology has seen the rise of various theoretical perspectives with their roots in phenomenology; focussing on human experience in the past. The tourist literature relating to Housesteads Roman Fort also refers to “experience”, “imagination” and “life as a Roman soldier”. Yet interviews and observations reveal that while visitors gain a fair understanding of the basic site plan they are struggling to visualise the remains as three dimensional buildings and, despite the on-site information being technically correct, they leave still carrying with them largely erroneous stereotypes of life in a Roman fort. This seminar presents on-going PhD research into the potential of a closer relationship between theoretical archaeology and heritage management and interpretation in order to create a more authentic, engaging, and therefore sustainable visitor experience. 

Video Conference recording (Enter IDs [recording in two parts]: 030220126 & 030220127) 

• Friday 24th February 2012, 1-2pm

Prof Martin Price, Centre for Mountain Studies Perth, University of the Highlands and Islands

"Characterising European Mountain Areas"

This seminar will present work completed recently for the European Environment Agency, but also refers to previous work for the European Commission.  The first step was to define where Europe's mountains are; a complex process with both political and scientific aspects.  Subsequently, the presentation will discuss various characteristics of these mountains in terms of demography, employment, economies, access, climate change, water, landscapes, biodiversity, and protected areas, with particular emphasis on the challenges and implications of obtaining datasets at the European scale.

Video Conference recording (Enter ID: 030220125)

• Friday 17th February 2012, 1-2pm

Diana Borowski, Centre for Mountain Studies Perth, University of the Highlands and Islands

"Territorial diversity in Europe: comparing mountains, islands, coasts, borders and sparsely populated areas"

The GEOSPECS project analyses the situation of mountain areas, islands, sparsely populated areas, coasts, border regions, Outermost Regions and Inner Peripheries in Europe. Questions arising are: What makes these “geographically specific” areas different from the rest of Europe? Do they share common features? How can these areas best make use of their assets, and how can they overcome their inherent challenges? Do these areas deserve a particular policy at European level? Considering the high diversity among these areas, does it make sense to squeeze them into the same framework? The project is financed by ESPON and carried out between 2010 and 2012 by a consortium of 10 European partners. The presentation will use the Highlands and Islands of Scotland as an example of an area where several “geographic specificities” overlap - and what this means for the people who live there.

Powerpoint slides

Video Conference recording (Enter ID: 030220124)

• Friday 3rd February 2012, 1-2pm

Dr Sarah-Anne Munoz, Centre for Rural Health, University of the Highlands and Islands

"The production and experience of wellbeing in rural social enterprise: an Australian pilot study"

 Sarah-Anne will present the findings from a pilot project that she carried out from August to October 2011 as a visiting fellow with the La Trobe Rural Health School in Australia. The pilot tested a spatial methodology for understanding and representing the wellbeing benefits of rural social enterprise. A 'community shed' was selected as the pilot case study. Sarah-Anne tested the application of the 'spaces of wellbeing' theory from Health Geography to understanding the generation of wellbeing at the case study site. Data collection involved ethnography, focus groups and walking interviews. Analysis involved qualitative GIS. The pilot provided interesting results on the relationships between social enterprise, physical spaces, sense of place and wellbeing. It also suggested further avenues for the use of mobile data collection and qualitative GIS.

Abstract (pdf)

Powerpoint slides (pdf) 

Video conference recording (UHI only, enter ID "030220121")

• Friday 9^th December 2011 (Studio 3, Room 116, Perth College)

Dr Rob Mc Morran, Centre for Mountain Studies, Perth College

Taking wild land and re-wilding seriously in a Scottish context - An overview of recent and ongoing research and policy development.

Concepts of wild land have recreational, ecological and cultural dimensions, and place varying emphasis on physical landscape attributes and the perceptions of users. In Scotland, the term 'wild land' is commonly used to describe large areas of remote, often mountainous country, where the perceived influence of humans is limited. The topic of wild land (and wildness generally) has received considerable attention in Scotland in recent years, from both a research and policy perspective. This has included research carried out at the Wild Land Research Institute at Leeds University in collaboration with the Centre for Mountain Studies at Perth College-UHI.

This seminar will provide an overview of a number of research projects, drawing on research findings to explore the conceptual basis for wild land in Scotland, to define how wildness varies across Scotland, and to explore potential mechanisms for delineating defined core wild land areas. The implications of this research for policy will be discussed and the relationship between wild land and other emergent parallel concepts, such as re-wilding, will be explored.

Powerpoint slides (pdf)

• Friday 2^nd December 2011 (Room E117, Midmills Campus, Inverness College)

Hilda Zara, PhD student, Centre for Remote and Rural Studies, Inverness

Human-environment relationships in the context of intense rainfall: The case of a community at the periphery of the metropolitan area of Caracas-Venezuela

Extreme weather events such as heavy precipitation and droughts are increasing in frequency and intensity worldwide (World Meteorological Organization, 2010). As a result, people around the world are being and will be affected by the loss of homes, water scarcity, food insecurity and the incidence of diseases, among others (Richardson et al., 2009). In Latin America, the increased intensity and frequency of such events adds to the complex social issues facing the continent’s most vulnerable populations, exacerbating problems of provision of basic services, pollution, poverty and unemployment (Garibaldi & Rey Santos, 2006; Hardoy & Pandiella, 2010; Magrin et al., 2007). In the case of Venezuela, heavy rains that have recently hit the country have highlighted the complexity of the underlying social vulnerabilities to these climatic events. In this seminar Hilda will be presenting some of the preliminary findings of her PhD research, a qualitative case study that aims to study human-environment relationships in a community located at the periphery of the Metropolitan area of Caracas, Venezuela’s capital city. From a psychosocial perspective; it is suggested that human-environment relationships in the context of intense rainfall can be better understood through an exploration of:

a) the social impacts of intense rainfall in that particular place;

b) people's understandings of the local environment in the light of their experiences of intense rainfall;

c) the particular socio-economic issues of the place that are shaping the relationships between people and the local environment and, finally

d) people’s understandings of community and their own ability to influence community decision making towards the local environment.

Powerpoint slides: http://prezi.com/s2hjb5kf7vf4/sustainability-studies-seminar-2nd-december/  

Video-conference recording: http://194.35.216.131/streaming.html (enter the recording ID "02122011" and press "stream this recording" to view).

• Friday 25^th November 2011 (Studio 3, Room 116, Perth College)

Dr Jayne Glass, Centre for Mountain Studies, Perth College

Doing things differently: re-evaluating our role in participatory research

The seminar will explore how we, as researchers, can create more effective 'spaces' for the co-production of knowledge. Using a conceptual framework developed for her PhD, Jayne will identify the potential to refine our participatory research methods in order to: increase transdisciplinary capacity; facilitate knowledge integration, and enhance the potential for social learning during the process. There will be a practical focus on how Jayne used the framework to adapt and apply the Delphi technique with a mixed group of upland stakeholders to develop a sustainability workbook for upland estates in Scotland. The process involved four deliberative stages, which took place over 18 months (an 88% response rate was achieved over the process). Jayne will reflect on her role as an ‘intermediary’ in the process and explore the implications of actively facilitating a creative, iterative research process which allowed participants to move beyond conceptual discussion and potential conflicts, in order to develop mutually endorsed and applied outputs.

Powerpoint slides:http://www.slideshare.net/SustainabilityStudiesUHI/doing-things-differently-reevaluating-our-role-in-participatory-research

Video-conference recording: http://194.35.216.131/streaming.html (enter the recording ID "25112011" and press "stream this recording" to view).

• Friday 18^th November 2011, 1-2pm (VC Suite 2, Scottish Marine Institute)

DrBrankaValcic, Scottish Marine Institute

Outlook of Trends and Scenarios for the South China Sea

We develop a systems view of the South China Sea region through the use of a drivers-pressures-state-welfare-response (DPSWR) framework. Particularly we focus on underlying and immediate drivers that lead to overexploitation (fisheries and aquaculture), pollution of the sea, and marine and coastal habitat destruction (pressures). We further investigate trends in these underlying and immediate drivers, pressures, as well as in the following marine features: marine biodiversity, trophic structure, fish stocks, coral reefs, mangroves, seagrasses, and water quality. Finally, we use expert opinion to scale down the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment scenarios, Global Orchestration, Order from Strength, Adapting Mosaic, and TechnoGarden, to the South China Sea region.

Funded by World Bank/GEF

Co-authors: Potts, T., O'Higgins, T. and E. Hastings

If you would like to attend any of these seminars, please contact your local representative to arrange a VC link to the seminar:

Scottish Marine Institute - BrankaValcic (branka.valcic@sams.ac.uk)

Lews Castle College - Frank Rennie (frank.rennie@lews.uhi.ac.uk)

Centre for Remote and Rural Studies - Hilda Zara (hildazara@gmail.com)

Orkney College - Ingrid Mainland (ingrid.mainland@orkney.uhi.ac.uk)

Centre for Rural Health - Kate Stephen (kate.stephen@uhi.ac.uk)

Shetland College - Simon Clarke (simon.clarke@shetland.uhi.ac.uk)

West Highland College - Steve Taylor (steve.taylor@whc.uhi.ac.uk)

Moray College - Sue Engstrand (sue.engstrand@moray.uhi.ac.uk)

Perth College - Jayne Glass (jayne.glass@perth.uhi.ac.uk)

Inverness College - Mick Parry (michael.parry@inverness.uhi.ac.uk)

Alternatively, you can dial-in direct to any of the video-conference seminars by dialing VC ID: 53324. The room numbers where the seminars will be available at each partner college are as follows:

Orkney College - Room OC-S6 G3.06

Perth College - Room 116, Brahan Building

Moray College - Room C117

Lews Castle College - Room C210

SAMS - Suite S7, AP Orr Annex