2023 Robert Talbot Civil Rights Speaker Series

Promotional email for Maine\u27s Path to Inclusion and Equity: Navigating the Challenges and Opportunities Ahead. The 2023 Robert Talbot Civil Rights Speaker is Rachel Talbot Ross, a highly respected, Maine-based Civil Rights advocate and leader. Talbot Ross is the first Black woman to serve in the Maine Legislature, and has been the Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives since December 2022, making her the highest ranking African-American politician in Maine history

The Robert Talbot Civil Rights Speaker Series Flyer_2021

Flyer for the inauguration of The Robert Talbot Civil Rights Speaker Series featuring Fighting Times coauthors Amy Banks and Isaac Knapper

Public administration and a just Wales

Administrative justice concerns how government and public bodies treat people, the correctness of their decisions, the fairness of their procedures, and the opportunities people have to question and challenge decisions made about them. Our research has used a mixture of methods, including desk-based research identifying, collating and examining law and guidance applicable to Wales, alongside policy documents, previous research reports and statistical data. A central conclusion of our research is that public administration in Wales is seen as concerned with sustainability, well-being, equality and human rights, but less often as involving justice for individuals in their relationships with the state

Public administration and a just Wales

Administrative justice concerns how government and public bodies treat people, the correctness of their decisions, the fairness of their procedures, and the opportunities people have to question and challenge decisions made about them. Our research has used a mixture of methods, including desk-based research identifying, collating and examining law and guidance applicable to Wales, alongside policy documents, previous research reports and statistical data. A central conclusion of our research is that public administration in Wales is seen as concerned with sustainability, well-being, equality and human rights, but less often as involving justice for individuals in their relationships with the state

Qualitative Impact Assessment of Land Management Interventions on Ecosystem Services (“QEIA”). Report-1: Executive Summary: QEIA Evidence Review & Integrated Assessment

The focus of this project was to provide an expert-led, rapid qualitative assessment of land management interventions on Ecosystem Services (ES) proposed for inclusion in Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes. This involved a review of the current evidence base for 741 land management actions on 33 Ecosystem Services and 53 Ecosystem Service indicators by ten teams involving 45 experts drawn from the independent research community in a consistent series of Evidence Reviews covering the broad topics of: • Air quality • Greenhouse gas emissions • Soils • Water management • Biodiversity: croplands • Biodiversity: improved grassland • Biodiversity: semi-natural habitats • Biodiversity: integrated systems-based actions • Carbon sequestration • Cultural services (including recreation, geodiversity and regulatory services). It should be noted that this piece of work is just one element of the wider underpinning work Defra has commissioned to support the development of the ELM schemes

Qualitative impact assessment of land management interventions on Ecosystem Services (‘QEIA’). Report-2: Integrated Assessment

The focus of this project was to provide an expert-led, rapid qualitative assessment of land management interventions on Ecosystem Services (ES) proposed for inclusion in Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes. This involved a review of the current evidence base for 741 land management actions on 33 Ecosystem Services and 53 Ecosystem Service indicators by ten expert teams drawn from the independent research community in a consistent series of ten Evidence Reviews covering the broad topics of; • Air quality • Greenhouse gas emissions • Soils • Water management • Biodiversity: croplands • Biodiversity: improved grassland • Biodiversity: semi-natural habitats • Biodiversity: integrated systems-based actions • Carbon sequestration • Cultural services (including recreation, geodiversity and regulatory services) These reviews were undertaken rapidly at Defra’s request by ten teams involving 45 experts who together captured more than 2,400 individual sources of evidence. This was followed by the Integrated Assessment (IA) reported here to provide a more accessible summary of these evidence reviews with a focus on capturing the actions with the greatest potential magnitude of change for the intended ES, and their potential co-benefits and trade-offs for the other ES

UK Attitudes Towards Personal Data Stores and Control Over Personal Data, 2021

(1) To ascertain how the British public (adults) feel about personal data storage apps and services, and how in control over their personal data they feel, we conducted a UK-wide demographically representative national survey (implemented by survey company, ICM Unlimited, across 15-18 January 2021, 2,065 respondents, online omnibus). (2) To qualitatively assess UK adults' views on control over personal data, and perceptions of personal data storage apps and services, six two-hour focus groups (35 participants) were conducted in February 2021, split according to age (18-34 year olds in Groups A, D and E, and 65+ in Groups B, C and F). (3) To ascertain how the British public (adults) feel about being paid for supplying their biometric and emotion personal data in a controlled fashion via personal data storage apps and services, we conducted a UK-wide demographically representative national survey (implemented by survey company, Walnut Unlimited, across 29 Sep – 1 Oct 2021, 2,070 respondents, online omnibus).Research from academia, industry and regulators finds that most citizens care about their privacy and want greater control over their personal data. However, even the digital cognoscenti struggle to understand how personal data is collected, used and recirculated. Data literacy approaches therefore do not solve the issue of privacy exploitation. The utility of legal approaches is also questionable as European General Data Protection Directive consent processes are problematic. In addition to rights frameworks and regulation, new solutions are needed. As part of a privacy toolkit, privacy-by-design may help to achieve greater data privacy by embedding privacy considerations into systems that process personal data. Funded by Innovate UK Smart Grants (TS/T019964/1, File reference: 106283) in collaboration with project partner, Cufflink, this project’s central research question is: What empirically generated ethical factors do citizen-level personal data storage services such as Cufflink need to build in their app to empower users to manage their own personal information? Citizen-level personal data storage services seek to empower users to manage and control their own personal information when linking this to other individuals and organisations. Our project partner, Cufflink is developing a personal data storage app that, uniquely does not require users to prove their identity, and that has a clear, iconography-driven explanation of terms and conditions. However, we do not yet understand the ethical principles by which these apps work, whether their revenue models raise other ethical and privacy externalities, and whether their design adequately reflects citizen concerns with control over their data. If they are a privacy solution that helps structure interaction between citizens and businesses, what features are needed to ensure that everyday citizens, and not just the digital cognoscenti, use it? To answer these questions, we have collaborated with Cufflink to understand the perceptual, behavioural and ethical contexts in which their product will be used. We have studied the affordances of early iterations of Cufflink’s app and key established competitor apps, and we undertook scoping interviews with relevant governance actors to discuss issues raised by citizen-level personal data storage apps. We conducted 2 demographically representative national surveys: survey 1 establishes UK-level attitudes towards the level of control that people feel they have over personal data, and towards personal data stores; survey 2 establishes UK-level attitudes towards being paid for supplying their biometric and emotion personal data in a controlled fashion via personal data storage apps. We conducted online focus groups of lay users’ comprehension of personal data and privacy provided by personal data stores. We fed our analysis into Cufflink’s product design, thereby improving the product, and we developed an Ethical Impact Assessment toolkit to evaluate all apps that are based on citizen-level personal data storage principles.</p