What does community resilience look like in practice? How institutions see the role of communities in responding to heatwaves in the UK

The concept of resilience is well-established in policy, as well as popular and professional discourse. The notion of community resilience, though, is relatively new, and has only recently been taken up in policy (Cabinet Office 2011b; Defra 2012; 2013). Twigger-Ross et al (2011) define community resilience as an ongoing process of communities working with local resources – alongside local expertise – to help themselves and others to prepare for, respond to, and recover from emergencies. However, when regional and national policy documents mention community and voluntary groups – and local residents – the roles of these actors in developing and implementing resilience are not clearly explained. The documents tend to focus on infrastructure development and institutional emergency responses (Greater London Authority 2011; Defra 2013; UK Government 2013; Public Health England 2014b). In this context, community resilience seems to be something that is bestowed on passive communities by active local institutions; all of the local agency of Twigger-Ross’s definition is lost or missing. The challenge that policymakers face in trying to define the roles of communities in resilience raises various problems. Research and practice in a range of domains (and over a long period) highlights the limits of institutional responses, and emphasises that community-led action and other forms of public participation and engagement can effectively complement institutional responses (Arnstein 1969; INVOLVE 2005; Twigger Ross et al 2011; Cinderby et al 2014; DECC 2014). An active community with local agency could play a key role in preparing for, responding to and recovering from emergencies

A ‘work in progress’?: UK researchers and participation in public engagement

The funders of UK research seek to embed public engagement by researchers within the culture of UK research. Within this context, this paper provides a snapshot of the UK public engagement landscape by reporting on new quantitative research that examines the experiences and perspectives of UK researchers (n = 2,454) and public engagement support staff (n = 260). The research suggests that ambitions to embed public engagement by researchers within institutional cultures can be understood as a 'work in progress'. There are indications that public engagement is part of the UK research landscape. At the same time, the research suggests that researchers' public engagement efforts are currently constrained; there is evidence of a disconnect between researchers themselves and broader institutional contexts of public engagement, and the sector is overwhelmingly driven by funding and rewards for research, teaching and other activities. In conclusion, these results indicate that, while current strategies have been helpful, longer term effort is required, perhaps targeting particular domains and, more fundamentally, perhaps featuring greater support and reward for public engagement

What is energy know-how and how can it be shared and acquired by householders?

Our aim in this short paper is to contribute to conceptual, practical and policy discussions about the role of householder knowledge in the context of policy ambitions to reduce domestic energy consumption. More specifically, we are interested in the characteristics of this knowledge, the ways in which householders acquire such knowledge, and the kinds of activities and policies that might support this. Within this context, literacy approaches emphasise factual knowledge, cognitive reasoning, and ideal attitudes and behaviours; within this mainstream approach, education and communications are key policy recommendations. In contrast, know-how approaches are critical of literacy approaches and emphasise practical skills, experience and guidance. Key policy recommendations focus on tailored guidance delivered through activities such as demonstration homes and home audits. Smart Communities was a community action and action research project on energy demand reduction. The activities in the project drew on both literacy and know-how approaches, and the research methods focussed on in-depth interviews, a survey and informal interactions with project participants and partners. The project strongly supports the ideas that are expressed in the know-how literature, but also highlights the practical challenge of scaling-up activities such as home visits. Meanwhile, approaches that drew on literacy approaches produced less change, but were easier to implement at scale. In our discussion, we raise the need for know-how approaches to be more adequately supported in policy, and the need to investigate and experiment with novel approaches that would allow these activities to be scaled-up. In support of these objectives, we present a concise expression of the concept of energy know-how. In addition, we suggest that the know-how literature is perhaps overly critical of the literacy approach, and we discuss some ways in which literacy approaches can be more effective

Survival of fossils under extreme shocks induced by hypervelocity impacts

Experimental data are shown for survival of fossilized diatoms undergoing shocks in the GPa range. The results were obtained from hypervelocity impact experiments which fired fossilized diatoms frozen in ice into water targets. After the shots, the material recovered from the target water was inspected for diatom fossils. Nine shots were carried out, at speeds from 0.388 to 5.34?km?s?1, corresponding to mean peak pressures of 0.2–19?GPa. In all cases, fragmented fossilized diatoms were recovered, but both the mean and the maximum fragment size decreased with increasing impact speed and hence peak pressure. Examples of intact diatoms were found after the impacts, even in some of the higher speed shots, but their frequency and size decreased significantly at the higher speeds. This is the first demonstration that fossils can survive and be transferred from projectile to target in hypervelocity impacts, implying that it is possible that, as suggested by other authors, terrestrial rocks ejected from the Earth by giant impacts from space, and which then strike the Moon, may successfully transfer terrestrial fossils to the Moon

‘Younger People Have Like More of an Imagination, No Offence’: Participant Perspectives on Public Engagement

© 2012, Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. A wide range of work has reported on the outcomes of public engagement activities and the views expressed by public participants towards specific areas of science and technology. Such work has rarely gone on to explore with public participants their attitudes to the engagement experienced itself, often focusing instead on more practical or quantifiable aspects. This article draws on public participants’ reactions to 11 ‘engagement’ events, occurring across the UK in 2007–2008. Reporting on 33 semi-structured interviews, we focus on their views of participation and engagement in terms of motivations, expectations and expertise. The results suggest that participants have considerable expectations in terms of information and interaction, operate with critical but respectful notions of other ‘publics’ and expertise, and may develop habitual tendencies regarding engagement

Human development and decent Work: Why some concepts succeed and others fail to make an impact

This paper examines the impact of the International Labour Office’s (ILO) concept of Decent Work on development thinking and the associated literature. We attempt to answer the question of what makes a development initiative successful by comparing the decent work approach to the United Nation Development Program's (UNDP) human development concept (in conjunction with the human development indicator). We consider that the latter has been one of the most successful development concepts ever to have been launched, while the impact of decent work by comparison has been limited. Our hypothesis relating to the question of what makes a development initiative successful has three fundamental components: first, a solid theoretical foundation has to justify the launch of a development concept. A second vital factor is the availability of sufficient national and internationally comparable data that enables researchers and policymakers alike to apply the concept, preferably by means of a synthetic indicator. Third, the political will and institutional structure of the development institution that launches a concept is a key factor, particularly if data availability is limited as countries then have to be persuaded to generate new data.The authors would like to thank the Cambridge Humanities Research Grants Scheme, the European Union (FP7 project ‘Nopoor’), and the Conicyt/Fondap Proyect number 15130009 for partial funding provided for this paper.This is the accepted manuscript. It's currently embargoed pending publication by Wiley. The final version is available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dech.12149/abstrac