SIM Wales: skills for innovation in manufacturing

The SIM Wales project was delivered by Swansea University in partnership with the Engineering Employers Forum (EEF) and Industry Wales. It was developed through consultation with a small group of manufacturers around their current challenges with implementing and managing innovation in their organisations. The project focused primarily on developing the broader organisational innovation knowledge of senior managers in ten participating manufacturers based in Wales. The project also aimed to develop the leadership and change management skills of the participants

The Living Murray NSW Market Purchase Measure: A survey of participants in permanent water trading for the environment

The Living Murray Initiative was established to recover 500 Gigalitres in average annual flows to address the declining environmental health of the Murray-Darling river system. The NSW Market Purchase Measure was initiated by the New South Wales Government as part of The Living Murray Initiative with the aim of purchasing up to 125 Gigalitres of high and medium reliability entitlements within the NSW southern connected part of the Murray-Darling Basin. The commencement of this measure provided an opportunity to survey participants in permanent water trading for an environmental outcome to determine general land use and socio-economic information as well as specific information regarding their current water use, future intentions and their opinion of the implementation of the water purchase process. The results of the survey will also assist in understanding the nature of the participants in this process relative to the broader irrigator/regional population. Importantly, the survey outcomes will help to improve understanding of participant circumstances and provide important lessons for future water purchase programs.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

An Empirical Study on Public Sector versus Third Sector Circular Economy-Oriented Innovations

Extensive research has explored organisational dynamics across various sectors in relation to circular economy (CE) innovation practices. However, a critical gap exists in understanding CE innovation activities in the public sector versus the third sector. This distinction is crucial as the third sector’s role in CE innovation is growing, necessitating tailored policies instead of homogenous integration into public sector-based approaches. We address this gap by focusing on nuanced comparisons between the public and third sectors, delving into the motivations and constraints surrounding CE innovations across these different sectors. Employing an exploratory sequential design, we integrate qualitative insights from 12 interviews with quantitative measures derived from 153 survey responses within CE innovation communities. The findings reveal subtle yet significant disparities in innovation activities between the public and third sectors within a CE innovation community. Notably, cost factor differences related to the availability of finance and knowledge factors associated with the lack of information on technology emerge. This research contributes evidence-based insights, offering practitioners and policymakers a nuanced understanding of the motivations and constraints of circular economy innovation. These findings can be instrumental in steering the transition towards a more sustainable and circular economy, emphasising the need for tailored strategies rather than a one-size-fits-all approach

From Leadership to Growth

The report summarises the history of and the lessons learnt during the LEAD Wales and Leading Growth leadership development programmes

Free-classification of American dialects in three conditions: natural, monotonized, and low-pass filtered speech

The dialects of American English have distinct features: these features include vowel shifts – the Northern Cities Chain Shift and the Southern Chain Shift (Labov, Ash, & Boberg 2006; Clopper, Pisoni, & deJong 2005) -- and prosodic variation, including intonation and rhythm (Clopper & Smiljanic 2011, 2015). In the current study, I ran three conditions to test which prosodic cues listeners were using when classifying talkers by regional dialect. American English has six distinct dialects: Northern, Southern, Midland, Mid-Atlantic, Western, and New-England (Labov, Ash, & Boberg 2006). Participants listened to 60 talkers, 10 from each of the six regional American English dialects, and were asked to sort the talkers into groups by dialect using free-classification. All of the talkers read the same sentence, which was manipulated in two of the three conditions. The first condition left the talkers’ voices natural and un-manipulated. The second condition monotonized all of the talkers’ voices. The third condition ran all of the talkers’ voices through a low-pass filter, which removed everything above 400 Hz. Results indicated that all participants, regardless of condition, made about 9 groups of talkers on average. Results also revealed effects of condition and talker dialect on accuracy. For the condition accuracy, the monotonized condition had the most accurate groupings, while the low-pass filtered condition had the least accurate groupings. For the talker dialect accuracy, the Western dialect had the most accurate groupings while the Southern dialect had the least accurate groupings. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) plots visualized the groupings made for each condition. In both the natural and monotonized condition, participants were using dialect and gender to sort talkers. In the low-pass filtered condition, participants were using gender and not dialect to sort talkers, and the MDS plot looked different from the other MDS plots indicating that intonation alone was not effective for dialect classification.This thesis was funded by the Undergraduate Research Scholarship.No embargoAcademic Major: Linguistic

Out from the shadows: the case for external oversight of UK special forces

While the UK government maintains a strict ‘no comment’ policy about the country’s special forces, allied countries, including the US, allow for parliamentary oversight of their covert military operations. Liam Walpole argues that the UK’s approach lacks democratic accountability and prevents proper evaluation of the military effectiveness of special forces. Options for reform include expanding the Intelligence and Security Committee’s remit to cover special forces