The Muillean Gaoithe and the Melin Wynt : Cultural sustainability and community owned wind energy schemes in Gaelic and Welsh communities in the United Kingdom.

There is a shortage of scholarly research into understanding the cultural values, drivers and outcomes of community renewable developments. This paper contributes towards addressing this gap, by comparing four community renewable projects set in Scottish Gaelic speaking Scotland and in Welsh speaking Wales. Not only do cultural values drive the developments of these community energy projects, but evidence gathered here through qualitative interviews show that these communities aim to contribute towards the long term cultural sustainability of their respective areas. This research paper focuses on how community wind energy projects in Scotland and Wales have contributed towards the retention of cultural attributes, particularly language retention and revitalisation. It also contributes to a deeper understanding of the cultural reasons why historically indigenous communities are turning towards the renewable energy sector (and developing their own local projects) as a way to help achieve cultural sustainability through economic development

'Experiment Earth?' Reflections on a public dialogue on geoengineering : Reflections on a public dialogue on geoengineering

During early 2010, the first series of major UK public engagement events on geoengineering took place – and were described in a report titled ‘Experiment Earth?’ The events were designed to provide an opportunity for members of the public to engage with these emerging technologies at a very early stage...This working paper reflects on the framing, process, methods and findings of the public dialogue, and offers a set of recommendations for future public engagement on this topic

I’m not a tree hugger, I’m just like you’: changing perceptions of sustainable lifestyles

For many in the Western world there is increasing recognition of the fundamentally unsustainable nature of the everyday actions and modes of consumption that form part of normal life. Some individuals attempt to challenge current ways of consuming and living in order to address these underlying issues. However, these efforts often continue to be positioned as unusual or unconventional, meaning that adopting sustainable lifestyles may be subject to wider negative perceptions. At the same time, some forms of action toward sustainable ways of living are becoming increasingly normalised as more people make moves toward sustainable consumption. Drawing on data from the qualitative longitudinal Energy Biographies project, we consider the experiences of those who describe their efforts to live sustainably, the relationship between sustainability and normality, and what the implications of this might be in a context of fundamental trends toward unsustainable social systems

Examining the dynamics of energy demand through a biographical lens

It is widely recognized that a major challenge in low carbon transitioning is the reduction of energy consumption. This implies a significant level of transformationin our ways of living, meaning the challenge is one that runs deep into the fabric of our personal lives. In this article we combine biographical research approaches with concepts from Bourdieu's practice theory to develop understanding of processes of change that embed particular patterns of energy consumption. Through an analysis of "case biographies" we show the value of biographical methods for understanding the dynamics of energy demand

Asking about the future: methodological insights from energy biographies

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal of Social Research Methodology on 23 April 2015, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13645579.2015.1029208Temporality is fundamental to qualitative longitudinal (QLL) research, inherent in the design of returning to participants over time, often to explore moments of change. Previous research has indicated that talking about the future can be difficult, yet there has been insufficient discussion of methodological developments to address these challenges. This paper presents insights from the Energy Biographies project, which has taken a QLL and multimodal approach to investigating how everyday energy use can be understood in relation to biographical pasts and imagined futures. In particular, we detail innovative techniques developed within the project (e.g. SMS photograph activities) to elicit data on anticipated futures, in ways that engender thinking about participants’ own biographical futures and wider societal changes. We conclude by considering some of the significant benefits and challenges such techniques present. These methodological insights have a wider relevance beyond the substantive topic for those interested in eliciting data about futures in qualitative research

16S rRNA gene-based profiling of the human infant gut microbiota is strongly influenced by sample processing and PCR primer choice

Acknowledgements The authors acknowledge the assistance of Grietje Holtrop (RINH-BioSS) with the statistical analysis of the data and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute’s 454 pyrosequencing team for generating 16S rRNA gene data. AWW, PS and JP received core funding support from the Wellcome Trust [grant number 098051]. AWW, JCM, HJF and KPS are funded by the Scottish Government (SG-RESAS).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Energy Biographies Research Report

Energy Biographies created a bespoke social science methodology that draws on insights from lifecourse studies, practice theory, and geographical studies of community and place. In bringing together these insights, it recognizes that what people do and how they understand themselves are multiply conditioned. Rather than simply being an outgrowth of more or less rational choices based on available information about the likely consequences of their actions, actions and beliefs are actively moulded by the technological infrastructure on which everyday life depends, the shared practices in which people are participants, the relationships and experiences which shape their biographies, and the evolution of the different communities (of place and of interest) in which they are located. Energy Biographies findings identify several overlooked influences on how energy use changes across the lifecourse and within different community contexts. They suggest that the dominant foci of policy on energy demand (e.g. technology-enabled changes in individual behaviour) may be misplaced, and offers openings towards alternative pathways for change

Creating a national citizen engagement process for energy policy.

This paper examines some of the science communication challenges involved when designing and conducting public deliberation processes on issues of national importance. We take as our illustrative case study a recent research project investigating public values and attitudes toward future energy system change for the United Kingdom. National-level issues such as this are often particularly difficult to engage the public with because of their inherent complexity, derived from multiple interconnected elements and policy frames, extended scales of analysis, and different manifestations of uncertainty. With reference to the energy system project, we discuss ways of meeting a series of science communication challenges arising when engaging the public with national topics, including the need to articulate systems thinking and problem scale, to provide balanced information and policy framings in ways that open up spaces for reflection and deliberation, and the need for varied methods of facilitation and data synthesis that permit access to participants' broader values. Although resource intensive, national-level deliberation is possible and can produce useful insights both for participants and for science policy.Natural Environment Research CouncilLeverhulme TrustWelsh GovernmentUS National Science Foundatio

Asking about the future : methodological insights from energy biographies

Temporality is fundamental to qualitative longitudinal research, inherent in the design of returning to participants over time, often to explore moments of change. Previous research has indicated that talking about the future can be difficult, yet there has been insufficient discussion of methodological developments to address these challenges. This paper presents insights from the Energy Biographies project, which has taken a qualitative longitudinal and multimodal approach to investigating how everyday energy use can be understood in relation to biographical pasts and imagined futures. In particular, we detail innovative techniques developed within the project (e.g. SMS photograph activities) to elicit data on anticipated futures, in ways that engender thinking about participants’ own biographical futures and wider societal changes. We conclude by considering some of the significant benefits and challenges such techniques present. These methodological insights have a wider relevance beyond the substantive topic for those interested in eliciting data about futures in qualitative research