Collaborative Research Centre on Sustainable Behaviours

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Collaborative Research Centre on Sustainable
Behaviours

• Adrian Alsop,
• Director for Research, ESRC

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Sustainable Behaviours Research Centre and ESRC

• Origins of the Centre
• The Centre and ESRC Strategic Priorities
• The Centre and Living with Environmental Change
• Outcomes of Consultation

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ESRCS Guiding Principles

• Three guiding principles
• Quality Funding research and training of the
  highest quality by world standards
• Impact Ensuring that our activities contribute
  fully to economic development and improved
  quality of life
• Independence Ensuring independence from
  political, commercial or sectional interests

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Why a Sustainable Behaviours Research Centre?

• Fifteen projects funded under the ESRC
  Environment and Human Behaviour Programme
  finished in 2004.
• Discussions with the Research Community indicate
  a strong interest in on-going research agenda
  i.e. Living with Environmental Change
• Discussions with Defra and other funders
  identified a number of areas of common interest
  and potential synergy.
• Potential to contribute to a range of ESRCs
  Strategic Objectives and complement other ESRC/RC
  funded research

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Examples of Previous and Current Research
Supported by ESRC

• Environment and Human Behaviour programme funded
  fifteen projects around questions of
  environmental behaviour and possible policy
  approaches to change behaviour. Funding ended in
  November 2004.
• Sustainable Technologies programme funded 13
  projects and two fellowships on social and
  economic processes that shape, foster or inhibit
  more sustainable technologies. Funding ended in
  December 2006.
• Research Councils Energy Programme especially
  RESOLVE Group at Surrey, looking at links between
  lifestyle, societal values and environment.
• New Centre on Climate Change Economics and
  Policy at LSE/Leeds and Climate Change
  Fellowships (to be announced shortly)
• ESRC/DfT/Scottish Government UK Transport
  Research Centre (to be launched later this year)

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Potential Contribution to ESRCs Strategic
Priorities

• Addressing key research challenges
• Potential major contribution to ESRCs Energy,
  Environment and Climate Change Understanding
  Individual Behaviour key research challenges (
  possibly others e.g. Population Change,
  Succeeding in the Global Economy).
• Seizing new research opportunities and being
  responsive to both the social science research
  community and our wider stakeholders
• Diverse and growing research community interested
  in issues relevant to the Centres remit e.g. in
  areas such as habits practice the contribution
  of community and collective action and the
  interaction between different policy signals,
  incentives, regulation and other measures.

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Potential Contribution to ESRCs Strategic
Priorities

• Strengthening the social science research base
  people, disciplines, data, methods and
  infrastructure
• Support for studentships, fellowships and other
  training and development activities
• Contribution to ESRCs National Datasets
  Strategy, by facilitating the development and use
  of data resources, exploring new sources of data,
  data linkage etc.
• - Development of theory and methods
• - Build on existing capacity and encouraging
  researchers from a wide range of
  disciplines to bring their expertise to bear on
  issues within the Centres remit.

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Potential Contribution to ESRCs Strategic
Priorities

• Engagement of stakeholders through research
  partnerships, knowledge transfer and
  communication activities
• An area of high policy importance and potential
  to engage a wide range of stakeholders
• A strategic funding partnership and collaboration
  supported through the ESRC Ventures Fund
• - Collaborative engagement, placements,
  secondments.
• - Knowledge exchange, communication and
  engagement activities and events

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Potential Contribution to ESRCs Strategic
Priorities

• International dimension e.g. international
  collaborative and comparative research,
  international visiting fellows / exchanges etc
• Supporting multi-and inter-disciplinary research
  drawing on relevant insights and expertise from
  across the social sciences beyond
• Ability to draw on range of high quality
  expertise wherever it is located and whether or
  not currently working on issues explicitly within
  the Centres remit.
• ESRC is a UK funding body, consideration given to
  issues across all parts of UK and drawing on
  expertise across UK

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Potential Contribution to Living with
Environmental Change Programme

• Living With Environmental Change (LWEC) is a
  ten-year programme, which will provide decision
  makers with the best information to effectively
  manage and protect vital ecosystem services. It
  will improve our tools and knowledge needed to
  build resilience, mitigate problems, and adapt to
  environmental change.
• LWEC represents an unprecedented partnership,
  with fifteen partners spanning Research Councils,
  Government and business.
• LWEC will provide the knowledge and tools that
  are needed by people, government and business to
  make informed choices about the future. This
  research will help to make better predictions and
  analysis of environmental change so that we can
  adapt and become more resilient.

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Potential Contribution to Living with
Environmental Change Programme

• LWEC Partners Board has agreed six high level
  Strategic Objectives which will inform progress
  towards the design of the programmes of work that
  will make up LWEC.
• The Centre will make a central contribution to
  one of the six
• To work with the diverse communities of the UK
  to understand how, on the basis of our various
  cultural backgrounds and belief systems, we live
  with our environment at present, how this is
  likely to alter as the environment changes, and
  how we might use this knowledge to develop
  thriving, cohesive and informed communities.
• Five of the funding partners are also partners in
  LWEC.

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ESRC Funding

• ESRC has allocated new funding of up to 1.5m for
  the Centre from its Ventures Fund over three
  years, with the remaining core funding being
  provided by the other partners in the Centre.
• On-going opportunities under ESRCs responsive
  mode provision
• Complement other potential developments e.g.
  under Living with Environmental Change, the
  Research Councils Energy Programme.

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Outcomes of the Consultation

• 85 agreed the need for a new Centre, with only
  2 arguing that there was no need.
• Various gaps in knowledge about behaviours were
  identified, and respondents agreed that further
  research was needed to address these gaps.
• There was general support for all the proposed
  functions of the Centre.
• Respondents had mixed views on the proposed model
  for the Centre, with only 55 agreeing that the
  virtual model was appropriate.

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Conclusions

• Thank you for taking part today, and for your
  interest in the Centre.
• There will be an opportunity at the end of the
  day to ask questions of the funders.
• Look forward to receiving some excellent outline
  proposals by 28 May.