The background for this seminar series lies in the introduction of Localism Act 2011. Since then, wherever parish councils do not exist, local people (or businesses) can set up neighbourhood forums to work collaboratively. As David Cameron put it in a 2010 speech on the Big Society: "We need to create communities with oomph - neighbourhoods who are in charge of their own destiny, who feel if they club together and get involved they can shape the world around them". Once these formal groupings are in place, residents can prepare a neighbourhood plan and have a framework (though this is not required) to permit the building of new houses ("the right to build") or to bid for the contract to run local authority services ("the right to challenge"). Under this version of localism, neighbourhoods are empowered to "shape their place". In many ways these initiatives extend previous policies to address community development and place-based disadvantage. Labour's flagship programme, the New Deal for Communities, for example, promoted citizen involvement in governance and active citizenship, involving community members in each scheme's design and delivery. However, these initiatives were very generously funded and were aimed at the poorest. In all, 39 relatively small areas received an average of £50 million each, targeting multiple indicators of deprivation including poor job prospects, high crime rates, educational-underachievement, poor health as well as poor quality housing and physical environment. The current formulation of "austerity localism" does not provide such extensive funding and is not targeted at the neighbourhoods most in need. It applies to all places. For example, the £9.5million, which has recently been made available to support neighbourhood planning initiatives in 2013-2025, is available to any neighbourhood or parish council. So far, the "frontrunner" communities who have used these funds and the professional help available to work with their community, drawing up their neighbourhood plan, have been communities that are well networked and socially resourced. Similarly, under the newly introduced "right to bid", local residents can apply to have a "community asset" listed, enabling them to raise the money to buy the property themselves. This right has let some communities to raise money to save pubs, both through community share offers and through public funding including from the Architecture Heritage Fund and the Social Investment Business Group (in the case of The Ivy, at Nunhead). In contrast, in Borehamwood, recently, Hertsmere Borough Council 'de-listed' the Crown pub on an appeal by the developers who owned it, saying both that the listing failed to meet the necessary requirement of furthering the social wellbeing and interests of the local community, questioning whether the "Save the Crown" group were representative of the community and, more significantly, that there was no evidence that the group would be able to raise enough money to keep it up and running. The developers, Woodhall LLP, are now able to sell the pub for any use for the highest price. This is part of a national trend. The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), suggest that over 5,500 pubs have closed since start of 2008, with 18 currently closing a week. It also, however, casts doubt on the ability of the residents near the Crown to "shape their place" as Cameron suggests. Yet despite these concerns about neighbourhood working and localism, there is also optimism. There are also opportunities for communities to use this framework for neighbourhoods to develop new initiatives, co-produce local services or promote self-build schemes on publicly owned land. Arts-based initiatives in communities have found ways to build resilience and promote community engagement in less formal ways, bringing in less vocal participants. This series of seminars will explore both the criticisms and the opportunities offered by neighbourhood ways of working.

Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in extremism, though mainly al-Qaeda or 'AQ'-inspired terrorism. This emphasis on preventing violent extremism (PVE), and countering processes of radicalization within Muslim communities, has marked a logical response to the events of September 11th 2001, subsequent terrorist attacks in cities such as London and Madrid, and the priorities of national security services. However, at the same time, there has emerged a view among policymakers that the heavy focus on one particular 'type' of extremism has left them with a less developed understanding of alternative forms of extremist ideology, activity and support. One particularly neglected area that has recently acquired increased policy relevance is right-wing extremism. Across several European democracies, radical and extreme right-wing parties continue to rally relatively durable electoral support. At the same time, the resurgence of interest in right-wing extremist ideology and support has been fuelled by the emergence of non-electoral forms of mobilization (such as the English, Scottish and Welsh Defence Leagues), and the atrocities that were committed in Norway by a 'lone wolf' activist who had passed through the radical right-wing Norwegian Progress Party and was connected to right-wing extremist blogs (such as the Gates of Vienna). Against this backdrop there has emerged a consensus among policymakers: while there is a relatively well-developed understanding of AQ-inspired terrorism and underlying processes of radicalization, the task of developing an effective policy response to right-wing extremist organizations, their ideological appeals and supporters is lacking. This gap in the existing work is best reflected in the most recent Prevent strategy (2011), which devotes only four paragraphs to right-wing extremism and notes how the current understanding of this challenge 'is inevitably less developed than it is for terrorism associated with Al Qa'ieda'. This knowledge exchange project will directly contribute to addressing this gap by facilitating the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) to increase its knowledge base and understanding about right-wing extremism. Principally, through a six-month placement at DCLG (that will support a conference and expert workshops), the applicant - an early career researcher - will focus on exchanging knowledge on: the social and attitudinal profile of supporters of extreme right-wing groups; the ideological appeals and motivational vocabularies offered by the extreme right; non-electoral forms of mobilization; and possible policy responses. With active support from DCLG and the Home Office, the placement will promote the application of accumulated academic knowledge in this area, which (but is not limited to) ESRC-supported research. What are the potential applications and benefits? A placement in a national-level policy community will enable the applicant to directly inform policy development at DCLG and also across government more widely. Specifically, the project will deliver the following benefits to policymakers and the wider social science community: a synthesis of current and past academic research; ensuring that policy is anchored in this evidence base; databasing key publications; producing accessible summaries for policy audiences; help identify gaps in current and future work; produce 'in house' publications; contribute to the general development of a research cluster in the area above; and organise and co-host a knowledge exchange conference and four expert workshops that will build or strengthen networks between policymakers and the social science community. When seen as a whole, the project will transfer academic knowledge on an issue that is currently of high policy interest and relevance, strengthen policymakers' understanding of an oft-neglected form of extremism and contribute directly to the development of more effective policy responses

The overall aim of this project is to enhance the legacy of the Connected Communities (CC) programme through exploring the translation of university-led research into governmental policy processes. We aim to challenge and expand dominant understandings of research by drawing on insights and methods from the humanities and interpretive social science. Contemporary social problems are widely perceived as increasing in scope and complexity, and needing to be better understood if appropriate policy responses are to be developed. However, there is a longstanding problem that the relevance of academic research in understanding this complexity is not always obvious to potential 'research users' in government. The heart of the proposed research is to observe the use and translation of research outputs generated by CC projects as they move into central government and local government policy processes. This process involves the interaction of academic researchers, research analysts and policy teams in Whitehall and local practitioners who implement policy initiatives. We will pose three research questions: 1: how are different kinds of CC research 'outputs' taken into policy arenas? 2: what modes of communication and types of knowledge are explicitly preferred and habitually adopted in different domains (academic, government research analyst etc.) and why? 3: what assumptions about the value of different kinds of findings and modes of communication characterise the domains, and how susceptible to change are these? The research will focus on following outputs from the CC Policy Reviews for DCLG. This will allow comparison of a wide range of different kinds of communication whose uptake and translation will be taking place during 2014/2015 and so can be followed 'in real time'. Drawing on the research team's wider experience, and the review of CC projects carried out for the Reviews, other CC outputs will be introduced into the 'conversations' between academics and researchers as and when appropriate. This detailed, interpretive work will be put into a broader context through a survey of all CC projects to identify the extent and nature of policy engagement across the programme. The research will be co-produced by a team of academics and the research analysts of DCLG's Decentralisation and Big Society (DABS) division. Its execution will involve close engagement with the Division's policy team and local government officers in the pilots of the 'OurPlace!' neighbourhood budgeting programme (i.e. key 'users' of the Policy Reviews). We will: a) Survey CC policy engagement: on-line survey of all CC projects, followed up by five interviews. b) Observation: non-participant observation of DABS meetings averaging two per month over the 12 month fieldwork period (and/or others as opportunity arises) plus 4 periods, of one week, embedded participant observation fieldwork within DABS; obesravtion and interviewing in 3 OurPlace! authorities. c) Semi-structured interviews: with Policy Review academics, DABS and OurPlace! officials. d) Initiation workshop: with wider group of expert academics and policy makers and practitioners. e) Workshops: three workshops in which the assumptions affecting and processes of translation across team borders will be explicitly examined by all participants. f) Reflective writing: Our collective, continuous analysis of translation processes will be summarised and tested by monthly one-page reflections across the research team and research partners. The outputs will be: a) a survey of the CC programme's engagement with policy making b) guidance for academic researchers (especially those working from arts and humanities perspectives) on co-production and increasing impact with policy-makers c) guidance for government officials on using arts and humanities research d) academic articles in selected journals.

Government policies across many fields are currently being steered by the concept of 'behaviour change' as a 'light-touch' alternative to regulation. Behaviour is neither simple to understand, nor to change. Current political circumstances have led to a high profile for a group of approaches that are aimed at 'nudging' behaviours, however the theories and understanding behind these are just one of a range of possible ways of interpreting the reasons people behave in the ways that they do. Not all behaviours are alike, and in terms of developing effective policies it is useful to have a range of possible approaches to choose from. For the non-expert though, understanding potential complementarities or conflicts between different approaches can pose a significant barrier to employing new strategies or to using a variety of methods, particularly when certain approaches may have more political acceptability despite potentially not being as effective. The project will provide support to a range of stakeholders involved in developing and implementing policies around public behaviours in relation to energy usage and climate change. Following on from a successful 12-month social science placement Fellowship in DECC, the project will allow Dr Chatterton to build on the work and relationships already established in the Fellowship, in order to improve understanding with regard to a) public behaviours and social practices, and b) cross-departmental challenges in relation to climate change policies. The project has support from the four government departments most closely identified with climate and energy related behaviours (DECC; the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra); the Department for Transport (DfT), and the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG)). This will provide Dr Chatterton access to spend time within each Department (an average of one month per Department) to help them to implement the latest thinking on behaviours into policies, and through concurrently working with the various Departments, take the opportunity to help them better understand the overlaps and possible conflicts or synergies between their respective policies. The project will also take the learning from the original Fellowship, as well as from the departmental working, and share it with a limited number of relevant stakeholders from businesses and NGOs working in the area. This will help them improve their understanding of current approaches to behaviour, so as to enable them to more effectively play a positive role in their work with government and the public.

Urban areas are concentrations of vulnerability to climate change. Examples of impacts of climate change in urban areas include excessive heat, water scarcity and flooding. Whilst it is impossible to attribute individual extreme events to climate change, recent events including the 2003 heat wave that struck Paris and other European cities, and hurricane Katrina in New Orleans have illustrated the potential for large scale weather-related disruption of urban function, from which it may take months or years to recover. In recognition of the significance of climate change in urban areas, from the points of view of both adaptation and mitigation, in 2005 the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research launched a new research programme on Engineering Urban Systems . Building on the previous success of the Tyndall Centre in interdisciplinary integrated assessment, the Tyndall Centre Cities Programme brought together research expertise from seven universities (four of which are represented in the ARCADIA project) and a high profile stakeholder group to develop an Urban Integrated Assessment Facility (UIAF) that simulates long term changes in urban areas and can be used as a platform for testing the effectiveness of adaptation and mitigation strategies. The ARCADIA project will launch an ambitious new phase of development of the Tyndall Centre UIAF in order to understand better the vulnerability and resilience of urban areas. The ARCADIA project is highly interdisciplinary and involves input from an influential group of stakeholders from business and local and central government, with interests in planning, infrastructure, the built environment and climate change adaptation and mitigation. This group will work with the research team to ensure that the project is orientated towards user needs. Indeed the first research task will involve close work with stakeholders to understand how the advance modelling tools being developed in the Tyndall Centre can best inform decision making. Task 2 will identify the various direct and indirect modes in which climate impacts disrupt urban function and will go on to examine potential adaptation mechanisms and barriers to adaptation. In Task 3 the Tyndall Centre will team up with the Climatic Research Unit at UEA and the Met Office Hadley Centre to develop new probabilistic scenarios for urban areas that are consistent with UKCIP08. Task 4 will model the relationship between climate impacts and the urban economy, in order to identify how the economy may be disrupted by climate change. By analysing change in the economy through time and interactions between economic sectors, we will understand better how the urban economy can be made more resilient. Task 5 will combine the economic model developed in Task 4 with a new model of the spatial planning of buildings and infrastructure in urban areas. As well as identifying concentrations of vulnerability, this will enable the simulation of potential redesign of the built environment under different scenarios of climate and other drivers such as employment and changes to the transport system.The final research task will, working with stakeholders, use the new understanding of the vulnerability of urban systems to analyse how adaptation of urban areas can enhance resilience over a range of timescales. The objective will be to make practical proposals for 'adaptation pathways' for cities over the 21st Century to respond strategically to the challenges of flooding, water scarcity and extremes of heat.