Sign language users in Scotland (and worldwide) face exceptional barriers to meaningful participation in political processes. To address this conundrum, we will explore the idea of an implementable model for the world’s first sustainable ‘Signing Parliament’ – a representative, democratic body which could complement and enrich the work of relevant authorities as they begin to implement their commitment to deliver the British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015. More...

This project will bring students and staff from Scottish universities together with external stakeholders to explore how universities can have a positive and sustainable impact on the health and wellbeing of local, including marginalised, communities within which they are situated. It will create better understandings of how university settings can promote health where we learn, work, live, and play. More...

The aim of this programme is to design and prototype new types of knowledge products for Allied Health Professionals to make research more useful for practice. Bringing together practitioners and researchers from diverse fields, who do not normally work with one another, the programme will generate novel, creative solutions that reach beyond traditional dissemination methods prevalent in evidence-based healthcare and establish an ongoing agenda for promoting new types of knowledge products for More...

In Scotland, the number of homelessness applications increased in 2018. Applications from young people (28%) present particular challenges as there are complex needs affecting both the young person and their families simultaneously. This programme seeks to provide a space for meaningful interaction between different sectors working with youth homelessness, policy makers, front-line staff and young people experiencing homelessness to share an essential and critical commitment to build service pro More...

The 'Developing Confident Life Stories' programme explores the impact of bereavement on young people aged 12–18 years, supporting them to construct and represent their bereavement stories through the medium of comics, through a series of creative workshops. Bereavement is a common childhood experience: more than 75% of young people have experienced the death of someone close and this is higher for vulnerable children. More...

While the significance of employment to desistance - the cessation of offending or antisocial behaviour - is well established, there are multifarious obstacles to people with convictions accessing and sustaining work. Social enterprise and cooperative structures of employment can circumnavigate some of the systemic obstacles to employment, such as criminal records and employer discrimination that people routinely encounter. More...

This programme will embrace a novel, transdisciplinary approach using design complexity to create new modes of expression to address, communicate, and share the hidden challenges of people experiencing or affected by mental ill-health in remote and rural areas of Scotland, spanning from land-based to maritime communities. More...

This programme focuses upon understanding the relationship between poverty, attainment and children’s mental health as a means of addressing the attainment gap, articulating with the Scottish Attainment Challenge. It asks what do we currently know about the problem, how can we extend our knowledge and understanding, and how might this inform public policy and practice? More...

This project brings together climate change adaptation specialists from across a spectrum of natural and social sciences. It addresses two central challenges for increasing our resilience to extreme events: (1) to make complex research results more accessible and tractable for decision-makers, and (2) to acknowledge that decision-makers include the general public as they self-organise and respond to new local challenges, in parallel to higher-level policy and practice. More...

Citizen’s basic income (BI) seeks to reduce poverty and increase people’s control over their lives. This programme will bring together researchers, policymakers, practitioners and citizens to critically explore rationales, requirements and consequences of BI in Scotland. More...

This series will analyse shared policy challenges and priorities across Housing and Ageing contexts, to understand how they are being delivered and experienced by older people, to take forward best practice and to plan for housing and ageing effectively in Scotland for 2030. More...

During an intensive field trip and series of workshops, this programme explores the intersection of climate change impacts with historic environments, and will address fundamental questions around the value, preservation and role of heritage in society. More...

The programme explores the future of palliative care for people with life limiting conditions to build a contextual understanding of care needs and aspirations across the lifespan and scope future care models that support the development of person-centred care towards Scotland 2030. More...

This programme seeks to bring people together for a national conversation about how a child developmental orientation can improve how we address the needs of looked after children, their families and those who care for them. More...

This programme addresses a key priority of the Scottish Government, to close the attainment gap between the most and least deprived children with respect to language and literacy attainment. More...

This series addresses the integration of adult health/social care services to improve service delivery. It aims to explore the cultures, professional practice and technology that can underpin successful service integration – including the role of service users in such integration. More...

This initiative will tackle the inter-relationship of problem substance use, poor physical and mental health and homelessness in Scotland. The programme will create a dialogue on international, national and local best practices in this area, and on how we can work better together across sectors and disciplines to develop Scottish solutions. More...

The aim of this programme is to ‘shift paradigms’ within dementia, by challenging current thinking and practice through interdisciplinary collaboration and the participation of people with dementia. The programme addresses a key policy challenge both for Scotland and internationally, of supporting a rapidly growing population of people living with dementia in a context of political and economic uncertainty and significant spending restraints within health and social care and the wider public sec More...

This programme will provide a unique opportunity to develop interdisciplinary, international cooperation, and to work in collaboration with local authorities to further develop best practice in providing support to unaccompanied young people. The aim is to increase the knowledge base and ultimately shape the development of local practice, service provision and policy to improve support and longer term outcomes for children and young people. More...

Due to impressive growth levels in recent years, the craft beer industry has been highlighted as a critical sector in the Scottish economy. Specifically, it features prominently in Scotland’s Food & Drink most recent export plan as a high-potential product. Much of this growth has been attributed to the strong levels of collaboration in the sector, as evidenced by co-brewing and joint distribution practices. However, insight from research undertaken by the core programme team as well as discussi More...

Restorative justice (RJ) is a process that brings together those harmed by crime and those responsible for the harm to safely discuss the harm and how it might be set right. International research suggests RJ can help victims recover from harm, encourage those involved in crime to desist from offending, and provide a more satisfying experience of the justice process. Given the evidence for the potential benefits of RJ for both victim and offender, as well as communities, the time has come to bri More...

Children and young people experience stigmatization in a wide range of cultural, social and political contexts. This includes care experienced children, disabled children, refugees and asylum seekers, children of prisoners, children and young people with mental health issues, child and youth offenders, children affected by HIV/AIDs, children in poverty. This programme will address the unique issues for children who experience stigma, as well as common issues which allow learning from the experie More...

The Leadership Studio responds to a ‘call to action’ issued by the Scottish Leaders Forum in June 2016, which recognised the growing need for more collaborative leadership in the highly complex world of public sector innovation. In particular, there is limited documented knowledge, evidence and experience regarding the techniques and practices that might facilitate the development of collaborative leadership. This project asks what types of intervention are effective in developing readiness and More...

The OECD recognises city-regions as ‘agglomerations’ that can raise innovation rates, productivity and global connectivity. Countries now also recognise past underinvestment in infrastructure to support metropolitan growth. The Scottish Government - with its aim of raising sustainable, inclusive growth - and the UK government are currently addressing these issues through City (Region) ‘Deals’. City Deals seek to improve the prioritisation of investment projects, promote the use of economic thin More...

The project aims to support people with dementia, policy makers and other stakeholders in Scotland to learn from other places about alternative housing-with-care models, through a series of co-produced films, face to face workshops and targeted briefing papers. Adopting a coproduction model of working, and drawing on theories of citizenship, our proposed work will challenge a traditional academic research approach by ensuring that the views and experiences of people with dementia are central in More...

This programme will engage four community organisations, four commercial partners, two non-profit organisations and researchers from four universities to envisage and remodel the local assessment of renewable energy potential and collectively identify the related ecological and social benefits arising from sustainable land and water use at a community scale. More...

Maintaining and enhancing an innovative STEM-driven culture and economy are current priorities for Scotland and the UK and require an inspired, innovative and creative education system. This programme aims to bring partners together to focus on how engaging learners with the latest STEM research can improve individual, social, economic and business prospects and wellbeing and ultimately embed in future generations the expertise, desire and courage to address key social, environmental and technol More...

How can academia and civil society work in partnership to create a new model of The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) implementation? Four one-day interdisciplinary and cross-sector seminars will seek to improve the implementation and monitoring of the UNCRC through the development of partnerships between universities, NGOs, child law specialists and children and young people. More...

This programme will bring together experts and senior figures from the academic, legal, public policy worlds along with recent participants in inquiries and experts in management/audit and design research and governmental researchers to understand what public inquiries are intended to achieve (and the extent to which they are successful); to consider whether the same or better results could be achieved by other means and to identify any lessons / approaches which might assist current public inqu More...

Our aim is reduce the healthy years lost to stroke through greater integration of technologies that promote patient centred functional recovery. To do this we propose a programme of activities designed to generate new thinking in this area by clarifying user priorities, developing a framework to evaluate and guide technology development in a way that places the user at the centre and to form a network of stakeholders capable of influencing practice nationally and internationally. More...

Fostering a culture of workplace innovation requires, among other things, more progressive workplace practice driven by collaboration and dialogue. This proposal focusses on ‘what works’ in workplace innovation; how employers can learn from each other; how practitioners, policymakers and researchers can collaborate and how policy levers can support workplace innovation. More...

Working with Community Land Scotland, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and partners in the Scottish Government, this project will operate through collaborative and co-productive methods to develop a rigorous set of criteria for the appraisal of the performance of community-owned land More...

The importance of sustainable consumption and production patterns was highlighted by the UN’s Open Working Group Proposal for Sustainable Development Goals. This programme seeks to establish a Scottish network with broad participation from industry, government and the third sector to identify technologies and knowledge that can help Scotland progress towards a zero waste and circular economy. More...

This programme will focus on the kinds of transformative innovation that are needed within services and communities to address pressing concerns about the appropriateness and sustainability of health and social care provision. It brings together leading Scottish and international thinkers and practitioners from key areas of research and practice development, supported by the International Futures Forum. More...

We will hold interdisciplinary and cross-sector seminars which will undertake iterative cycles of inquiry engaging with a range of academics (neglect, wellbeing, arts), arts professionals, other professionals (social workers, teachers, educational psychologists) and policy makers, to systematically explore what is known about child neglect and its impact on children and young people, their families and wider communities. More...

This programme will explore the values that currently underpin Scottish Justice, as well as those that should underpin it in the future. To effect change when previous attempts to do so have failed requires looking beyond policy fixes to the values and the socio-cultural drivers that take practice in particular directions. More...

This programme seeks to explore the creation of migrant youth identities in post-referendum Scotland, bringing together academics and stakeholders concerned with research and work on immigration and immigrant integration, youth studies, youth media and cultural communications. More...

Aims to improve the digital health of our population, to promote internet safety, and use technologies to support learning are well established. The Digital Families programme will add to this growing body of knowledge by providing opportunities to explore the increasing presence of domestic digital technologies within family life, and to debate both the benefits and pressures these technologies bring. More...

The programme explores the concepts of blue growth (including offshore renewables, aquaculture and coastal tourism), what adopting an ecosystems approach and securing Environmental Status mean for marine planning and the marine environment in Scotland. Our aim is to develop 7 Lay Person's guides on the concepts/approaches of Marine Spacial Planning, and to enhance civic and stakeholder awareness, understanding and engagement. More...

The British Sign Language (Scotland) Bill aims to promote British Sign Language (BSL), a visual-gestural language used at home by over 12,500 people in Scotland. This programme will support the first national plan by bringing together Deaf sector organisations, BSL users, educators and early years workers, policy makers, and experts in BSL, sign language studies and language learning to share information, identify challenges and explore opportunities for increasing teaching of BSL within the Sco More...

Policing structures across the UK have recently undergone the most radical change since the mid-twentieth century. Against this background, the proposed workshop series aims to provide a ‘safe space’ in which the issue of what constitutes the key principles of accountable policing can be debated. More...

Predicted increases in the world population mean that the demand for food is expected to double by 2050 but the increase in temperature and extreme weather conditions expected due to climate change and resource depletion make our food production systems vulnerable. The overall aim of the programme is to make an international impact by applying Scotland’s world-leading expertise in seafood and crop systems to address the key challenges and opportunities facing food security, bringing together aca More...

In Scotland, like in many societies around the world, unequal access to opportunities remains a chronic and cumulative impediment to individuals’ education, health and civic participation. This Programme will aim to increase equality and help realise human potential through a series of activities which will encourage evidence-based practice, stimulate collaboration between a range of stakeholders and involve young people as active citizens. More...

There is a widely perceived need to codify and disseminate knowledge among credit union professionals, other stakeholders, including local authorities and housing associations, and the academic community. This programme aims to generate awareness and support for credit unions as socially responsible lenders, which are accountable to the communities in which they are based, and so able to increase financial inclusion while operating as sustainable businesses. More...

The Pinkie Resilience Project brings together international experts in education, psychology, the arts, medicine, education policy, epidemiology and history to determine how schools best support wellbeing and nurture development; and select interventions to test in a pilot project based at Pinkie St Peter’s Primary School in Musselburgh, East Lothian. More...

The rising prevalence of mental illness is a growing concern for European societies and access to mental health care one of the top public health priorities. This programme will bring together mental health practitioners, interpreters, health care administrators, policy makers and academics to discuss the most salient issues in the provision of mental health care to linguistically diverse patients with the goal of understanding systemic difficulties and enhancing provision. More...

Public service reform has led to increasing provision of services by third sector organisations.This leads to two challenges for policy makers: understanding the make-up and distribution of the third sector to inform policy; and ensuring that organisations have access to the necessary data to inform the design and delivery of services. More...

This programme will focus on the importance of understanding social, cultural and economic parameters of integration of migrants into Scottish society, and how awareness of common links of heritage and its influence on identity can improve and ease the integration of migrants into their new environment. More...

Scotland’s suburbs are set to expand significantly over the next 15 years.This project will seek to examine the relationship between architectural design and volume house-building, and determine new mechanisms for ensuring the integration and longevity of design quality in the procurement of volume house-building. More...

'Seannachies' will explore how storytelling can engage people in meaning-making in order to enhance collective wellbeing in socially and culturally challenged communities. Storytelling and design approaches will be core to actively engage in knowledge exchange between academics, healthcare practitioners, agencies, policy makers and older people. More...

This knowledge exchange programme will bring together practitioners, policy makers and academics involved with the regeneration processes in three major waterfront developments in Scotland - Dundee, Edinburgh and the Clyde - to explore issues surrounding the economic, social and environmental aspects of regeneration in Scotland and elsewhere. More...

This project will focus on the ways in which aspects of wellbeing can be recognised, enhanced or promoted in order to amplify and develop wellbeing capability in our society. We know that the greater the capability for support and preventative care, the better the quality of life, and the lower the demand on healthcare provision. The outcomes of our research demonstrate that the potential for collaborative wellbeing is considerable, but insufficiently recognised in hospitals, in palliative care, More...

GLADS takes a comprehensive approach to measuring, understanding and promoting wellbeing by addressing the social, economic and environmental dimensions of individual happiness and a good society. In workshops, we will engage with current policy initiatives on various aspects of wellbeing in Scotland and abroad. We aim to discuss strategies for improving individual wellbeing and wellbeing-enhancing qualities in society across a number of relevant policy areas and themes (health and mental wellbe More...

As a basic human requirement, the home plays a vital role in supporting personal, communal and national wellbeing. It offers a physical and psychological space for individuals to ground their lives, so is critical in improving our understanding individual and community needs and assets. Different sectors, public service providers, age groups and settled or transient communities, however, all conceive of home in quite different ways. More...

The aim of these workshops is to look at how different models and measurements of well-being might be applied to contrasting local communities in Scotland. Different dimensions of wellbeing will be explored (solidarity, cohesion and participation) as well as how wellbeing can be promoted using communications media. Whilst to date wellbeing models have focused mainly on national level comparisons, we would aim to look at how these can be applied in local communities and how they can be translated More...

Walking has been identified as ‘perfect exercise’ for health. The important role of walking in Scottish society is reflected in the Scottish Government’s commitment to launch a Walking Strategy in 2014. Walking has direct and indirect effects on wellbeing which require investigation by an interdisciplinary team. The aim is to develop a better understanding of walking for wellbeing and to foster an interdisciplinary network to engage in knowledge exchange. More...

In the context of the current social and economic climate as well as debates regarding Scotland’s future post-2014, issues around identity and social justice come to the fore of political, theoretical and practical discussions. Issues concerning children and young people are at the heart of this debate, confronting researchers, practitioners and policy makers with challenges of how to address social inequalities and promote social justice for present and future generations. More...

Memory-Friendly Neighbourhoods marked a new, interdisciplinary collaboration between research centres at the Universities of Stirling and Edinburgh. Addressing the policy-prominent concept of 'dementia-friendly communities', the programme met the urgent need for insights to guide the development of environments for ageing-in-place and lifelong social inclusion for those affected by dementia. More...

Solar energy is by far the largest renewable energy source in the world and within around 10 years will cost less than grid electricity in Scotland. Solar is the only renewable energy source that works well in cities. It can provide electricity and heat, thus providing energy security and addressing fuel poverty. UK data show solar energy to be as large a practical resource as on-shore wind or tidal but no separate figures are available for Scotland; the Scottish Government’s 2020 Routemap for More...

Most Scottish children fail to meet recommendations for physical activity and diet, and the prevalence of overweight and obesity is twice as high as in 1990. This is a public health crisis, but with adverse effects beyond health, for educational attainment, the economy, and the environment. Tackling the crisis requires the engagement of many sectors of society, which in turn requires synthesis and dissemination of knowledge from research and public health surveillance beyond academia. An excel More...

Assistive Technologies (ATs) - which aim to enhance the independence and safety of their recipients - have become an important aspect of social care policy in Europe, with a particularly ambitious programme of implementation in Scotland. Technological advances mean that ATs are seen as a way of upholding a policy of 'care in situ', instead of institutional care, in a period of demographic change and escalating costs. More...

Each year in the UK around 260 children die or are seriously harmed and £5 million is spent "learning the lessons". The same "lessons" have been emerging since the first UK child death inquiry in 1945 without noticeable impact on child fatalities. Child death review (CDR) processes in the UK have evolved almost exclusively from social work. We want to think about child death review processes differently, bringing together expertise from the fields of forensic investigation, psychology, education More...

The creation of the Scottish parliament demonstrated the huge potential to galvanise thinking about change and the promotion of gender equality. Our aim is to construct an accessible, impartial and cross-disciplinary space to promote debate and dialogue on gender equality matters in the run up to the 2014 referendum. The programme will insert women's voices and gendered analysis into public debate and provide authoritative research-informed and practice-based information and evidence. We seek to More...

About 16,000 children in Scotland are legally ‘looked after’ by local authorities under the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. A significant proportion of these children are disabled (estimated to be 11% compared with 7% for all children), yet looked after disabled children constitute a hidden group in research, policy and practice. Data collection about disability is poor compared to other aspects of the lives of looked after children. Worryingly, for 12% of looked after children in Scotland, their More...

Trafficking in human beings is a worldwide phenomenon requiring an urgent and effective response. It is a growing problem across the UK; with Scotland required to meet UK-wide and international obligations. This has resulted in the introduction of procedures and processes aimed at identifying and responding to the victims of human trafficking and measures to tackle organised trade in the movement and exploitation of people. However, there has been little opportunity for reflection in the develop More...

The cultural industries are the first of seven growth sectors in Scotland’s Economic Strategy (Scottish Government 2011). Their growth, vitality and productivity depend on collaboration with researchers and educators. To date, such collaboration between Scotland’s researchers, practitioners and policy-makers in the cultural industries is scarce. The Programme will address this shortcoming and thus contributes to Scottish Universities Insight Institute's aim of mobilising existing research for th More...

Over 480,000 people have experienced care in Scotland since the 1930s, and most are alive today. Many will have positive experiences of their time in care. Others, however, will have suffered abuse and neglect. Care leavers have stressed how important information about care placements and access to records is for their sense of identity. They have also highlighted the difficulties of tracing this information and accessing records. Many residential establishments, however, have closed down a More...

The purpose of this project is to examine potential linkages between micro-involvement and macro-involvement. Given the recent upsurge in interest in employee ownership and participation, and evidence of an 'upward positive spillover' of democratic attitudes in those economies with high employee ownership and participation, this programme will endeavour to present a public debate on the extent to which organisational democracy and community involvement can strengthen broader civil involvement an More...

The early years agenda in Scotland's Parliament has advanced rapidly in recent years. Early childhood is now recognised as the formative time in a person's life for future health and well-being. Yet while policies such as 'Getting it Right for Every Child' have received wide acclaim for their focus on early childhood, there are concerns for their effective implementation in practice, which may not support the natural abilities of younger children. More...

The Investigation of origin, cause and development of fires is a critical issue for the design and development of a safer built environment, in understanding how people behave when confronted with a fire and in being able to develop appropriate fire investigation skills which will provide a service to the criminal and civil courts. The development of a collective strategic approach to fire incident resolution across the stakeholder communities and the cross fertilisation of industrial and academ More...

Technology Road Mapping (TRM) is a framework and technique to scope out future landscapes in science and technology, given objectives such as product or service development, strategic R&D management, and social or industrial policy development. TRM emerged as a set of diverse industry practices, which academics gathered, collated and systematized in the early 2000s, and continue to do so. Our programme aims to enhance the capacity in Scotland for undertaking TRM, in: academic research and knowle More...

Human identification is central to an effective criminal justice process. It is essential that the identity of any individual is established unambiguously before they are arrested charged or tried. The most common means of achieving this worldwide is by comparison of fingerprints taken from the individual with known fingerprint records. Such records can also be used to eliminate potential suspects and identify offenders from fingerprints left at crime scenes. Fingerprints are also one of the fou More...

The questions addressed in this programme relate to the future of adults’ working lives that are affected by technological change and new work formats. We take as our central problem how Scotland’s digital knowledge and skills can be strengthened to respond to challenges that derive from its geography and from the threat of digital exclusion. Our premise is that overcoming these problems is pivotal to Scotland’s position in the world. The programme mobilises knowledge to address these concerns f More...

The steep attrition rate of rape cases within Scottish criminal justice remains a widespread concern. How such rates are calculated across jurisdictions is complex and controversial. Recently, the definition of rape has been widened and its prosecution reformed to improve responses to rape, but these changes will take some years to be felt and need supported. This programme will collect initial soundings of the impacts of reform, recognising that experiences of rape survivors and public attitude More...

The evaluation of everyday multi-professional intervention to safeguard and promote the well-being of vulnerable children is limited and restricts both operational planning and professional intervention. The core aim of this programme are to contribute to the development of a platform that will support better understanding of the routes from intervention to outcomes for vulnerable children through utilising administrative datasets and longitudinal research. More...

Sustainable communities should be at the heart of our shift to a more sustainable future. The UK and Scottish Governments have indicated that they will transition to a low carbon economy based on equitable, resilient and vibrant economic systems. To transform the UK's infrastructure will require different investment sources and innovative financial mechanisms. Where projects are commercially viable, private financing is likely to be forthcoming. Large scale infrastructure projects may attract pu More...

This is a fast-moving time, both culturally and technologically. In the UK, most families now have their own PC, at least one mobile phone and broadband connection to the internet; and leisure technologies have transformed the ways we spend our free time. Children born this century are acquiring a wide range of technological competences from an early age; these have significant implications for their experiences and expectations of learning as they enter the early years of education, for their e More...

The programme examines the opportunities and challenges of the global literary marketplace for small and independent publishers, what can be learned from examples from larger publishing groups and how linkages between key stakeholders can be achieved in the creation of new markets. The project also addresses the role of digital technologies and looks at how small and independent publishers can successfully negotiate competing cultural, aesthetic, political and communicative demands, how publishi More...

Despite its prevalence, there has been no detailed appraisal of the use of scientific evidence in Scottish criminal trials. This project examines the rules of admissibility of such evidence in court, and their fitness for purpose in the 21st century. More...

This project is born out of challenges that result from multiple competing interests and dependencies on finite water resources, raising important questions over problem-resolution and the organisations that mediate discourse. We are particularly interested in the growing complexities that result from a collision between competing understandings of water management. More...