Dear All
My researchers have struggled to identify community psychologists in and around London Universities – so I am contacting the mail-base. Below is the message I am sending out to those people that I have been able to identify – CP is the only discipline where I have drawn a blank for some bizarre reason. You don’t have to be from London but our travel budget is limited.
Best Wishes, Gareth
Dear
I would like to invite you to participate in a day event that the British Urban Regeneration Association (BURA) is running on September 27th in Lewisham. BURA has looked to find academics in and around London universities from a wide variety of disciplines – those that often deal with urban regeneration/development and those from disciplines that traditionally have little/nothing to do with such issues. You would be representing Community Psychology.
The aim of the event, funded
through UCL’s UrbanBuzz programme, is to try and increase the range of disciplines drawn on by the former group and to encourage the latter group to engage with such issues. As is outlined below, there are a raft of possible benefits that academics might take from the day. I very much hope that you will agree to participate – whereupon we will send a letter of agreement to you (as you will see your time will be paid for). We are confident of a full attendance as we have identified a lot of potential participants and will look beyond London in the unlikely event of not finding academics for some disciplines.
Please let me as soon as possible whether you wish to attend – as the day is just a month away we will need to approach other potential attendees if we do not hear.
Best Wishes, Gareth
BURA Fresh Eyes Project
Engaging academia for better urban regeneration
Thursday 27th September 2007
St. Nicholas' Church, Deptford Green, London SE8 3DQ
The Event
The British Urban Regeneration Association (BURA) in partnership with the Creekside Forum and the Pepys Community Forum is running a one-day event in the Pepys Estate, Deptford, South London (location for the recent BBC documentary series The Tower). The area is full of contrasts in that it has a large amount of social housing alongside considerable riverside gentrification. It also has a rich maritime heritage and a social environment
that is both multi-cultural and multi-racial.
The site to be focused on is several hectares and currently home to dirty industries such as breakers yards – the land is being purchased by a developer but no plan exists for it. Although not an attempt to come up with a plan, the day’s proceedings will nonetheless feed into local planning events early in the New Year.
The event, supported by the UrbanBuzz programme run by University College London and the University of East London, aims to bring together ‘urbanist’ academics with academics from disciplines that traditionally have little to do with urban development/regeneration and to also offer the contextual knowledge of professional regenerators and local community groups and institutions.
BURA has already successfully piloted the Re-invigorate approach that attempts to ‘import’ practitioners
to a given area to give fresh perspectives on problems. This event will be an attempt to create a more academically focussed event. It will be held at St. Nicholas Church, Deptford and will be Chaired by Professor John Worthington.
The day will consist of an
introduction to the area followed by a site tour in small groups – there will be contingency plans made in the event of torrential rain! Participants will also receive a brief introduction sheet/pack a couple of weeks before the event. Lunch will be provided. The event will finish at 5:45 pm.
Key Questions
The day is an attempt to start to get some insight into four key questions:
- how might urbanist academics benefit from working with a wider range of disciplines
- what barriers there might be to this occurring
- how might practical regeneration projects benefit from these
perspectives
- how can practitioners and communities offer insight to academics
Why should busy academics attend?
- Chance to meet potential research partners from other disciplines
- Chance to meet potential research partners from the ‘host’ community
- Chance to learn about other academic disciplines
- Chance to see a regeneration site and hear of the challenges and wider context
- Chance to discover possible research ideas
- Opportunity for your ideas to inform the regeneration of a specific site
- Payment of £425 plus VAT (and travel expenses and free lunch)
What do we want from those who attend?
To offer one or more of the following:
- an enthusiasm for pushing the boundaries of accepted practice by innovative thinking
- advice on how to contextualise the site
- advice on how to help move forward the specific site
- suggestions as to how their discipline might research the current/proposed development
- suggestions of good/best practice and findings from elsewhere in the World
- brief reflections at the end of the event (and then again, via phone/email, 9 months later)
- brief summary of what their discipline is all about
- recommendation (to
attendees) of a key text for their discipline
Format for the Day
| Time | Activity |
| 9:30 – 10 | Tea, Coffee, Networking |
| 10 - 10:15 | Welcome (and outline of the day and the purpose of the exercise) |
| 10:15 – 12:00 | 4 Homogenous* Group tours of the case study area (10 in each group) |
| 12:15 – 1:15 | Group presentations |
| 1:15 – 2:30 | Split into 10 groups of 4 for lunch |
| 2:40 – 3:40 | 5 Heterogeneous Groups (of 8) working on integrated perspectives |
| 3:40 - 4:40 | Group presentations |
| 4:40-4:50 | Tea/coffee |
| 4:50 - 5:20 | Code/Principles for regeneration and development |
| 5:25 – 5:45 | Exit ‘survey’ – What expected? Insights gained? How take forward? |
* the Homogenous Groups are those listed below. The Heterogeneous Groups will be a mix drawn from across these groups [2 from each Group].
The Groups
| Group | Participant Categories |
| Urbanist Academics | - Architects
- Chartered surveyors
- Civil Engineers
- Estates Management
- Transport Planners
- Urban Designers
- Urban Planners
- Urban Politics
- Urban Sociology
- Economic Geography (local economic development)
|
| Non-Urbanist Academics | - Anthropologists
- Community psychology
- Cultural studies
- Environmental psychology
- Futures/scenarios
- Systems thinkers
- Environmental economy
- Network analysis
- Urban ecology
- Moral philosophy
|
| Regenerators | - Civil engineer
- Ecological Regeneration Manager
- Environment Agency (Regeneration Manager)
- Groundwork South East London
- Highways engineer/Transport
- Local Architect/Designer
- Planning Lawyers
- Property developer
- Builder
- Pepys Community Forum
|
| Community and Local Institutions | - Lewisham Town Centre Manager
- Local Councillor
- Police
- Port of London
- Teachers
- Neighbourhood Warden
- Lewisham Youth Parliament
- Pepys Community Recycling Project
- SPC.org [virtual local communities]
- Sure Start Pepys
|
Still Interested?
If you wish to attend the event please respond asap to Dr. Gareth Potts, BURA Director of Research, Policy and Best Practice [log in to unmask]
If you cannot attend but are interested in being kept informed of possible future developments then please let Gareth know this too. Please bear
in mind that if there are insufficient people on the day the project is unlikely to be taken forward!
Director of Research and Policy
British Urban Regeneration Association (BURA)
0207 5394046 / 07792 817156
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___________________________________ COMMUNITYPSYCHUK - The discussion list for community psychology in the UK. To unsubscribe or to change your details visit the website: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/COMMUNITYPSYCHUK.HTML For any problems or queries, contact the list moderator Rebekah Pratt on [log in to unmask] or Grant Jeffrey on [log in to unmask]