Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	EP/F007426/1
Title:	SUSTAINABLE REGENERATION: FROM EVIDENCE-BASED URBAN FUTURES TO IMPLEMENTATION
Principal Investigator:	Rogers, Professor CDF
Other Investigators:	Jankovic, Professor L Bryson, Professor J Barber, Dr A Cooper OBE, Professor R Jefferson, Professor I Hewitt, Professor CN Memon, Professor FA Coles, Professor R Butler, Professor D Gaterell, Professor MR Whyatt, Professor JD Sadler, Professor J MacKenzie, Professor AR
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:	Advantage West Midlands Arup Group Ltd Birmingham City Council British Waterways CIRIA Environment Agency (Grouped) Forestry Commission Scotland Hyder Consulting Ltd Igloo Regeneration Ltd ISIS Joe Holyoak Architect and Urban Designer KTN for Resource Efficiency Lancaster & Morecambe Vision Land Care Associates Midlands Architecture & the Designed Env NERC Grouped NISP Oxford Brookes University R James Chapman Architect RegenWM Resource Optimization Initiative Sheffield Wildlife Trust South East England Regional Assembly Sweett,Cyril,& Partners Ltd UK Water Industry Research Ltd University of Cambridge University of East London University of Greenwich University of Nottingham University of Worcester Urban Splash Worcester City Council Worcester Civic Society
Department:	Civil Engineering
Organisation:	University of Birmingham
Scheme:	Standard Research
Starts:	01 May 2008	Ends:	30 April 2012	Value (£):	3,148,359
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Building Ops & Management Ground Engineering Urban & Land Management Water Engineering
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Environment
Related Grants:
Panel History:	Panel Date Panel Name Outcome 07 Jun 2007 SUE 2 Interview Panel Announced
Summary on Grant Application Form
The first phase of the SUE Programme has focused necessarily on the present, assessing current solutions and their application in the near future, thus providing a strong empirical base on which to build. There now exist both the need and a sufficient body of work to extrapolate the findings to establish and test alternative urban futures: to create a variety of scenarios, building on prior and new work, and predicated on different fundamental assumptions and priorities; to assess those scenarios in terms of design, engineering implementation and measurement of performance; to refine them, in terms of mitigation and adaptation measures, incorporating novel solutions; and ultimately to provide alternative solutions with an associated evidence base and strategies for their implementation. This bid seeks to integrate the outputs of three current SUE consortia (Birmingham Eastside, VivaCity 2020 and WaND) and complementary research on the use of trees to mitigate the effects of atmospheric pollution. The team will work across disciplines to envision and establish alternative futures (using extensive literature on this subject and prior WaND consortium work) and construct scenarios that might flow from each alternative future. The various work packages will then focus on testing specific dimensions of each alternative future vis a vis their design, implementation and performance in the context of case history sites. Each project will engage an expert panel of influential stakeholders who will meet six-monthly to test and help shape new ideas, the chairs of each of the expert panels forming the higher level project steering committee. Panel consultation will be followed by interviews of stakeholders on motivations and the decision-making process, and specific empirical research and modelling. The following high level questions will be addressed via this process: - How does the ab initio conceptualization of sustainability influence design outcomes (e.g. form, density)? How would outcomes change if urban renewal were predicated on either environmental or social or economic overriding drivers? - How does development impact on its environs, and vice versa (e.g. is a 'sustainable' site good for the city / region / country and, if so, in what ways?) and is there an optimum development size to yield optimally sustainable outcomes? - Push versus pull to achieve sustainable outcomes. Much of what is done is thought good (for individuals, society, the environment), what might be wanted (push). Thus decisions are made and people must decide whether or not to take ownership. Might more sustainable outcomes follow if those who must take ownership dictate what is created (pull)? Birmingham Eastside will be used both to develop sustainability ideas and to test them on sites at various stages of planning and development (the research team has unparalleled access via its partnerships with key stakeholders involved in Eastside). Lancaster (with Morecambe, population 96k) and Worcester (94k) will be used to test the outcomes at the scale of smaller urban areas (e.g. market towns) but no attempt will be made to build comprehensive databases as at Eastside. Several other UK and international urban areas (including Sao Paulo, Singapore and an urban area in India) will be used to test a sub-set of the project's findings to assess the transferability of the scenarios to a variety of contexts and thus their general applicability.
Key Findings
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Potential use in non-academic contexts
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Impacts
Description This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk Summary Date Materialised
Sectors submitted by the Researcher
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Project URL:	http://www.urban-futures.org
Further Information:
Organisation Website:	http://www.bham.ac.uk