This application is for four years transitional funding, following five years initial funding from ESRC and AHRC (with Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF)). The UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE) was set up to be a housing evidence centre, drawing on a range of social sciences disciplines. The original housing priority was a recognition of multiple policy and practice needs for rigorous evidence. The ongoing need for CaCHE's strategic evidence and research arises from ongoing and newly arising problems, often termed the 'housing crisis'. CaCHE will retain its "hub and spoke" network with its administrative core in Glasgow and a physical presence in all 5 sub-national knowledge exchange hubs in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales & the South West, the North & Midlands, and London, East & South East. The Centre's work will now be more focused and organised around four (not 7) themes (economy, environment, inequalities and place). The management team will be responsible for overall strategy, operational delivery, co- ordination, data navigation, research and KE. Meeting monthly, the executive team of three academics (Gibb, Watkins and White) will be supplemented by a senior non-academic lead on knowledge exchange and communications (Williamson), plus a full-time programme manager, KE and communications, and administrative support staff. A wider management team will meet at least every three months and involve theme and cross cutting work strand leads as well (Marsh, Stephens, Orford, Payne, Leishman, Robinson, Preece, O'Brien and Ambrose).There will be further CI input into themes by Blair, Munro, and Serin. CaCHE will remain accountable to a funders group and an international advisory board (as well as reporting annually to the key Research Organisations). The main consortium members are the Universities of Glasgow and Sheffield, plus the Chartered Institute of Housing. There are also contributions from the Universities of Bristol, Cardiff, Sheffield Hallam, Ulster and South Australia. The consortium has a lengthy list of institutional and individual collaborators at regional and national level and our activity will be supported 'in kind' and by direct contributions working through the KE Hub structure including Crisis, Centre for Homelessness Impact and HQN and several more. Our consortium also has specific project plans with complementary ESRC investments: e.g. Urban Big Data Centre, CDRC, White Rose Social Sciences DTP The programme of work proposed for CaCHE2 combines what worked well in CacHE1 as well as lessons learned, alongside a refreshed agenda reflecting housing system developments since 2017. It is also takes account of the implications of transitional funding for what was a large consortium. CaCHE2 is necessarily smaller in breadth and participants but also is more focused in terms of themes and work packages. This places an additional premium on the relevance and significance of those work priorities. CaCHE2 also embraces the strategic commitment research organisations are providing for the team and seeking therefore to develop a sustainable funding model by prioritising new external partnership and leveraged agile bidding for new responsive and proactive research opportunities that cohere with CaCHE's fundamental aims. In all of the work CaCHE2 will seek to continue to maximise the social and economic impact that the work has for research users. It does this by both refocusing on specific project impact plans and established CaCHE networking and communications, but additionally continuing with successful KE programmes such as the Policy Fellows scheme, the PhD summer school and a greater emphasis on policy and practice briefings, blogging, video and podcasts.

This Project is related to the EU Dir 89/48/EWG on regulated professions in respect of recognition, promotion and certification of qualifications by international association and organization – from construction. The main task of the project is to improve Directive's ideas, which will lead to creation of proper EU system of comparison, certification and mutual recognition of managerial qualifications in construction. Profile of construction managers’ education, responsible for cooperation in the field of construction in the EU, developed differently in different countries. Project is the continuation of the finished LdV CLOEMC I (PL/06/B/F/PP/174014, set of 7 created manuals. That project created first 7 books for Construction Managers’ Library. CLOEMC I manuals are commercially published on PL market, in respond to demand from construction engineers. Second set of next 6 manuals was written in the CLOEMC II project (finished in December 2011 – project No: 2009-1-PL1-LEO05-05016). Third set of 6 new manuals was written in the CLOEMC III project (finished in February 2014 – project No: 2011-1-PL1-LEO05-19888).This Project foreseen creation of six new manuals for Construction Managers Library: Revitalisation and refurbishment in Construction; Building Information Modeling – BIM; Optimisation of Construction Processes; Diversity Management in Construction; Structural Mechanics for Construction Managers; Corporate Social Responsibility in Construction. Appearance on the European market of Construction Manager Library, containing full compendium of managerial knowledge in construction will promote a social dialogue, concerning adjustment of education profile for the needs of labour market.In order to decrease unemployment and increase level of managerial knowledge in construction, there is a need to educate people having qualifications and competence to run a business, which will in the end increase employment.Therefore, after project’s completion it is planned to improve postgraduate complementary courses in management, which will allow certification and assure recognition of competence according to agreed European policy concerning promotion of transparency of qualification (EuroPass), in the form of title EurBE (European Building Expert).Partners in the project (universities: WUT, DARM and RU) got experience in preparation of didactic materials for different types of courses, as well as informal learning. Professional associations (AEEBC, PSMB and CIOB) got experience in recognition of qualifications in construction and certification of managers, including EurBE card. One of the partners, AWBUD is a construction company which add industrial flavor to the project. Project will start with preparation of website and first dissemination materials. Then content related contents of each manual will be created and tested with use of multiplier events E1-E5. After improvements of content related contents first draft of text will be prepared and tested with multiplier events E6-E10. Results of the testing will be taken under consideration and final texts in English will be prepared (and proofread). Then manuals will be translated to Polish, Icelandic and German, printed and burned on CD or DVD and uploaded to internet as open source. Project will be summarized by final international conference - multiplier event E11 in Warsaw.The project will contribute to the following changes in national vocational training and practices, as added value:• Full base of didactical modules and manuals will be created, allowing to recognize qualifications and will lead to managerial education in construction,• Creation of manuals will promote social dialogue, concerning a need of adjusting education system to the needs of European labour market in construction,• Project will create a possibility and opportunity to launch postgraduate complementary courses for construction managers, in order to certify and recognize their qualification,• The project will ensure construction managers recognition of their qualifications by international network of professional association such as CIOB, PSMB, AEEBC – gathering European organizations of managers in construction.- Uniformisation of the construction managers education in EU,- Facilitation of construction engineers mobility by recognition of their education in across EU,- Better quality management of present construction investment projects (especially EU funded infrastructure projects),- Better absorption of EU funds in Partners countries,- Decreasing the cost of the projects, better possibility of savings in the projects (especially nowadays, during present financial crisis),- Increasing the status of managers in construction.- via creation of e-learning mode of courses on the base of the manuals project will facilitate access to the education for disabled persons as well as for busy engineers from construction industry.

There are approximately 10-12 million Roma, Gypsies and Travellers in Europe; comprising the largest ethnic minority group in the continent. The Council of Europe estimates that 300,000 Gypsies and Travellers reside in Britain; approximately 26% live on unauthorised sites, effectively homeless (a vivid recent example of the impact of unauthorised sites was at Dale Farm). Gypsies and Travellers have poor education and health outcomes (Cemlyn et. al, 2009 and Van Cleemput, 2004) and there are challenges in relation to employment (Greenfields and Ryder, 2010). They are one of the most marginalised groups in media and political debate (Richardson, 2006) and this can have an impact on planning for sites (Richardson, 2007). This social exclusion of Gypsies and Travellers has been compounded by poor access to services, a lack of political power and exclusion from decision making processes. There are also challenges ahead with the Localism Bill and changes to the National Planning Policy Framework in England that could further impact on the ability to make a place for Gypsies and Travellers (Richardson and Ryder, 2012 forthcoming). These challenges need proper debate on a multidisciplinary level with academics, practitioners, policy makers and Gypsies and Travellers themselves. This proposal makes a place for this debate through a series of three two-day seminars. The team of investigators are building upon existing working relationships through previous research projects on accommodation needs (Cemlyn, Greenfields and Richardson), proposals to examine mediation in access to healthcare (Richardson and Van Cleemput), examination of cross-cutting issues through contribution to forthcoming publication edited by Richardson and Ryder (forthcoming 2012). An initial seminar and meeting with a range of academics was held on 25th October at Buckinghamshire New University to discuss the seminar series proposal and to establish roots for this emerging research group. Whilst there are good links between a small number of academics studying Gypsy and Traveller issues, the proposal seeks ESRC funding to allow a larger, multi-disciplinary group to grow and to establish a platform for future research to help inform policy and practice. Each of the seminars will be a space for academics (including those at an early stage in their career), practitioners, policy makers, community members, Roma, Gypsy and Traveller representative organisations and politicians to come together to discuss cross-cutting, multi-disciplinary themes and ideas. The three seminars will look at: (1)Conflict in space and place (accommodation and planning issues) (2)Conflict in welfare and public service delivery (health, education, employment, social policy and policing issues) (3)Conflict in representation (political and media discourse; analysis of conflict resolution approaches) Within the three broad topic areas there will be a range of issues viewed through a central problem: How can we help provide tools to local communities and authorities to resolve conflict to enable provision of accommodation, health services, education and fairness in public debate? Conceptual questions in conflict, social inclusion and community cohesion theories will also be raised to explore issues. Whilst the seminar series is focused on Gypsies and Travellers, there will be ideas of relevance to other marginalised groups in society, and indeed other 'wicked' problems for local authorities in contentious planning and service delivery more generally. In addition to the 'End of Award' and 'Impact' reports, outputs from each of the three seminars will provide material for draft academic journal articles, as well as 'easy to read' reports for Roma, Gypsy and Traveller community members, policy makers, practitioners and other interested organisations; the pathways to impact statement also describes immediate online methods of disseminating ideas during the course of the seminar series.

Challenging the lock-in of the current centralised UK energy system is essential to delivering the deep carbon cuts required over the period to 2050 to moderate climate change. Decentralised energy initiatives are currently being promoted, increasingly within the urban locations where the majority of the population and economic activity is located. Such decentralisation of energy infrastructure and associated decarbonisation initiatives would considerably change the nature of urban environments to 2050. But, to date, the research emphasis has been on identifying and transferring best practice from project to project without consideration of the limits to decentralisation, the implications for interconnected energy systems and the overall impact on urban areas. There is an urgent need to understand the implications of these decentralisation initiatives from the point of view of energy systems at different scales - urban, regional and national - and in terms of the overall sustainability of future change within urban areas. This involves considering how far such decentralisation could be pursued and what the carbon and other impacts would be. This project, therefore, takes a much-needed critical look at the scope for challenging lock-in through urban energy initiatives. Such energy initiatives are understood to include a combination of decentralised technologies for energy generation with strategies for energy and carbon reduction operating at different scales within urban areas. It will examine the range and types of urban energy systems that could be put in place from an international review and it will consider the issues raised by the need for such initiatives within the UK to integrate with energy systems at urban, regional and national scales in order to deliver energy and carbon reductions effectively. This will be explored through UK implementation studies and examination of innovative initiatives as yet untried in the UK context. The context will be scenario development to 2050 based on existing Foresight scenarios on energy management and the built environment. The project will then undertake a scaling-up exercise to consider the potential contribution to national carbon reduction of aggregating up individual urban energy initiatives. This will involve analysis of the extent to which such initiatives could be rolled out across the country and their carbon impact, given different mixes of energy technologies and carbon reduction strategies. The scaling up exercise will also consider the implications for future urban change using the developed 2050 scenarios. The result will be a critical assessment of future change in urban areas as a result of energy decentralisation and, therefore, the potential contribution of energy inititives within urban areas to carbon reductions at a national scale and urban sustainability to 2050.

This innovative interdisciplinary project aims to develop an easy-to-use, evidence-based resource which can be used in decision-making in drought risk management. To achieve this, we will bring together information from drought science and scenario-modelling (using mathematical models to forecast the impacts of drought) with stakeholder engagement and narrative storytelling. While previous drought impact studies have often focused on using mathematical modelling, this project is very different. The project will integrate arts, humanities and social science research methods, with hydrological, meteorological, agricultural and ecological science knowledge through multi-partner collaboration. Seven case study catchments (areas linked by a common water resource) in England, Wales and Scotland will be selected to reflect the hydrological, socio-economic and cultural contrasts in the UK. Study of drought impacts will take place at different scales - from small plot experiments to local catchment scale. Citizen science and stakeholder engagement with plot experiments in urban and rural areas will be used as stimuli for conversations about drought risk and its mitigation. The project will: (i) investigate different stakeholder perceptions of when drought occurs and action is needed; (ii) examine how water level and temperature affect drought perception; (iii) explore the impact of policy decisions on drought management; (iv) consider water users' behaviours which lead to adverse drought impacts on people and ecosystems and; (v) evaluate water-use conflicts, synergies and trade-offs, drawing on previous drought experiences and community knowledge. The project spans a range of sectors including water supply; health, business, agriculture/horticulture, built environment, extractive industries and ecosystem services, within 7 case-study catchments. Through a storytelling approach, scientists will exchange cutting edge science with different drought stakeholders, and these stakeholders will, in turn, exchange their knowledge. Stakeholders include those in: construction; gardeners and allotment holders; small and large businesses; local authorities; emergency planners; recreational water users; biodiversity managers; public health professionals - both physical and mental health; and local communities/public. The stakeholder meetings will capture various data including: - different stakeholder perceptions of drought and its causes - local knowledge around drought onset and strategies for mitigation (e.g. attitudes to water saving, responses to reduced water availability) - insights into how to live with drought and increase individual/community drought resilience - the impact of alternating floods and droughts The information will be shared within, and between, stakeholder groups in the case-studies and beyond using social media. This information will be analysed, and integrated with drought science to develop an innovative web-based decision-making utility. These data will feedback into the drought modelling and future scenario building with a view to exploring a variety of policy options. This will help ascertain present and future water resources availability, focusing on past, present and future drought periods across N-S and W-E climatic gradients. The project will be as far as possible be 'open science' - maintaining open, real-time access to research questions, data, results, methodologies, narratives, publications and other outputs via the project website, updated as the project progresses. Project outputs will include: the decision-making support utility incorporating science-narrative resources; hydrological models for the 7 case-study catchments; a social media web-platform to share project resources; a database of species responses/management options to mitigate drought/post-drought recovery at different scales, and management guidelines on coping with drought/water scarcity at different scales.