Clare Twigger-Ross at Flood Management Conference

CEP's Dr Clare Twigger-Ross presented at the 7th International Conference on Flood Management in Leeds

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross presented a paper at the 7th International Conference on Flood Management, Leeds on 6th September: Catalysts for transformative resilience to flooding? The role of community volunteers.

The paper was part of a special session on Local Scale Approaches to community flood resilience chaired by Dr. Jessica Lamond (University of the West of England) and co-authored with Paula Orr, Katya Brooks and Rolands Sadauskis, and drew on data collected for the Defra Flood Resilience Community Pathfinder (FRCP) evaluation (report can be found here).  The slides from the session can be found here.

CEP's Dr Clare Twigger-Ross awarded CECAN Fellowship

Photo credit: 'jigsaw puzzle pieces' by Electric-Eye on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

CEP's Dr Clare Twigger-Ross awarded CECAN Fellowship

CEP's Dr Clare Twigger-Ross has been awarded a Fellowship by the Centre for the Evaluation of Complexity Across the Nexus (CECAN) Investigating the value of qualitative comparative analysis in relation to the Defra Flood Resilience Community Pathfinder (FRCP) evaluation. Building on the Defra FRCP evaluation undertaken by CEP (2013 - 2015), this study aims to identify key factors that predict improved community resilience.

The key evaluation challenge for this study will be the attribution of causality in the context of community resilience to flooding. A key methodological development will be testing qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) in a novel (flooding) complex evaluation situation to examine its feasibility for similar situations, and to assess the aspects of QCA of most use to this type of evaluation.

This is expected to raise key complexity issues in evaluation, which have been recently explored in CEP's project for CECAN Learning lessons for evaluating complexity at the nexus: a meta-evaluation of CEP projects. The findings of this project will become available on the CECAN website in the coming months.

CEP to evaluate Big Lottery Fund's Our Bright Future Programme

Photo credit: 'Blazin Sun' by Stephen Bowler on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

CEP and partners ERS to evaluate Big Lottery Fund's Our Bright Future Programme

CEP, with partners Economic Research Services (ERS), are undertaking the evaluation of the Our Bright Future Programme. The Our Bright Future Programme aims to empower young people to lead progressive change in their communities and local environment, through a portfolio of 31 projects across the UK, each with a duration of three to five years. The Programme is supported by £33 million of funding from the Big Lottery Fund, and is managed by a consortium of eight organisations led by The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts. 

The supported projects range in scale from those with a local focus to national level delivering in multiple areas. All the projects are based around key themes including: environmental action, environmental campaigning, leadership and influencing, and sustainable enterprises and vocational training.

CEP and ERS have been commissioned by the Royal Society of  Wildlife Trusts to undertake the Programme level evaluation. The evaluation aims to:

• Test whether the Our Bright Future Programme has achieved its long term ambitions
• Provide better evidence on how young people can improve their local environment
• Test and evidence whether a partnership way of working that invests in human, social and natural capital, is an effective means by which to deliver greater impact
• Identify good practice and ongoing improvements

Owen White is CEP’s lead for this project.

CEP's review of Flood Awareness Wales published

Photo credit: 'Flooded Esplanade' by Ben Salter on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Natural Resources Wales published CEP's review of Flood Awareness Wales

CEP was commissioned by Natural Resources Wales (NRW) to carry out a review of the community engagement element of the Flood Awareness Wales (FAW) programme.

The FAW programme was developed by Welsh Government and Environment Agency Wales (now NRW) in 2010 to contribute to the delivery of flood and coastal erosion risk management objectives by raising awareness and increasing the preparedness of communities.

The main aims of the evaluation were to assess the effectiveness of current approaches to community engagement; and to review local, national and international best practice in order to provide evidence and recommendations for future practice to increase community flood resilience in Wales. 

The Executive Summary, presenting the findings of the evidence review, is available on NRW's website. For a full copy of the report please email NRW at: Floodawareness.wales@cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross at Winter Flood Project findings launch event

Image 'The Somerset Levels' by Nick (CC BY 2.0)

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross to participate in panel discussion on floods, adaptation and community

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross will take part in a panel discussion in an event launching the findings for the Winter Floods Project, undertaken at the Exeter University.

The Winter Floods Project examined how perceptions of the problems and solutions evolved during the year following the floods that occurred over the winter of 2013/14, in order to better understand how longer term policy responses occurs at local and national scales.  The project also investigated individual and community resilience after flood events to identify how flood events impact well-being and quality of life.

The event will present the project’s key findings, followed by a panel discussion on the theme of 'floods, adaptation, and community' with academic and policy contributors. 

The event will take place on 8th June 2016 at the Royal Geographical Society, London between 13:30 and 17:30.

If you would like to attend please use this link to register for a place.