CEP delivering online sense-making workshops as part of the fourth annual cycle of FORENV

CEP delivering online sense-making workshops as part of the fourth annual cycle of the EU Foresight System to Detect Emerging Environmental Issues 

CEP is continuing in our role of providing the secretariat for the EU Commission’s Foresight System for the detection of emerging environmental issues (FORENV).  Now in its fourth annual cycle, FORENV is focussing on identifying and characterising emerging environmental issues due to EU and global demographic changes. 

This topic will explore what projected European and global demographic changes, such as ageing and population dynamics within and between territories, might mean for the development of key sectors (such as mobility, agriculture and food, energy) and what the implications of these developments may be for the environment. 

To deliver FORENV, CEP is working with colleagues from Milieu (Belgium), Cranfield University (UK), the German Federal Environment Agency and Vision Communication (Spain).  The work to deliver each annual cycle includes: 

• A broad scanning to compile and characterise weak signals of emerging issues for Europe’s environment. 

• The organisation and facilitation of four participatory online sense-making workshops, to identify and select ten priority emerging environmental issues related to the topic (i.e. demography). 

• The characterisation of the ten priority emerging issues to define related risks and opportunities for the environment, through an evidence review and expert discussions.  

• Preparation of a final report including infographic presentation of each emerging issue. A short video is also prepared for each cycle.   

Miro board from last year’s workshop

Preparation for this cycle’s workshops is currently underway and these will be held online on 5th and 7th April 2022.  In total around 60 experts from the Commission, academia and NGOs will participate.  Across the workshops approximately 110 ‘weak signals’ of change related to the topic will discussed, clustered and prioritised.  CEP are leading the organisation of the workshops and will moderate them with support from our partners Cranfield University, Milieu Ltd and representatives of the European Commission. 

More information together with the final reports and videos prepared to date can be found on the Commission FORENV webpages. 

For further information please contact Owen White (Technical Director) or Rolands Sadauskis (Senior Consultant). 

CEP successfully hosted Communities and FCERM workshop

CEP successfully facilitated a workshop as part of a project to develop a Communities and FCERM R&D Framework

CEP recently facilitated a one day workshop with a range of key stakeholders to consult and engage them in the development of a Communities and FCERM R&D framework. The workshop, organised by the Environment Agency, successfully took place in London on Wednesday 11th March 2020 before government recommendations around COVID-19 came into place.

CEP, in partnership with Flood Hazard Research Centre (FHRC) Middlesex University and HR Wallingford (HRW), have been commissioned by the Environment Agency (EA) to develop a Communities and FCERM R&D Framework. The primary aim of the project is to identify the main research gaps in the area of FCERM through a detailed review of the current science.

Information about the Communities and FCERM R&D framework project can be found here.

For more information, please contact Dr Clare Twigger-Ross (Project Director) or Rolands Sadauskis (Project Coordinator).

CEP LEADING EU SENSE-MAKING WORKSHOPS ON EMERGING ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

CEP TO LEAD FOUR SENSE-MAKING WORKSHOPS AS PART OF OUR ROLE AS SECRETARIAT FOR THE EU FORESIGHT SYSTEM FOR THE DETECTION OF EMERGING ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES (FORENV)

In our role of providing the secretariat for the EU Commission’s new EU Foresight System for the detection of emerging environmental issues (FORENV), CEP will be moderating four sense-making workshops.  The workshops will be held between the 29th January and 5th February 2020 in Copenhagen (Denmark), Ispra (Italy), and in Brussels (Belgium), and will bring together approximately 40 experts from the Commission, EU Member States, research institutions and the third sector.

The workshops are being organised as part of the second annual cycle of FORENV, which is running from September 2019 – September 2020, and is focusing on the topic ‘Emerging innovations in the Green economy of the future’.  Across the workshops almost 200 ‘weak signals’ of change related to this topic will be discussed, clustered and prioritised.  Each session will be run in a participatory way to engage and draw on the knowledge of participants.  CEP have led the organisation of the workshops and will be moderating them with support from our partners Cranfield University, Milieu Ltd and representatives of the European Commission.

Drawing on the workshop outcomes, up to 10 priority emerging issues will be proposed for further consideration in the next steps of the FORENV system.

For further information please contact Owen White (Technical Director) or Paula Orr (Technical Director).

CEP running EEA workshop on urban sustainability

CEP DELIVERING WORKSHOP IN COPENHAGEN TO SUPPORT EEA’S ASSESSMENT OF URBAN SUSTAINABILITY

For the first time, the European Environment Agency (EEA) will be explicitly addressing urban sustainability in the European Environment State and Outlook Report for 2020 (SOER 2020). As part of CEP's current framework contract with the EEA on forward-looking analysis, sustainability assessments and systemic transitions CEP, in partnership with LSE Cities, cChange and University of Utrecht, is undertaking a third contract to support urban sustainability assessments, building on previous contracts.

Specifically the project will deliver nexus analysis for urban sustainability assessments and  prepare a first draft of the 2020 Environmental Sustainability in Cities (ESIC) Report. Another important aim of this project is to develop an urban sustainability meta-analysis exercise of the drivers of urban sustainability transitions.

On Wednesday 26th June, CEP's Ric Eales and Rolands Sadauskis together with partners from LSE Cities are running a one-day workshop in Copenhagen involving experts form EEA and European Topic Centres to facilitate their input to the ongoing work.

For more information please contact Rolands Sadauskis (Senior Consultant).

CEP Supporting Our Bright Future Evaluation

CEP support workshop with steering group on Our Bright Future evaluation

CEP supported project lead ERS in delivering a workshop to members of the Our Bright Future Programme’s Steering Group, as part of the programme evaluation. Our Bright Future is a five year Big Lottery funded programme supporting 31 youth and environment projects across the UK.

The purpose of the session was to draw upon the views and insight of the steering group for the upcoming mid-term programme evaluation in 2019. The themes explored in the workshop, led by ERS, included a discussion on the programme outcomes, external factors influencing the programme, and programme objectives required to achieve the aspired programme legacy.

The workshop was held in the London Welsh Centre in North London on 24th October. Please contact Izzy Cotton for more information.

Workshop on Local Delivery of the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan

CEP is to hold a workshop on Partnerships and Collaborative Governance across the Environment – Economy - Health Sectors

CEP is leading a consortium that has been commissioned by Defra to explore how best to support local organisations and partnerships to work together to deliver the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan. 

Our consortium is inviting practitioners in the North of England to contribute to co-producing more effective approaches to local delivery through a workshop to be held in Leeds this autumn.

The Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan provides a guiding framework for achieving the goal of improving the environment within a generation.   This is vital to protect and enhance our environmental assets and resources and to support wider social and economic objectives. 

Local delivery is essential to the Plan’s success.  The workshop will be an opportunity for participants to share their expertise and generate proposals for improving local outcomes.

Who should attend: directors, managers and trustees of organisations working across the environment – health – economy sectors at the regional or local level; local authority planners; members of local partnerships such as Local Enterprise Partnerships, Health and Wellbeing Boards, Local Nature Partnerships and others.

Date, time and venue

The workshop will be held from 10am – 4pm at Leeds Town Hall on 02 October 2018.

The evidence and proposals generated at the workshop will inform our report to Defra on the local delivery of the 25 Year Environment Plan.

For information and registration, contact Paula Orr, Technical Director (p.orr@cep.co.uk)

The project is a collaboration between CEP, the New Economics Foundation (NEF) and the Ecosystems Knowledge Network (EKN)

CEP contributing to workshop on measuring the societal impact of network activities

CEP to lead a workshop session to map the social impacts of utility maintenance, replacement and repair activities

CEP is contributing to a workshop to examine how network operators’ utility maintenance, replacement and repair activities affect communities. CEP has designed a mapping exercise to explore the impacts caused by the same network activity in different locations.

WRc, in partnership with CEP, have been contracted by the Energy Innovation Centre, which is coordinating this project for a group of energy distribution network operators and water and wastewater companies.  The companies have commissioned this work to address the current lack of a framework for evaluating the societal impact of network activities. Network activities can include a range of activities from preventative maintenance to remediation work.

Dr Clare-Twigger Ross is CEP's project manager for this work.

CEP participates in a workshop on green infrastructure

CEP’s Špela Kolarič attended a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Knowledge Exchange workshop: What sort of green infrastructure do we want - building bridges between sCiEnce and practice

On Friday 16th February 2018, Špela Kolarič from CEP participated in a workshop titled What sort of green infrastructure do we want - building bridges between science and practice.  The workshop was organised in London as part of the NERC Green Infrastructure Knowledge Exchange Fellowship, Mainstreaming Green Infrastructure (led by Professor Alister Scott).

The workshop involved academic researchers, policymakers, and practitioners working in the field of green infrastructure and nature based solutions.  The aim of the workshop was to try to break new ground on how researchers, policy-makers and practitioners can better engage with each other in order to influence and encourage implementation of quality green infrastructure.  Špela participated in a discussion group related to “making a business case for green infrastructure and nature based solutions" and presented CEP’s recent work in this area, including assessing the knowledge base on society’s dependence on natural capital for the European Environment Agency, a project which has sought to identify evidence on the (monetary) quantification of (co-)benefits of green infrastructure and nature based solutions

For more information on CEP’s work in the area of natural capital, green infrastructure and nature based solutions please contact Peter Phillips or Ric Eales.

CEP ran workshop on global megatrends in Slovenia

CEP delivered workshop in Slovenia exploring the implications of global megatrends for the state of environment in Slovenia

CEP led an expert workshop in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on 7th November 2017, as part of the project Influence of global megatrends on the state of environment in Slovenia. The work was undertaken for the Slovenian Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning, and the Slovenian Environment Agency.

The workshop brought together 28 experts in a scoping exercise intended to identify and prioritise the implications of global megatrends (GMTs), as analysed by the European Environment Agency in their European Environment State and Outlook Report (SOER) 2015. The workshop in Slovenia focused on two GMTs: GMT 7 (intensified global competition for resources), and GMT 9 (increasingly severe consequences of climate change). The implications identified were assessed in terms of the likelihood of their occurrence, the magnitude of their effect and the timescale over which they may occur.

The outputs of this workshop will inform a following second workshop to be held in 2018 as part of this project that will focus on the risks and opportunities for the state of environment in Slovenia arising from the GMT implications identified, and any existing policy gaps and needs.

CEP is leading the work related to global megatrends, adapting and implementing a method toolkit previously developed (by CEP) for the European Environment Agency.

Please contact Rolands Sadauskis (Project Manager) for further information on the project. CEP's Owen White is the Project Director.

CEP at CECAN Workshop on increasing the impact of policy evaluation

CEP at CECAN Workshop on increasing the impact of policy evaluation

CEP participated in a workshop organised by CECAN to explore how evaluation practice can become more impactful in the future. The workshop 'Increasing Impact of Policy Evaluation in Complex Settings – What Works?' took place on 5 September 2017 in London. It sought to:

1. share recent experience on successful evaluation impact in complex nexus policy areas
2. share expertise in maximising the impact of evaluation in these policy settings
3. generate practical recommendations for policymakers, analysts and evaluators
4. generate ideas for focussing future R&D in this area
5. produce a policy note on how evaluation practice can become more impactful in future

CEP's  Dr Clare Twigger-Ross discussed the impact of CEP's evaluation of Defra's Flood Resilience Community Pathfinder.

Further details of the workshop can be found here.

CEP leading workshop on the implications of global megatrends in the Western Balkans

Photo credit: 'Belgrade bridges' by mcveja on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

CEP leading workshop in exploring the implications of global megatrends in the Western Balkans

CEP is leading a workshop on the “Implications of global megatrends in the Western Balkans region: Assessment of risks and opportunities, policy links and gaps” which will be held on 7-8 September 2017 in Belgrade, Serbia. This workshop is the second of two regional workshops held as part of the project Water Use in the Western Balkans: regional outlooks and global megatrends which is being delivered by CEP in collaboration with the European Topic Centre on Inland, Coastal and Marine Waters for the European Environment Agency.

The workshop will bring together regional experts to discuss risks and opportunities for the region and Western Balkans countries arising from global megatrend implications identified through the project scoping workshop held in April 2017.

This workshop will generate the following outcomes:

• A list of potential risks and opportunities each global megatrend implication presents for the region.
• An initial assessment of the likelihood of potential risks and opportunities, their extent and time-frames.
• Identifying existing policies or strategies that relate to the risks or opportunities, and any new policies or changes needed for managing risks and maximising opportunities.

For further information contact CEP's Project Manager Owen White.

CEP ran workshop on global megatrends and the Western Balkans

Photo credit: 'Ljubljana' by Miran Hojnik on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

CEP delivered workshop in Slovenia exploring the implications of global megatrends for the Western Balkans

CEP led an expert workshop in Ljubljana, Slovenia on 10/11 April 2017, as part of the project Water Use in the Western Balkans: regional outlooks and global megatrends undertaken for the European Environment Agency (EEA).

The workshop brought together 21 regional experts and stakeholders in a scoping exercise intended to identify and prioritise the implications of global megatrends (GMTs) for the Western Balkans region related to the water-food-energy nexus. The implications identified were assessed in terms of the likelihood of their occurrence, the magnitude of their effect and the timescale over which they may occur.

The outputs of this workshop will inform a second regional workshop to be held as part of this project that will focus on the risks and opportunities for the Western Balkans region arising from the GMT implications identified and any existing policy gaps and needs.

CEP is leading the work related to global megatrends, adapting and implementing a method toolkit previously developed (by CEP) for the European Environment Agency.

CEP commissioned to explore the implications of global megatrends for the Western Balkans

Photo credit: Lakes and woodland in Montenegro (201408_balcani_714) by Franco Pecchio on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

CEP IS PART OF A TEAM DEVELOPING WATER USE SCENARIOS AND ASSESSING THE IMPLICATIONS OF GLOBAL MEGATRENDS FOR THE WESTERN BALKANS REGION

CEP is a part of a team commissioned by the European Environment Agency (EEA) to undertake a study: Water Use in the Western Balkans: regional outlooks and global megatrends*. The team is led by the European Topic Center on Inland, Coastal and Marine Waters (ETC/ICM), which is managed by the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research.

The project has two main tasks: developing regional water-use scenarios; and identifying and assessing the implications of global megatrends for the Western Balkans region. CEP is leading the work related to global megatrends, which will involve adapting and implementing a methodology and toolkit previously developed by CEP.

CEP's work will involve: undertaking desk-based research and assessment of how global megatrends might impact on the Western Balkans, focussing in particular on the nexus of water, energy and food; organising and facilitating regional expert workshops to discuss potential impacts and assess risks and opportunities for the environment and environmental policy in the region; and, preparing outputs to be published by the EEA.

Owen White is CEP’s lead for this project.

* For more information on megatrends see here

CEP leading session at Health & Social Benefits of Nature Workshop

HEALTH & SOCIAL BENEFITS OF NATURE AND BIODIVERSITY PROTECTION WORKSHOP

As part of the consortium undertaking a study for the European Commission, led by IEEP,  CEP will participate in a workshop dedicated to understanding the health and social benefits of nature and biodiversity protection.

The two-day workshop will explore the latest scientific evidence and practical real world examples of how nature and biodiversity can help improving public health and social cohesion. The event will bring together the health, social and environmental communities from research, policy and practice. This workshop will  include high-level representatives from the WHO, European Commission, Parliament and Council, country, regional and city level actors as well as think tanks, NGOs and academia. The participants will develop collectively a roadmap to exploit the synergies and interdependence between public health, society and nature.

The workshop is hosted by the Committee of the Regions and will take place in Brussels on 27 and 28 of January 2016. Attendance is by invitation only.

Clare Twigger-Ross representing the CEP project team will be leading the session on the 27th January "Social Benefits: social inclusion, sense of place, engagement and employment". She will be giving a short overview and then chairing a number of case studies.  She is also facilitating a session on the role of civil society in facilitating links between nature, health, wellbeing and social cohesion.