Future Bristol website is award-winning!

The 'Future Bristol' website has only been live a month but has already won several accolades! These include: 

• CSS Design Award: winner 24th February 2013 ("a living archive of the world's greatest websites and an inspirational showcase celebrating emerging talent.")
• 'Smashing Award' ("for design, creativity and innovation on the Internet, which recognize and promote the best web, flash, print, logo designers in the world.")
• Nominee for best website by Awwward ("recognition & prestige for web designers")
• Special mention in the online magazine Abduzeedo's 'sites of the week'. 

'Future Bristol' has also been featured online by The Ecologist Magazine, the Institution of Environmental Sciences, and used as a case study for online public engagement by Delib. 

Rose has also lectured on her use of creative, digital and social media for public engagement to UWE students, presented the project at a recent seminar at UWE on 'Achieving Energy Efficiency' with guest speaker Pat Murray from the New Zealand government, and visited a local primary school to explore their visions and concerns for Future Bristol.

Congratulations to Rose on successful SPUR5 application

Rose has been successful in winning a SPUR5 grant from UWE for her project entitled "‘Future Bristol’: exploring public views on low carbon futures through art and digital media". This project builds on current public engagement work via the recently launched website www.futurebristol.co.uk

The interactive website was created with the support of the Institution of Environmental Sciences, Bristol City Council and the Bristol Green Capital Partnership. The two scenarios depicted on the site are based on the results of Rose's PhD, which explored possible low carbon futures for the Bristol region in 2050.

This research project, starting in August, seeks to understand how the public perceives, comprehends and engages with the notion of Bristol as a low carbon city in 2050, by exploring responses to the scenarios and website, and aims to answer the following research questions:

• How do different groups engage with and respond to alternative visions for a low carbon future?
• Which options and features of low carbon futures are popular/unpopular? What additional ideas are elicited by the public engagement process
•  Are creative media and web tools effective for engaging and communicating low carbon futures?

Rose will be using the results of this research to support a bid to the ESRC Knowledge Exchange Opportunities Scheme later in the year to further develop research and engagement activity in Bristol around low carbon futures.

'Future Bristol' website launched!

The 'Future Bristol' website has launched!

'Future Bristol' is an interactive website aimed at engaging the public with the concept of Bristol as a low carbon city in 2050. It presents two alternative possible scenarios for the city in 2050, developed through a large Delphi consultation with key stakeholders in the Bristol region as part of Rose's PhD research. Visitors to the site are encouraged to explore the two scenarios, cast their votes on different features of each, and have their say by joining the discussion on the Dialogue page.

Thanks to the 2012 John Rose Award grant from the Institution of Environmental Sciences, and with additional support from Bristol City Council and Green Capital Partnership, Rose was able to commission illustrations of the two scenarios and an interactive website to allow the results of her research to be communicated in an accessible, engaging and user-friendly way. 

The 'Future Bristol' website also forms a key part of the public engagement and communications strategy for Bristol's 2015 European Green Capital bid, and will be developed into a larger research project over the next year.

Go online, explore and have your say!

Funding success for 2050 Low Carbon Bristol public engagement project

Rose's 2050 Low Carbon Bristol public engagement project is gaining momentum as more funding is secured to support communication activities and a further research bid.

Rose was the 2012 winner of the IES 'John Rose Award', to communicate the result of postgraduate research to the general public. Rose commissioned local street artist Andy Council to produce two visual representations of the future low carbon scenarios for Bristol from her PhD research. 

Scenario X (left) and Scenario Y (right)
©Andy Council 2012

Rose will be using these images as the basis of a public consultation and 'Dialogue' with the public, using an app from local digital democracy company Delib, and has now secured additional support and £2000 funding from the Green Capital Partnership's Community Challenge Fund to design and build some new interactive webpages as part of their redesigned website. 

Rose also yesterday secured a further £3500 of HEAT@UWE bidding funding, to support the development of a bid for external funding for an interdisciplinary research project. This will allow Rose to extend this initial phase of communication and engagement work into a larger and research project.

Visualising Bristol's low carbon futures: John Rose Award public engagement project underway

Thanks to the 2012 John Rose Award grant from the Institution of Environmental Sciences and support from Bristol City Council, Rose's low carbon Bristol public engagement art project is under way.
Rose's PhD research consulted a large group of key local stakeholders about how Bristol might meet it's 80% carbon reduction target in 2050, producing 2 different scenarios for the city. To communicate the results in an engaging way to the Bristol public, Rose is working with local street artist Andy Council to produce visual interpretations of these two difference scenarios. The public will then be able to submit their thoughts and ideas on Bristol's low carbon future through local digital democracy company Delib's 'Dialogue app'.
The first sketches of the two scenarios have been finished, with the final images coming soon. Watch this space for the opportunity to have your say!

"Scenario X": a globalised, high-tech big-tech, 'low carbon business as usual' future

"Scenario Y": a re-localised, high-tech small-tech, 'resilient restructured community' future

Rose wins the 2012 John Rose Award from the Institution of Environmental Sciences

Rose has been announced as the 2012 winner of the John Rose Award from the Institution of Environmental Sciences, for her research exploring the low carbon futures for the Bristol region. The award aims to help exceptional research fulfil its potential by communicating it beyond the scientific community. A £1,000 grant is awarded to a project that demonstrates innovative, quality research in environmental sciences. The grant will be used for media training and the dissemination of the winner’s project, aiding in promoting the work as widely as possible and so maximise its value.

Rose intends to use the grant, with support from project partners Bristol City Council and in collaboration with the Create Centre, to produce an exhibition of her work, and hopes to collaborate with UWE's award winning animation department to produce an animation of life in 2050 low carbon Bristol!

More information on the award can be found here: http://www.ies-uk.org.uk/awards/awards.php

More information on Rose and her research can be found here: http://www.uwe.ac.uk/aqm/rose.html

Introduction to Air Pollution training day success

Attendees at last Friday's 'Introduction to Air Pollution' training day reported very positive feedback, commenting that the course gave "a very good introduction" and "both the food and venue were of a high quality". The course covered, sources and effects of air pollution, chemistry and meteorology.

This was just one of a series of one-day IAQM and IES accredited CPD courses run by the Air Quality Management Resource Centre at UWE, Bristol. Further details of other courses in the series are available on the AQMRC website. Click here to register your interest or book online. Book three or more courses and get 15% discount!

Please note that the next session will be Introduction to Local Air Quality Management on 14th January (Introduction to Carbon Management has been postponed to 8th February).

The John Rose Award and Non-Exhaust Emissions - calling all postgrads - applications welcome

Atmospheric particle pollution has been linked to a number of health issues and is thought to be directly responsible for a reduction in the life expectancy of a person living in the UK by an average of 7-8 months. Road transport is a major source of atmospheric particle emissions, particularly within urban areas. Current legislation has only focused on reducing emissions from the exhaust pipe of vehicles. New studies have shown that other unregulated vehicle-related emissions, such as non-exhaust emissions, can equal or surpass exhaust contributions.

The winner of the John Rose Award 2008 from the Institution of Environmental Sciences (IES) was Samantha Lawrence, for her PhD research on non-exhaust particles. Samantha Lawrence has used the £1000 grant to publicise her work on non-exhaust emissions and to launch a campaign to encourage the Government to create appropriate legislation to control non-exhaust emissions. As part of this campaign, a Government e-petition has been created. You can add your name to the petition at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/non-exhaust/.

In collaboration with the IES, Samantha has also created an exciting new website with information on her research, interactive features and learning resources. Please visit www.ies-uk.org.uk/non-exhaust.

The IES hosts the John Rose Award every year to reward outstanding pieces of environmental post-graduate research, which have the potential to motivate people and facilitate environmental improvement. The £1000 grant is used to publicise the results of the work to the general public.

We are pleased to announce that applications for the 2009 John Rose Award are now welcome. The applicant must have completed, or be in the writing-up stages of a postgraduate piece of work that can contribute to positive environmental change. Upon winning the Award, applicants will receive £1000 to promote their research to the public, along with the chance to speak at the prestigous Burntwood Lecture to an audience of scientists and environmental professionals. The Award will be officially presented by Paul Leinster, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency at the 2009 Burntwood Lecture on 11th November at the Royal Society in London.

Please visit http://www.ies-uk.org.uk/awards/awards.php for more information and to apply. The closing date for applications is 2nd October 2009.