Project Description
The project is jointly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Academy for Sustainable Communities (ASC) Targeted Research Initiative on Skills and Knowledge for Sustainable Communities. The Academy of Sustainable Communities (ASC) definition of ‘sustainable communities’ is:
"communities which balance economic, social and environmental considerations. They are communities which are thriving, socially cohesive, well planned and designed with good level services and a good environment. They are places where people are proud to live and work and to bring up their families".
These various components of sustainable communities are illustrated in the below diagram:
Source: Academy of Sustainable Communities
Aims and Objectives:
Whilst there has been a substantial amount of research on the need for a variety of skills for communities pursuing sustainability objectives, to date, current research tends to focus on skills gained through formal means rather than through lived experiences or ‘learning by doing’. Moreover, existing research is characterised by a lack of in-depth empirical data on skills in the context of creating and maintaining sustainable communities. As such, the overarching aim of this research was to develop an interactive approach to better understand how communities can make progress towards sustainability. The study included the following three principal aims:
1. Explore how communities can be engaged and motivated to participate in developing strategies, actions and activities at the community level in relation to key sustainability issues of energy, food, the home, transport and community engagement
2. Examine the demands likely to be placed on existing skills and knowledge base of people and organisations to make progress towards sustainability and how these demands can be identified, managed and effectively addressed.
3. Address how communities can identify their current patterns of skills and knowledge in relation to specific sustainability issues, and how communities can be best supported to ask the right questions to determine their future sustainability requirements.
A key aspect of the research involved developing an interrogative model to assist communities, policymakers and practitioners to identify those skills and knowledge required to make progress towards sustainability.
