Community Research Fora programme reports available

One of the main aims of the Engineering Exchange is connecting with groups in London who are interested in improving their communities. To help us do this, the EngEx holds periodic community research forum events. These events provide an opportunity to share knowledge and catalyse projects on topics related to our work and that we think will be of interest to London communities.

These events thus engage relevant specialists from UCL’s Faculty of Engineering and Bartlett School of Planning and Architecture. London-based groups wanting input into various technical or scientific aspects of projects relevant to the events’ theme are invited to participate. Participants then form teams and pitch project ideas for funding and other research support.

In 2015/16, we held three community research forum events, with funding from the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Ingenious public engagement awards. These events’ topics included: ‘Smart, Sustainable London’ looking at city-scale technologies for increasing energy efficiency; ‘Healthy Ageing and Wellbeing’ looking at responses to age-related ailments; and ‘Transport, Pollution and Big Data’, looking at how large data sets can contribute to the reduction of pollution resulting from London’s transport systems.

Then in 2017, we held an additional forum on the topic Green Infrastructure, with funding from the Natural Environment Resource Council’s (NERC) bid ‘Engaging the UK public with the big issues of environmental science’.

Please keep an eye on our Projects and News pages for updates.

Resources

We produced a series of video interviews related to some of the issues covered in the community research forum events. Our forum facilitator, the London Sustainability Exchange (LSx), also produced a series of event reports for each forum. The reports detail the agendas, project pitches and participant feedback from the events. You can read the event reports here:

28-02-2017 Green Infrastructure in London forum report
29-02-2016 Smart, Sustainable London forum report
22-02-2016 Healthy Ageing and Wellbeing forum report
13-10-2015 Transport, Pollution and Big Data forum report