MPA Group and Individual Project

Title: Evaluation and Enablement of NDCs SDGs Alignment in Kenya for Synergised Climate and Development Discourse  

Partner organisation: United Nations Development Program 

UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Yacob Mulugetta 

Abstract: This report examines how Kenya’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) align with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) using the SDG Climate Action Nexus (SCAN) Tool. The study maps seven low-carbon energy technologies across relevant SDG targets through triangulated mapping processes including original SCAN mapping, stakeholder insights and AI-assisted evidence review. 

The findings show that most technologies, especially solar PV and geothermal, generate strong synergies with SDGs related to energy access, employment, and industrialisation. However, technologies such as wind and large hydro raise more trade-offs around land, water, and equity. Stakeholders confirmed the strategic value of these interventions but pointed to gaps in affordability, access, and local benefit-sharing. Taken together, the study indicates that the NDC goal of universal access to affordable and reliable energy is well positioned to advance multiple SDGs, though in ways that differ across technologies. 

To probe these dynamics more deeply, the study compared three mapping methods: original SCAN, AI-assisted, and stakeholder-informed, revealed both overlaps and tensions. This comparison revealed both complementarities and tensions. While SCAN emphasised co-benefits, AI surfaced negative interactions, and stakeholders stressed the importance of context. Yet despite these differences, all approaches converged on core alignments with SDGs 7 (energy), 8 (jobs), 9 (infrastructure), and 13 (climate), but showed weaker links to SDGs on inequality, education, and institutions. 

The SCAN tool proved valuable for establishing NDC-SDG linkages but requires contextual adaptation, regular updating, and integration with local governance processes to be policy-relevant. The findings show that benefits are unevenly distributed across social groups and regions, and that institutional and equity dimensions are less well captured than technical ones. 

Partner organisation: Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre (RCCC) 

UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Adam Cooper 

Abstract: Cities are getting hotter with extreme heat events becoming more severe and frequent and record-breaking heat increasingly becoming the new norm. Heat, often referred to as a "silent killer," has emerged as the leading cause of weather-related mortality globally (World Meteorological Organisation, 2019). The threat is especially significant for cities of the global south, where heightened vulnerabilities compound with limited adaptive capacity, resulting in disproportionate impacts on public health, livelihoods and local economies. Within global south nations that face a 201% greater exposure to urban-heat risks, vulnerable populations face the most thermal injustice stemming from the least access to cooling infrastructures (Sadik-Zada & Gatto, 2022; Ufaira et al., 2023). 

This report addresses the RCCC’s flagship theme on heat by analysing urban heat governance mechanisms, identifying policy and regulatory gaps, and highlighting the actions the Red Cross movement can take through implementation, advocacy and policy influence as well as considering what action governments should be encouraged to take address urban heat. By focusing on five global south coastal cities; Barranquilla, Kochi, Maputo, Surabaya, and Yangon, the study uses primary data from interviews and secondary data through a literature review to address two primary research questions: 

• How can urban heat hazards be effectively integrated into heat governance, particularly in the context of National Societies’ efforts to support municipal governments?
• How can the Red Cross movement best support municipal authorities and national governments in implementing cost-effective and high-impact policy responses to mitigate extreme urban heat risks in selected cities? 

Read the final report here.

Partner organisation: National Highways 

UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Alina Congreve 

Abstract: Habitat fragmentation caused by road infrastructure is a major driver of biodiversity loss in the UK. In Kent, where dense transport networks intersect high-value habitats, reconnecting landscapes is both an ecological necessity and a policy priority. This report develops a design guide for habitat defragmentation to inform National Highways’ (NH) planning and delivery. 

The study employed a mixed-methods framework, combining (i) literature review of international best practice, (ii) GIS mapping of ecological corridors and roadkill hotspots, and (iii) expert interviews with practitioners spanning ecology, infrastructure design, and conservation governance. 

Analysis highlights three core pillars: (i) design principles— emphasising low-carbon materials, modular adaptability, and noise/light reduction; (ii) species sensitivity— showing differential responses among taxa, illustrated through bats, newts, and deer; and (iii) placement criteria— integrating spatial ecology with transport data to optimise siting of mitigation measures. 

The recommendations advocate a phased, evidence-led deployment of wildlife crossings and complementary habitat enhancements. By embedding ecological data into infrastructure planning, the guide aligns with the Kent & Medway Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) and provides a replicable template for reconnection initiatives nationwide. 

Read the final report here. 

Partner organisation: UK Government Office for Science 

UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Chris Tyler 

Abstract: Policymakers worldwide are increasingly reliant on evidence to inform decisions in contexts where public challenges are highly interconnected and interdisciplinary. Addressing these challenges requires the use of more comprehensive and diverse information sources, including non-English materials, to build nuanced and inclusive perspectives. At the same time, governments are actively exploring the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to support evidence synthesis and improve the efficiency and inclusivity of policy development. 

This project aimed to assess the capabilities of AI tools in supporting evidence synthesis. Recognising that the scale of information exceeds human capabilities, the study evaluated whether AI could process large volumes of literature and incorporate multilingual sources to broaden policy perspectives. Four tools were trialled against a specific use case and three prompting strategies, with the outputs reviewed by both UCL researchers and GO-Science evaluators. Masked evaluation was conducted across three criteria, capability, functionality, and trustworthiness, to identify the strengths and limitations of AI-generated outputs. Interviews were also conducted with subject-matter experts to further ground the findings and capture perspectives beyond the evaluation exercise. 

The findings demonstrate that AI tools, particularly when guided by targeted prompting, can offer valuable support in managing the scale and diversity of information, including incorporating non-English sources; however, their outputs require human oversight to ensure contextual relevance, accuracy, and interpretability. A central limitation observed is the lack of transparency in chain-of-thought processes, which restricts the ability to fully trace how conclusions are reached. In policymaking contexts, where explaining decisions is crucial, this opacity raises challenges for accountability and trust. 

Read the final report here.

Partner organisation: ODI (open data institute) 

UCL STEaPP Supervisors: Jesse Sowell, Maria Cross 

Abstract: This report provides a structured analysis of the ethical opportunities and challenges of synthetic data (SD), examining how themes such as privacy and consent, fidelity and utility, transparency and accountability, fairness, inclusion and accessibility, and sustainability and the environment are embedded across the data lifecycle. It draws on a mixed-methods design, combining an REA of the current literature with 12 practitioner interviews spanning healthcare, finance, and autonomous systems. The REA revealed a significant domain imbalance: 53.7% of studies focused on healthcare, compared with just 6.7% in finance and 2% in AS. While this reflects healthcare’s urgent need for privacy-preserving solutions, it highlights underdeveloped attention to finance and AS, where SD could play an equally critical role in addressing systemic risks, fairness, or safety. 

The layered “onion model” framework situates practitioner choices within broader societal norms, regulatory environments, and domain-specific contexts. Regulatory frameworks such as GDPR and the EU AI Act provide a legal “floor” by embedding duties of privacy, transparency, and documentation. However, they fall short of offering technical thresholds or sector-specific guidance, leaving practitioners reliant on professional judgment, peer norms, and informal mechanisms. 

These findings demonstrate that SD is not a neutral technical fix, but a socio-technical practice shaped by cultural norms, regulatory ambiguity, and institutional capacity. Privacy and utility dominate the discourse, yet values such as inclusion and sustainability, remain weakly embedded in practice. Across the lifecycle, practitioners grapple with the “trilemma” between privacy-fidelity-utility, making case-by-case trade-offs in the absence of clear standards. 

Read the final report here. 

Partner organisation: ODI (open data institute) 

UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Jesse Sowell 

Abstract: The UK government’s proposed National Data Library (NDL), led by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), seeks to enhance data access, sharing, and reuse across sectors. While its potential to drive innovation, improve policymaking, and strengthen public services is widely recognised, past failures of similar initiatives highlight that, beyond technical robustness, the NDL’s success depends on governance frameworks that prioritise stakeholder needs and build trust from the outset. This paper argues that co-design- embedding stakeholder participation into the development of both infrastructure and governance- offers a pathway to ensuring legitimacy, inclusivity, and sustained engagement. 

Drawing on desk research, semi-structured interviews with actors from government, academia, and industry, and a stakeholder focus group, the study identifies three cross-cutting dynamics that shape participation: (1) barriers, including institutional capability gaps, poor communication, fragmented governance, and mistrust rooted in past failures; (2) incentives, such as reducing duplication, enhancing interoperability, and ensuring equitable access to high-quality data; and (3) shifting stakeholder priorities, which vary across stakeholders and over time, underscoring the need for adaptive engagement strategies. Building on these findings, the paper offers a three-part set of recommendations to guide DSIT in laying the foundations for a sustainable NDL: building foundational buy-in within government, demonstrating external value through high-impact use cases, and equipping stakeholders with collaboration tools to sustain partnerships. Unless co-design is meaningfully operationalised, the NDL risks reproducing the short-lived, siloed platforms of the past; with it, however, it can lay the sociotechnical foundations for a trusted, durable, and collaborative data ecosystem. 

Read the final report here. 

Partner organisation: Superbloom 

UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Roser Pujadas 

Abstract: Deceptive design patterns are manipulative features of digital interfaces that steer users toward actions antithetical to their preferences. Our partner, Superbloom, challenges deceptive design through coalition-building, public engagement, and policy advocacy. While evidence is central to this work, there is little empirical research on how advocacy groups translate it for different audiences and strategic activities. This report addresses this opportunity, using evidence translation and coalition-building theories to contextualize empirical findings and guide recommendations for more effective evidence use in advocacy against deceptive design. 

Our study combines three complementary methods: 14 semi-structured expert interviews with advocacy professionals and deceptive design academics, evidence mapping of 45 evidence resources identified by interview participants, and a validation focus group to elicit feedback and improve our recommendations. Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework, Transmission Belt Model, and Credibility, Salience, Legitimacy framework as theoretical lenses, we examined how evidence circulates across advocacy networks. 

Findings indicate: 

• Evidence is fragmented: Advocacy groups draw on diverse evidence but lack formal appraisal processes, relying on intuition and ad-hoc methods instead. 
• Translational work is central yet under-resourced: Converting complex evidence into accessible, campaign-ready formats is essential for effective advocacy against deceptive design, yet this translational work remains under-prioritized and under-resourced within most advocacy organizations. 
• Coalition dynamics shape evidence use: Effective advocacy requires coordination among stakeholders with diverse expertise, priorities, and resources, but sustaining productive coalitions depends on a coherent strategy for evidence use. 

Read the final report here.

Partner organisation: European Fact-Checking Standards Network 

UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Roser Pujadas 

Abstract: Misinformation and disinformation are longstanding features of the information environment, predating the digital era. The internet's structural affordances and the pervasive reach of social media have amplified the speed, reach, and persistence of such content, while real-time, decentralized communication and low content creation barriers make source removal and origin attribution exceptionally difficult. Such dynamics have produced significant societal and political costs, evident in public health crises and electoral processes worldwide. 

Fact-checking has emerged as a prominent countermeasure, functioning both as a corrective mechanism for specific false claims and as part of broader efforts to promote media literacy. Notwithstanding its aims to enhance public understanding, fact-checking has also faced sustained criticism, particularly in politically polarised contexts, where perceptions of bias threaten to erode credibility. While there has been extensive research on bias in the downstream process of content verification in fact-checking, the upstream process of how content is sourced and selected from the outset remains under- researched. This has also been overlooked in practice. For instance, in Europe, the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN) has sought to professionalise and standardise the field through its Code of Standards, but the earliest phase of fact-checking - sourcing (finding potential claims to check) and selection (choosing which to verify) - remains relatively under-specified. This is despite the critical role of sourcing and election in determining which claims enter the fact-checking workflow in the first place, and its consequent impact on perceptions of bias and partiality. 

This study, conducted in partnership with EFCSN, examines the sourcing and selection practices of European fact-checking organisations to identify how perceptions of bias could emerge from these practices, and generate recommendations to mitigate such perceptions. The research was designed to address four interlinked questions: (i) how EFCSN member organisations approach sourcing and selection; (ii) what factors influence these approaches; (iii) how these practices may be vulnerable to claims of bias in various forms; and (iv) what practical measures could mitigate such vulnerabilities. The focus is deliberately on upstream sourcing and selection processes rather than the subsequent verification or publication stages, recognising the foundational role these initial decisions play in shaping outputs and public trust. 

Read the final report here. 

Partner organisation: Internet Society 

UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Jesse Sowell 

Abstract: Government regulation of encrypted communications, particularly those protected by end-to-end encryption (E2EE), has intensified globally, raising complicated questions about the balance between security imperatives and fundamental rights. This project develops a comparative, evidence-based framework to evaluate these interventions and their proportionality. 

This research introduces a dual-lens model that examines the rationales advanced by governments for regulating E2EE and corresponding modes of enforcement, situating them within broader governance indicators such as democracy indices. This approach consolidates fragmented sources into a single, analysable corpus, enabling systematic cross-jurisdictional analysis. The resulting global mapping captures over 200 territories, revealing recurring rationales of crime prevention, national security, and child protection, alongside some regions with no explicit regulation or opaque informal practices. Enforcement varies widely: while some countries adopt legislative mandates, enforcement can be inconsistent or symbolic, shaped by both political context and technical feasibility. 

The project’s second contribution is a refined proportionality framework tailored to E2EE regulation. Building on international human rights law principles and existing literature, it operationalises the classic sequence of legitimacy, suitability, necessity, and balancing, while incorporating enforceability, transparency, and accountability as enabling conditions. This framework not only clarifies evidentiary thresholds and rights-based safeguards but also emphasises the need for oversight and remedy mechanisms that prevent and address misuse. 

The findings underscore misalignment between official rationales and enforcement in practice, the presence of symbolic regulation, and persisting technical and institutional limitations. They highlight that safeguarding encryption requires more than acknowledging risks: proportionality demands structures that establish oversight mechanisms and embed accountability. Together, the global mapping and refined proportionality framework provide policymakers, advocates, and researchers with tools to assess regulatory interventions, identify patterns and outliers, and design measures that respect the balance between security needs and fundamental rights.

Read the final report here.

Partner organisation: Kiara Health  

UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Julius Mugwagwa 

Abstract: South Africa (SA) has made extraordinary progress in expanding access to Antiretroviral (ARV) therapy, transforming Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) from a fatal illness into a manageable condition for millions of people. Yet this achievement is now under pressure. Immediate challenges stem not from medicine shortages but from disruptions in service delivery caused by donor funding volatility, particularly the uncertainty surrounding the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Clinics have struggled to retain staff, laboratory systems have been weakened, and treatment delivery to people living with HIV (PLHIV) has been compromised. 

Our research found that the direct impact of recent funding shocks on local production has so far been limited. SA continues to import nearly all Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) and most finished ARVs, yet national stock shortages have been few. The reliance on imports presents long-term supply security risks, but a more pressing concern lies downstream, where patients face growing obstacles accessing medicines already procured. This mismatch highlights a central insight from our study: while localisation of ARV production is often presented as a safeguard for future resilience, diverting scarce public funds into industrial initiatives today risks neglecting the urgent task of stabilising service delivery. 

Recommendations from this study point therefore have two directions. In the short term, government and partners should prioritise immediate measures to protect treatment continuity by allocating funds to replace donor cuts, retaining HIV workforce capacity, keeping clinics open, and ensuring that laboratory testing and monitoring remain functional. These steps should be reinforced by implementing the accelerated National Strategic Plan (NSP) and strengthening transparency and monitoring of the fast-track pathway by the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHRA). Without these interventions, gains in medicine procurement or manufacturing capacity will do little to prevent avoidable illness and death. 

 Read the final report here.

Title: Powering a Continent - A comparative study of International and Regional Financial Institutions in Africa’s Energy Integration Efforts [Individual Project] 

MPA Candidate: Andrés Alejandro Rodriguez López 

Partner organisation: World Resources Institute 

UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Yacob Mulugetta 

Abstract: This project analyses the ecosystem of financial institutions funding energy infrastructure in Africa to assess how their governance, economic priorities, and financing models advance or impede the continent's regional integration objectives. Africa faces a significant energy and infrastructure deficit, estimated between $68 billion and $108 billion annually, which hampers economic growth and poverty reduction. While regional integration, particularly through cross-border energy projects, is seen as a strategic solution, the financing landscape is fragmented and uncoordinated, comprising a diverse array of national, regional, and international actors with competing agendas. 

This study employs a comparative analysis of a sample of key financial institutions, categorized by origin (national, regional, international), purpose (investment, development), and structure (bank, fund). The analysis focuses on five core dimensions: a general overview of the actors, their energy strategies, governance structures, decision-making processes, and project selection criteria. Data was collected exclusively from public sources, including annual reports, governance charters, and strategic policy documents. 

The findings reveal that international and non-African national institutions dominate the financing landscape in terms of capital, with China, Western Europe, the United States, and Saudi Arabia being the most influential external actors. While all institutions prioritize sustainable energy, regional institutions align their strategies with African-led frameworks like the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), whereas international bodies often follow global agendas like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A key distinction emerges in governance: regional institutions utilize mechanisms to ensure a balance of power among member states, while international institutions tend to grant influence based on capital contributions. Consequently, project selection in regional banks is more explicitly tied to a regional integration mandate, whereas international institutions operate with broader thematic goals. 

Read the final report here. 

Title: From Classroom to Career: Shedding Light on Graduate Employment Experiences Through The Free Energy Principle and Collective Intelligence [Individual Project] 

MPA Candidate: Allegra Grunberg 

UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Ine Steenmans 

Abstract: This exploratory dissertation creates and applies a non-computational adaptation of the Free Energy Principle (FEP) and Collective Intelligence (CI) to develop a scalable methodological framework (the FEP–CI framework) for analyzing science-technology-policy employment gaps.  

The research explores whether core concepts from FEP and CI can serve as useful principles for understanding employment system failures. Rather than claiming proven efficacy, it establishes a theoretical and conceptual foundation for future empirical and computational validation. Using the transition of students and graduates from study to workforce as a “sandbox,” it frames labor policy as an opportunity to test inclusive, iterative decision-making. The study includes a comprehensive literature review evaluating academic sources on traditional employment theories, FEP and CI to identify their analytical limitations, and assess the relevance and capacity of FEP and CI to address these gaps in employment policy analysis. 

Based on this analysis, I developed the FEP-CI framework. To empirically test the framework, I examined employment experiences of 22 students and alumni from science-technology-policy programs using the platform-based narrative collection tool SenseMaker®. 

Read the final report here. 

Title: Climate Governance in New York City: A Longitudinal Evaluation of Climate Action Plans [Individual Project] 

MPA Candidate: Allison James 

UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Bipashyee Ghosh 

Abstract: The US government has no federal mandate for climate policy, so cities have taken an active role in urban climate governance. This paper evaluates New York City’s (NYC) urban climate governance (UCG) tools, implementing a longitudinal case study over a span of seventeen years. More specifically, NYC’s Climate Action Plans (CAP) are investigated over five iterations. 

The analysis evaluates priority changes, climate goal classification, and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) alignment of CAPs, and also compares the CAP actions to the annual adopted budget. These evaluations are completed with keyword coding and triangulation evaluations. The outcomes are interpreted using urban climate governance (UCG) framework pillars of coherence, consistency and credibility. 

The results show that inconsistencies in CAP focus and the removal of key details weaken the alignment with UCG pillars. These gaps are most evident in the transition from listing out the individual actions and the removal of budget information, which are key pieces of recommended UCG. 

The standardization of NYC CAP iterations, using consistent scope and implementing goal alignment will allow the cross-plan evaluation. The utilization of climate budget tagging will allow NYC to pave the way in transparency of reporting by enhancing the consistency and coherence of the CAPs, therefore increasing the credibility of the plans and NYC’s commitment to UCG. NYC has implemented many of the key pieces, making it well situated to set the precedent for other US cities. The US needs leadership in UCG. 

Read the final report here.

MPA Candidate: Ann-Michelle Mull 

UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Jesse Sowell 

Abstract: Internet advocates argue that Internet access improves communication and stability, yet there is a significant gap in the literature on the relationship between Internet access and country fragility. Prior research has focused on the political effects of Internet access and the developmental implications of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs). This study addresses this gap. Fixed Effects regressions show that, on average, increased Internet access is associated with decreased fragility. This trend decreases at an accelerated rate and shows variance across regions. Improvements mainly occur through the Economic, Social and Political dimensions. Cluster analysis reveals distinct groups with varying relationships, with strong relationships masked by weaker trends and potentially driving the average regression results. Noteworthy cases include the Middle East & North Africa which is the only region displaying initially increasing total fragility and linearly increasing state legitimacy fragility with increasing access, contrary to the decreasing trends. 

Read the final report here. 

Title: Implementation of Collaborative Land Management Practices for Koala Conservation in Queensland and New South Wales – A Comparative Policy Framework Review [Individual Project] 

MPA Candidate: Erin Sebastian 

UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Sarah-Louise Quinnell 

Abstract: The koala is a nationally recognized icon for Australia with a deep history in Aboriginal culture and s symbol for tourism and conservation. However, its population has been declining rapidly over the last two decades due to increased threats like fire, climate change, and anthropogenic causes of habitat loss. In 2022, the species was listed as endangered. In recent years, there has been a push for better understanding of the koala’s diversity and ecology to better develop conservation policy. After the 2019/20 bushfires, which greatly exacerbated the decline in population and habitat, the Australian Government released a national policy framework to counteract these threats and recover the population. Queensland and New South Wales developed their own strategies to target specific needs within their states and support integrative implementation to support the national strategy. This study reviews the history behind koala conservation in Australia and compares the effectiveness of the two state strategies in implementing integrative collaboration, science, and land-management policy to develop further adaptive policy. 

Read the final report here. 

MPA Candidate: Izumi Hansen 

UCL STEaPP Supervisor: JC Mauduit 

Abstract: Washington State has recently pursued expansion of government-sponsored resources available to postpartum individuals, including paid leave and doula services for low-income individuals. However, based on a review of best practices for recovery of postpartum individuals, Washington State still has gaps in legislation to ensure optimal recovery from a physically and mentally transformative period in a person’s life. 

This paper synthesized best practices for postpartum recovery from national and international organizations. These best practice recommendations were then compared to laws and programs that affect postpartum individuals in Washington to find gaps. Then laws and programs in Switzerland and Norway, international jurisdictions with similar characteristics to Washington, were compared to these best practices to determine policy options. The following options were derived from this analysis: 

● Option 1: Implement Universal Healthcare 

● Option 2: Expand legal or educational requirements for state-certified doulas 

Option 1 is recommended as it will have a greater reach of both affected individuals and more quickly aligns Washington State with best practices, thus ensuring a greater chance of the full recovery of postpartum individuals in the state. 

Title: Aging in the Age of AI: Can the use of digital technology combat loneliness and social isolation in older adult populations? [Individual Project] 

MPA Candidate: Max Fosque 

UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Jesse Sowell 

Abstract: This mixed-methods research paper evaluates whether digital technology can combat loneliness and social isolation in older adults, related conditions that can have significant impacts on mental and physical health. The paper combines a Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA) of 23 peer-reviewed articles with regression analyses of population-level survey data and thematic analysis of interviews with caregivers, technologists, and academics in pursuing its research aims. 

Findings across all three methods indicate that certain types of digital technology can be used as tools to help reduce loneliness and social isolation among older adults, especially those technologies facilitating communication and engagement with friends, family members, and others in the community. However, findings also demonstrate the significant barriers to adoption and utilization of digital technology in this population, including digital skills gaps, cultural barriers, and financial constraints. 

The paper ultimately recommends that stakeholders involved in the delivery of technology, care, and support to older adults prioritize solutions and interventions that enable use cases found to be beneficial in connecting older adults with those around them, while working to mitigate barriers and risks through design simplicity and the engagement of support networks in the delivery of solutions and programs. 

Read the final report here. 

MPA Candidate: Samwinder Surjit Singh 

UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Geoff Mulgan 

Abstract: The spread of fake news has had detrimental effects on individuals and society. Recently, literature has identified youth to be struggling to combat this urgent problem. While studies have focused on why youth are subjected to fake news, hardly any focus on measures to help youth counter fake news. The objective of this study is to provide a set of recommendations to states in creating interventions to help youth combat fake news. The study begins with a comprehensive analysis of current interventions against fake news to identify the most efficient ones. Thereafter, interviews were conducted with youth in Singapore to gain their perspectives on which of these interventions they found helpful, and how they should be designed. The paper finds that literacy interventions are best suited to aid youth in fighting fake news. However, literacy has it limits, and legislature can help bolster literacy so long as it is transparent and understood by youth. Finally, interventions should provide youth the ability to evaluate and decide if a content is false and should include civil society collaboration to reduce implementational challenges.

Read the final report here. 

Partner: BSI
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Irina Brass
Brief: In collaboration with the British Standards Institution (BSI) – the UK National Standards Body – this project will explore the standardization opportunities and challenges for the emerging field of bio-digital convergence.

In 2023, the IEC Standardization Management Board (IEC SMB) proposed a new Working Group (WG) exploring the emerging domain of “bio-digital convergence – defined as the convergence of nanotechnology, engineering, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science”. Broadly, bio-digital convergence can be understood as the merging of biology and digital technology for the creation of new tools and applications across a variety of sectors, from healthcare to manufacturing, agriculture, and environmental protection.

The project is expected to conduct a systematic analysis of the emerging technologies in this domain and their broader societal and policy implications, using a mixed-method approach comprising of: a systematic literature review, a horizon scan, expert interviews, and/ or a focus group or workshop on the topic. The project aims to inform the BSI about its future standards-development work in this domain.

MPA candidates willing to take part in this project should have genuine interest in the field of standards development, knowledge of basic digital technologies and policy issues, and willingness to delve deep into this fascinating area at the intersection of science, technology, and policy.

Read the final report here.

Partner: Greener & Cleaner
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Jenny McArthur
Brief: This project will evaluate the impacts of, and potential for, sustainability hubs as a policy tool and governance innovation to enable bottom-up responses to climate change.
The practical task of adapting our lifestyles to low-carbon forms of consumption and recreation is a key concern for public policy. While cities and urbanisation are promoted as part of the solution to climate change, studies show that many cities are also characterised by unsustainable lifestyles and disproportionately high levels of energy use and waste generation, and parasitic relationships with non-urban areas to obtain water, food and energy. To ensure a just transition to climate change, bottom-up responses are important to allow communities to experiment with new consumption practices and find solutions that protect livelihoods, meet local needs, and reflect local identities and aspirations. Local community spaces such as living labs or sustainability hubs, equipped for public engagement, learning and experimentation, have emerged as key sites for innovation in lifestyles and consumption habits.

The project partner, Greener and Cleaner, is a grassroots organisation, started in 2019 in response to the absence of useful, meaningful answers on how to reduce our environmental footprint and live more sustainably. In 2022 Greener and Cleaner opened a Sustainability Hub in The Glades Shopping Centre in Bromley, south east London. The hub hosts a Library of Things and a range of skills workshops and engagement events for the public, aimed to be as accessible as possible for the wider public. The hub also runs a Community Allotment Garden. The initial impact evaluation for the Greener and Cleaner Sustainability Hub identified a plethora of positive impacts, and opportunities to continue improving engagement with Bromley's diverse communities.

The project will adopt an action research approach, going beyond arms-length observation to actively participate in the Sustainability Hub's activities, learn from experimentation and recommend strategies to enhance effectiveness and scale its activities.

Partner: Publica Associates
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Ellie Cosgrave
Brief: In this project, MPA candidates will explore how tools for cultivating collective imagination, as well as more historic approaches to imaging future cities (e.g. through literature/ legislative theatre/ art etc.) might be usefully applied to cultivating imaginations for feminist futures.

The project partner, Publica, are running a campaign to support the built environment sector to understand and take transformative action towards cities where everyone feels safe and like they belong. They envision an inclusive and collaborative city-making process where all people can participate freely and fully in urban life. They make this urban transformation practical by providing access to knowledge and expertise, spaces for reimagination, and on-the-ground action towards inclusive and resilient cities. Publica offers policy guidance, research (including whitepapers and literature reviews), workshops and training, and advocacy work (published papers, conferences, masterclasses and public speaking) to advance the public discourse around inclusive cities.

A key strand of Publica’s campaign is to bring people together to re-think urban development processes. Too often when addressing violence against women and girls in public space, ‘innovative solutions’ are limited to simple technology innovation such as reporting apps or increasing surveillance. We need to expand our notions of innovation to also include social programmes or policy and systems changes. To do this, many scholars and practitioners are increasingly interested in cultivating the collective imagination- to be able to dream of alternative, more emancipatory ways of living, and to go about bringing them into action. As Rob Hopkins (2019) describes, ‘bringing about the world we want to live in… is the work of imagination.”

Publica would like to use the findings from this project to inform a programme of work about imagination, and so would like to understand what works, what the challenges and barriers are, as well as the potential impact this work can have for informing policy. By testing some of these methodologies themselves, candidates will explore how policy actions can be derived from these imaginations in a practical way.

Read the final report here. 

Partner: Royal Academy of Engineering and the National Engineering Policy Centre
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Arthur Petersen & Irina Lazar
Brief: This MPA group project will provide an evidence base on the capability of AI to support critical social challenges, specifically climate change; and will deliver insights on whether current funding and policy regimes in the UK are supporting AI techniques and technologies that can best support these results. Reaching net zero is a systems-level policy challenge that requires change across all domains, including energy generation and supply, and demand across all areas. Tackling decarbonisation on a global scale means understanding complex interdependent systems and understanding how interactions in one part of the system can achieve net reductions in carbon emissions. As a powerful set of tools, AI holds promise to address these challenges and to lend us the capabilities to meet the step change in emissions reduction that is needed.

The core questions for this project are:
1) What are some good examples of use of AI for decarbonisation across complex systems?
2) What are the core AI capabilities that lend themselves to this task?
3) How well supported are these capabilities and their applications through research funding, policy support and through business investment?

Through a programme of research and stakeholder engagement, MPA candidates will provide a useful briefing on where we are now, and where we need to be. This work will feed into programmes at the Royal Academy of Engineering on Digital and Physical Infrastructures, providing an evidence base on which to build policy influencing programmes. The aims of those programmes are to ensure that we are harnessing the power of technology and engineering for the benefit of society, by using AI and wider digital and physical infrastructures to meet critical global challenges.

Read the final report here. 

Partner: Demos Helsinki (plus several national governments)
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Geoff Mulgan
Brief: The focus of this project will be the design of new innovation agencies.

MPA candidates will work with Demos Helsinki, a think tank based in Finland, and a new initiative called The Institutional Architecture Lab supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and others, which specialises on the design of new public institutions.

The project work is expected to be transnational, looking at the leading edge of public methods for supporting innovation, including the financing, experimental set up, testbeds, data, and more. MPA candidates can expect to develop design options for several governments, including Brazil, the Czech Republic, Bangladesh and the UAE, and potentially Germany.

Read the final report here.

Partner: The International Science Council
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: JC Mauduit & Arthur Petersen
Brief: In this project, MPA candidates will explore effective ways to leverage international science networks to support global evidence-based policymaking.

In August 2023, the United Nations announced the creation of a ‘Scientific Advisory Board for Independent Advice on Breakthroughs in Science and Technology’ (hereafter UN SAB) to advise its leadership on salient issues of S&T issues, with the aim of ensuring the best possible insights for global policymaking. Representing the global voice of science, the International Science Council (ISC) is part of a network of key scientific institutions associated to the board, helping to strengthen the interface between the scientific community and decision-making at the UN.

Partnering with the ISC, this project will look at how to best leverage the vast scientific network of the ISC in effectively informing the work of the UN SAB and improving evidence-based global policymaking. The work will involve: (1) a mapping the science advice mechanisms at the UN level (institutional processes, internal & external capacity, etc.), (2) a review of the ISC practices and lessons learned in leveraging its scientific network for global policymaking, and (3) understanding expectations on both the demand (UN) and supply side (ISC) for the UN SAB. Desktop research, semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, and the potential organization of small roundtables will help address these key points. If time allows, lessons learned from past and current global science advice mechanisms (IPCC, EU SAM, etc.) could also help inform the work and contribution of the ISC.

Read the final report here. 

UCL STEaPP & ISC public webinar on project findings and themes, ‘Future Avenues for Science Advice in the UN System’

Partner: Policy Impact Unit
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Maria Cross
Brief: In this project, MPA explore how a transition to a Circular Economy will enable the creation of ‘good jobs’ and economic growth in the UK, with a particular focus on construction and the built environment. The project partner, the UCL Policy Impact Unit, collaborates with researchers in the UCL Faculty of Engineering Sciences (FES) to design bespoke policy engagement strategies that have real impact.

Within UCL FES, there are multiple projects developing new research and tools to support the transition from a linear economy (‘take, make, use, throw away’) toward a more circular economy – a model which seeks to extend the lifecycle and value of materials and products for as long as possible, reducing waste and pressure on natural resources. Understanding the potential contribution of a Circular Economy toward economic growth and creation of ‘good jobs’ could support greater investment and targeted support from policymakers, speeding up transition, as well as influencing policy decisions around the sustainability and net zero agenda.

MPA candidates will first perform a rapid evidence review to assess the landscape of Circular Economy research and innovations in UK construction. Candidates will then explore and test with the PIU how best to present said evidence (this could be a database, an interactive web-based graphic, growth forecasts or macro-economic modelling etc.), so it meets PIU needs to communicate the benefits and economic potential of policy decisions that support circularity.

Read the final report here. 

Partner: Alan Turing Institute
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Irina Brass
Brief: In collaboration with the Alan Turing Institute – the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence – this project will explore new governance options for adaptive AI systems with a focus on strategic sectors such as transport, creative industries, agriculture, construction, and /or healthcare (BridgeAI sectors).

Adaptive, continuously learning AI systems are increasingly being deployed across critical sectors of the economy. By continuously learning from new data and accepting feedback from the operating environment, adaptive AI can achieve higher performance especially in industries that require continuous monitoring of assets, activities, and processes. These benefits also give rise to critical challenges, especially when it comes to monitoring real-time data quality and algorithmic performance. Thus, continuously learning AI systems also require new standards and governance mechanisms for monitoring their performance and mitigating associated risks.

MPA candidates interested in this project should have an understanding of AI systems and willingness to investigate, in depth, existing organisational practices, standards, regulatory frameworks and other governance mechanism for monitoring the performance of AI systems.

The project findings will inform the work of the Turing’s AI Governance and Regulatory Innovation team.

Read the final report here. 

Partner: UK Government Office for Science
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Chris Tyler and Sarah-Louise Quinnell
Brief: This project will consider whether artificial intelligence technologies can help the synthesis and communication of scientific evidence, to support the work of The Government Office for Science in ensuring that UK Government’s decisions are informed by the best available scientific evidence.

The project team will provide an overview of the possible near-term uses of existing artificial intelligence technologies in science advisory processes. Areas to explore include generative AI (like ChatGPT) for drafting parts of policy briefs, evidence synthesis tools, and technology and policy trend analysis. Prior to deploying any such tools, civil servants need to know if they can use AI outputs with authority. The group will therefore, in consultation with the client, conduct experiments to evaluate the rigour and trustworthiness of AI outputs for science advice.

in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science? [Individual Project]
 

MPA candidate: Clara Balon

UCL STEaPP supervisor: Irina Brass

Abstract: The underrepresentation of women in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Science is a critical issue that persists across the UK and USA (selected as two English-speaking countries representative of the West) and Russia. This dissertation will examine how media in these different cultural contexts impacts the experiences and visibility of women in AI and Data Science. It will also explore whether the media's portrayal of women in these fields differs significantly between regions and how these differences impact women's experiences and perceptions in professional environments.

This research uses a mixed-method approach, examining the intersection of media, culture, and industry practices. The study includes a comprehensive literature review of academic sources from the UK and USA (representing the Western, English-speaking context) and Russia, supplemented by empirical data gathered through 24 semi-structured interviews with women working in AI and Data Science (12 from Russia, 12 from the UK and USA). Additionally, a sentiment analysis of 100 recent news articles (50 from Russia and 50 from Western media) was conducted, evaluating the sentiments towards women in these fields.

The study's findings reveal that media discourse significantly influences the representation and participation of women in these industries, with persistent underrepresentation and stereotyping across both regions. While both regions see the media reinforcing traditional gender roles, Russian media focuses more on structural and sociocultural barriers, whereas Western media emphasises ethical AI development and structural inequalities. The media's impact on women's self-perception and career participation also differs between the two regions, with other social factors being more impactful than the media in Russia. Future research could explore the impact of emerging media forms and intersectionality on the representation of women in AI and Data Science, and how evolving media portrayals influence women’s participation over time.

Read the final report here. 

Individual Project

MPA candidate: Suzy Jung

UCL STEaPP supervisor: Maria Cross

Abstract: Artificial intelligence and big data development have led to the widespread use of facial recognition technology (FRT) in public spheres. FRT is actively used for law enforcement purposes thanks to its enhanced surveillance capability in major nations including the U.S., EU, China, and South Korea. However, it also poses a risk to personal rights, causing policymakers to confront the dilemma between technology growth and personal rights protection at the same time.

This paper aims to recommend a policy framework for South Korea that can balance these conflicting interests. It starts off by analyzing circumstances where the public perceives FRT as justified despite the risk of privacy violation. Also, this paper compares legislation from the European Union, the United States, and China to draw fundamental principles for regulating FRT, including concepts of proportionality and transparency.

Following this, the paper provides an analysis of current Korean policies relevant to AI and FRT. This result suggests that the nation should adopt a "risk-based" approach, similar to that of the EU, to balance the interests of technology growth and personal rights protection. While adopting basic approaches and principles, the paper contends that the limitations of this act should be managed by establishing adaptive governance and reforming existing institutions.

Read the final report here. 

MPA candidate: Elise Pi

Partner: Superbloom

UCL STEaPP supervisor: Roser Pujadas

Abstract: In recent years, the issue of "dark patterns" in UX design has garnered increasing attention from researchers, policymakers, and technology users alike. Dark patterns refer to design choices in digital interfaces that impair users’ ability to make autonomous or informed decisions. These patterns can take many forms—from subscription services that are easy to start but hard to cancel, to interfaces that deliberately obscure important information. While much research focuses on identifying and defining these harmful design features, less attention has been given to the role of design practitioners in addressing and mitigating them in real-world settings.

This study explores that gap by asking: "How can design practitioners mitigate damaging design patterns in practice?" Through interviews with six UX professionals, the research reveals how designers approach these challenges, organized under three themes: awareness, understanding, and action. The findings suggest that while designers are aware of dark patterns, mitigating them often requires addressing larger organizational and industry-wide systems.

A key insight is that efforts to reduce harmful patterns must extend beyond individual design choices, focusing instead on the broader environments in which designers work to create conditions where designers can prioritize user autonomy and well-being. By shifting attention to these governance systems, the research presents a more holistic view of how ethical design practices can be fostered and offers practical recommendations for organizational leaders, policymakers, and civil society advocates.

This research contributes to the growing discourse on ethical UX by highlighting the complex realities of design practice and offering actionable insights to help tackle dark patterns at their root.

MPA candidate: Kerry Smith

UCL STEaPP supervisor: Jesse Sowell

Abstract: In the lead up to the ground invasion in February 2022, Russia unleashed a series of cyberattacks against Ukraine, with malware attacks bringing down government websites, Distributed Denial of Service attacks knocking out banks and media outlets, and data-mining malware being set loose in financial and IT systems. The cyberattacks did not halt once the invasion commenced; there was significant attacks on Ukrainian critical national infrastructure, continuous phishing campaigns targeted at Ukrainian officials and military personnel, and dissemination of falsified orders to surrender from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Four months following the invasion, Ukraine’s Head of State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection wrote “the Russo-Ukrainian War is the world’s first full-scale cyberwar but it will not be the last...” (Shchyhol 2022).

Yet, as the months passed by commentators increasingly voiced scepticism about those initial claims. This pushback, and the initial framing of the conflict, prompt interrogation into what is meant and understood by cyberwar, and whether it is a useful paradigm for thinking about war and conflict in an age where digital technologies dominate – a question at the heart of this paper.

Part One of this paper delves into the definitional ambiguity of cyberwar and charts how the theorisation on Information Age conflict has evolved through a rapid evidence assessment. Part Two uses this theoretical foundation to analyse the cyber dimensions within the Russia-Ukraine 2022 war to assess the claims of it as the first full-scale cyberwar.

Read the final report here. 

Exploring the role of non-technical dimensions in capacity building for energy modelling [Individual Project]

MPA candidate: Daisy Ferleger

Partner: Climate Compatible Growth

UCL STEaPP supervisor: Yacob Mulugetta

Abstract: As countries across the African continent look to develop large-scale, low-carbon, sustainable energy systems to meet their development objectives, energy system models are increasingly used to inform policy decisions. However, capacity for energy modelling remains limited, often relying on external expertise with models that may not fully capture local contexts and understand the socio-political dimensions which influence the modelling practice. Using the Energy Modelling Platform for Africa (EMP-A) 2024 capacity building event as a case study, this paper looks to understand to what extent capacity building incorporates non-technical dimensions of the energy planning process and how this fits the needs of participants. Employing a multi-method qualitative approach, the research analysed curriculum content and interviews from a selection of participants and trainers. The findings reveal that the while the curriculum provides a foundational background of the various non-technical influences which can shape the modelling lifecycle, participants sought more targeted and contextualised guidance on integrating sociopolitical considerations into their modelling work. The research calls for an integrated, holistic approach to capacity building curricula that balances technical expertise with a deep understanding of the political and social context and prioritises co-production, enabling the creation of more impactful energy models.

A set of policy recommendations [Individual Project]

MPA candidate: Macarena Cox Gil

UCL STEaPP supervisor: Maria Cross

Abstract: This study examines the Water-Energy-Food nexus and its governance within the context of Ethiopia's Omo-Gibe Basin, emphasizing the interdependencies between these critical resources and their impact on sustainable development, during the country’s transition to agro-led industrialization. The research employs a mixed-method approach, combining an extensive literature review with case studies of successful nexus management in other regions, to evaluate Ethiopia’s policy frameworks and governance structures. Using the Multiple Streams Framework, the study analyses the current scenario through the lens of the problem, politics, and policy streams, aiming to identify challenges and opportunities in achieving integrated resource management. Key findings reveal significant gaps in cross-sectoral coordination, stakeholder engagement, and policy implementation, exacerbated by centralized decision-making and limited local participation. The research underscores the critical role of inclusive governance and integrated policy approaches in addressing the WEF nexus, offering practical recommendations to enhance resource management and support Ethiopia’s transition towards becoming a middle-income country by 2030. Relevant policy recommendations include the need for a dedicated basin authority, enhanced stakeholder involvement, increased investment in small-scale irrigation technologies and the development of viable and adaptive policies that align with both national and international sustainability goals.

Read the final report here. 

Challenges and opportunities from the investors’ perspective [Individual Project]

MPA candidate: Hanna Rutkovska

UCL STEaPP supervisor: Arthur Petersen

Abstract: Sustainability-linked bonds are included in social, sustainability, and sustainability-linked bonds as performance-based bonds. The financial terms of these bonds are tied to the issuer's achievement of a predetermined environmental or social target. This paper investigates sustainability-linked bonds as a complementary financial instrument to mobilise capital to support carbon neutrality objectives. The research aims to explore the challenges and opportunities in the three EU Eastern Partnership countries: Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.

The study uses qualitative research to identify the key challenges and opportunities of sustainability-linked bonds from the perspective of the investors, particularly the development finance institutions that operate in this region. The findings of the research reveal that the three EU Eastern Partnership countries face market-related, corporate-related, and country-specific challenges that might be overcome by the key policy enablers such as (1) implementation of sound fiscal and monetary policies, (2) introduction of sustainable finance taxonomy, (3) scaling up awareness-raising programs and (4) enhancement of the institutional capacity. To leverage the identified enablers, the research proposes the EU accession process as one of the solutions to intensify the efforts toward the creation of an enabling environment for the issuance of sustainability-linked bonds. In this regard, development finance institutions play an essential role in terms of the facilitation of the effective dialogue among stakeholders as well as providing the technical assistance.

This research enhances the existing literature by examining sustainability-linked bonds through the lens of anchor investors in the EU Eastern Partnership countries. It builds upon and complements the recent study on the challenges and opportunities of sustainability-linked bonds in developing countries.

Read the final report here. 

Partner: Internet society 
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Jesse Sowell
Brief: The number of Internet eXchanges (IXes) in Africa, infrastructure platforms that facilitate regional bandwidth, low latency, and access to global connectivity markets, has more than doubled from 19 in 2010 to 46 in 2020 (ISOC). The Internet Society’s (ISOC) work supporting the development of IXes has illustrated real and potential growth, and the need to better understand the risks and challenges associated with community-based connectivity platforms in developing regions. Within the Internet operations community, it is well known that the development of these important connectivity platforms is “20% technical, 80% social.” IX development is a distinctly sociotechnical challenge: it demands understanding both the local market, politics, and culture, and the kinds of technology deployments fit to purpose for that region. With the success of ISOC’s efforts in supporting IX development, governments and industry stakeholders have an increasing interest in understanding how to systematically develop, deploy, and sustain IXes. In this MPA project, students will work with IX experts at ISOC to understand and characterize the factors shaping successful IX platform development in developing regions, with a special comparative focus on cases in Africa. Building on both qualitative and quantitative data, the project team will work to develop an evidence-based framework for policy makers and industry stakeholders to evaluate and understand risks and challenges across the stages of community-based IX development. To develop a framework that mitigates risk and ensures sufficient flexibility to ensure sustainable growth, the project team will draw on both existing cases, and, working with ISOC, develop new case studies to support the recommendations in this framework.

Partner: Internet Society 
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Beril Boz
Brief: Several governments around the world have taken measures to limit their population’s access to content on the Internet. The most recent example is the Russian government’s decision to block access to particular social media sites following the country’s invasion of Ukraine. These measures are thought to lead to the creation of the “splinternet” – a phenomenon that challenges the open, globally connected Internet by setting up “a collection of fragmented networks controlled by governments or corporations” or so-called “walled gardens” that control, block, or manage users’ access to content. However, while the term “splinternet” is making headlines, authorities around the world employ different censorship methods, tools, and techniques for “splintering”.
In this project, students will be working closely with the Internet Society (ISOC) to develop a systematic method for identifying and characterising what is generally referred to as “splintering”. ISOC is the leading, not-for-profit international organization whose mission is to promote an “open, globally connected, secure and trustworthy” Internet. The students will be investigating the different techniques and tools used to give rise to these walled gardens, with the aim to generate a typology of “architectures of control” (Lessig 2000) and potentially develop a “ranking of splintering” (i.e., how far along certain governments are in building these walled gardens).

Partner: UK National Physical Laboratory
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Jeremy Watson and Peter Novitzky
Brief: The National Physical Laboratory is the UK’s National Metrology Institute. NPL maintains the national primary measurement standards and ensures a resilient metrology capability for UK enterprise. A government owned and operated organisation, NPL’s advice is always impartial and independent.
A key part of a national metrology authority’s work is to provide assurance for the accuracy of secondary standards owned by industry and other government bodies. Historically this has involved physical laboratory-centric measurements and calibration, a time and labour-consuming activity for both NPL and clients, and the delivery of paper calibration documents.

The advent of digital technologies and knowledge representation methods is now facilitating digital services in the calibration of equipment, and the validation of established NPL services (e.g., time references). This transition brings interesting challenges of security and governance. This project will involve briefings from NPL leads for Digital Calibration, and will investigate technical factors such as: provenance, cybersecurity, immutability and ontological knowledge frameworks, together with behavioural considerations like corporate awareness of cyber-risk, appetite and take-up of the digitalisation of traditional, trusted services, and barriers and promoters resulting from organisational culture.
 
The project will encourage dialogue with NPL leads, and will include a final workshop that presents the group report to the partner.

Partner: Information Commissioner’s Office
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Peter Novitzky and Jeremy Watson
Brief: It is anticipated that next generation IoT setups will be ‘smarter’, devices will be more integrated within spaces, and better at talking to each other. The growing ubiquity, increasing interconnectedness, and seamless presence and operation of IoT devices is likely to exacerbate existing information rights challenges, in an already complex and varied ecosystem. In this project we will investigate the various privacy aspects and practical tools of smart assistive IoT devices in future living spaces. Special focus will be given to assistive technologies enhancing independent living of vulnerable groups (e.g., older adults). The objective of this project is to provide a detailed value-based analysis and future-oriented privacy-by-design proposals for emergent assistive technologies.

Partner: International Network for Government Science Advice
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Jean-Christophe Mauduit and Arthur Petersen
Brief: Context: Challenges such as the pandemic and climate change have clearly highlighted the necessity and value of national science advice mechanisms. However, these issues also require strong cross- border cooperation and international touchpoints for information exchange. In other words, there is a need for effective science diplomacy channels for collective action. Yet there is currently little understanding on how countries build trust/reciprocity in each other’s knowledge production, share relevant knowledge with one another, or how international experts are brought in to and contribute to informing national policies, especially in cases where local expertise may be missing. Building upon a previous STEaPP MPA group project, ongoing work at INGSA and at UCL (International Public Policy Observatory, Phase 2), there is therefore a need to map the pathways that contribute to an effective sharing of information.

The work: Partnering with INGSA, the project will look at science advisory mechanisms in and across selected jurisdictions to 1) distill what can be learned from science advice mechanisms in different national contexts and 2) map the various international pathways for countries’ decision makers and respective bureaucracies to share relevant knowledge (how science diplomacy and other mechanisms might be developed to improve knowledge exchange, policy learning and transfer). The work will involve organizing international roundtables focusing on specific policy areas, as well as interviewing science policy and diplomacy experts.

Partner: International Network for Government Science Advice
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Jean-Christophe Mauduit and Arthur Petersen
Brief: Context: Despite the assumption that the scientific evidence itself might occupy a ‘universal’ position that is beyond national specificities, science advisory structures are influenced by local cultural norms, practices and language. ‘Evidence’ is also based on the questions that are asked, themselves inextricably linked to cultural, institutional contexts etc. and can be conveyed in culturally-scripted ways. As the world increasingly requires shared knowledge and agreed courses of action to confront the realities of climate change, biodiversity loss and other complex problems, there is a need to understand the nuances and specificities of science advising across regions, cultures and languages.

The work: The project will interview well-placed practitioners working at the Science-Policy Interface in a subset of regions of the INGSA network (Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, North America, and Oceania). Interviewees will be chosen specifically for their experience working across a range of cultural settings, (in a bi- or multilingual/cultural country, region or through experience at the multilateral level), to reflect on the opportunities and challenges of cultural pluralism in science advice. Outcomes of this exercise can also inform approaches to science diplomacy and multilateral science advisory processes.

Partner: British Academy
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Joanna Chataway [with Kathryn Oliver (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)]
Brief: The UK Council of Science and Technology (CST) has asked the British Academy (BA) to commission a policy relevant study into relationships between science, trust and policy. STEaPP students will work with a team, led by Kathryn Oliver from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) that will conduct the study. The team also includes a number of other academics, including Joanna Chataway and Sense about Science, a UK based organisation working to promote the use of science and evidence in policymaking.

The relevance and authority of science in policymaking is shaped by many complex factors, including the nature of the policy challenge, the nature of the evidence base, how messages are communicated and by whom, and the overall relationship between publics, scientists and government.

Drawing on existing scholarship and expert groups, we explore these factors across three policy areas, developing hypotheses about what types of messages and messengers elicit trust. Working with Sense about Science (SaS) and their networks and links to community groups, we will explore the importance of format, media, and content in how publics respond to different types of communication, particularly marginalised publics. We will use creative approaches from across SHAPE and STEM to develop different formats and types of scientific communication, and coproduce recommendations on how science and policy institutions and individuals can work towards trustworthiness.

The study will begin in October 2022. From February/March 2023 to July /August 2023 STEaPP students will work with the research team to a) design science communication experiments and b) implement science communication experiments. Participating students will receive training in communications from Sense about Science.

Partner: Government Office for Science
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Chris Tyler and Irina Lazar
Brief: This project has two parts. First, this group will help to develop a Rapid Technology Assessment (RTA) working with expert officials in the UK Government Office for Science. You will scope an emerging technology area, conduct a rapid literature review, and engage directly with stakeholders in academia and industry to build up a picture of i) the status of this technology, ii) potential applications, iii) how the technology is likely to develop, and iv) how this technology could be relevant to future policy options. Second, the group will conduct some comparative research. Having been exposed to the GO-Science RTA methodology, you will identify and assess other RTA methodologies and provide insights to the GO-Science team on how their approach might evolve.

Partner: RAND Europe, supporting a study for UK ministry BEIS’ evaluation of the Nuclear Innovation Programme
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Adam Cooper
Brief: RAND Europe have been commissioned by BEIS to conduct an evaluation of the UK’s £180m Nuclear Innovation Programme (NIP). This RDI programme ran from 2016–2022, supporting a range of large industrial projects from advanced modular reactors (AMRs) to developing particle fuels, producing new technologies and products contributing to lowering the cost of deploying nuclear and increasing the proportion of nuclear power in the UK energy mix. The evaluation runs from September 2022 to August 2023.

This MPA project would entail an international comparative review of the state of nuclear research, development and innovation across a sample of countries, including the UK, to support our evaluation and contribute more broadly to the knowledge base on trends for nuclear RDI funding around the world. This would mainly cover public funding, but may draw insights from philanthropic and industry activity. Practically, this would involve significant desk research of policies, programmes and funds, a limited amount of nuclear sector analysis of a sample of countries (e.g., France, Germany), and some interviews with innovation agencies. The output to the work may be published as part of the NIP evaluation as a standalone report, published either by RAND and/or BEIS depending on its final form. The work would enhance the RAND Europe evaluation by enabling process and strategic insights from other countries, and generating some comparative data to benchmark to the UK.

Partner: New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Adam Cooper and Sarah Quinnell
Brief: With the UK Government drive towards net zero carbon, there is a growing emphasis to use less carbon-intensive materials such as concrete and steel for construction because of its major contribution to climate change. Timber, a naturally occurring resource that captures carbon, is a solution if sustainably managed and specified properly. UK Government recognises this and has established a Timber In Construction (TiC) policy roadmap working group to develop recommendations for increased use. The MPA research project should undertake work to create an evidence base of information to establish what is required to unlock the potential of timber around key themes of (a)building safety and design, and/or (b)lenders, insurers, and warranty provision. We think there is a great opportunity to explore and make a positive contribution to the tension between Government policy for net zero carbon, which promotes the use of timber in construction Timber in Construction Innovation Fund - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) and the ban on timber construction for certain use clarification relative to storey heights Combustibles Legislation - Timber Trade Federation (ttf.co.uk). There are also insurer and warranty provider perspectives and concerns in this process.

Partner: Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Bipashyee Ghosh and Julius Mugwagwa
Brief: This project will be about further developing policy experimentation approaches using Transformative Innovation Policy (TIP) theory. Drawing on insights from the past experimentation initiatives within the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium (for which data can gathered through interviews with the research team and policy practitioners as well as secondary analysis of the existing report and documentation), this project will refine and recommend new framework conditions for future application of TIP theory in different Global South and Global North contexts. Team members of the project are expected to apply knowledge from the respective MPA routes, drawing on theories, cases and methods from development, public policy, sustainability and innovation sciences to inform transformative innovation pathways in diverse contexts. They should be willing and able to work with practical facilitation tools for potential policy engagement workshops and contribute to developing new tools for the TIP resource lab. Capacity to use software for graphic design and visual presentations will be additionally desired among the team members.

Partner: Climate Compatible Growth (CCG)
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Meron Tesfamichael [and Julia Tomei (Institute for Sustainable Development, UCL)]
Brief: The electrification of transport, or e-mobility, has the potential to enhance the efficiency, safety, sustainability and affordability of the sector. Although the environmental and climate change benefits can vary, electric vehicles (EVs) are likely to play an essential role in reducing emissions from transport and contribute towards achieving the objective of the Paris Agreement. E-mobility is also expected to play a role in achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including better health (SDG3), sustainable cities (SDG11), and sustainable consumption and production (SDG12).
Thus, many governments are promoting the adoption of EVs, for example, through plans to phase out vehicles that rely on petrol and diesel. However, this transition also brings challenges, including resistance from incumbents, development of charging infrastructure and supply chains, energy management, rates of adoption, technological uncertainty and so on. The challenges and opportunities facing e-mobility in every country inevitably varies, which raises important questions around what the transition to e-mobility will look like in different contexts. This research project will work with the CCG programme to examine e-mobility transitions in one or more of our partner countries (Kenya, Zambia, Lao PDR and Vietnam). Funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, CCG is a five-year programme that aims to provide the evidence to support transitions to climate compatible development in our partner countries.

The research group could use different methods ranging from literature reviews, interviews and surveys, to roadmapping and scenarios-building to investigate future pathways to e-mobility. This project will appeal to students interested in low carbon futures, particularly the role of stakeholders, research, policy and evidence in tackling societal challenges.

Partner: Bromley Living Streets in the London Borough of Bromley
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Jenny McArthur
Brief: How can cities adapt their transport systems for a climate-resilient, net zero, inclusive and healthy future? Bromley Living Streets is a local group that engages with the public and campaigns for safer, healthier and lower-carbon travel in the London Borough of Bromley. Bromley is a relatively low- density borough in outer London, with substantial commuter flows to central London yet strong dependence on automobiles for local trips and very low levels of cycling. The borough faces many challenges in the transition to lower-carbon, safer and more inclusive forms of travel, with relatively high car ownership, unsafe levels of air pollution and limited provision of ‘healthy streets’ interventions such as Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, 20mph speed limits, controlled parking zones, protected cycle lanes or School Streets. The need for a significant change to safer and more sustainable travel habits is clear; yet, more evidence is needed to understand what a just mobility transition might look like for Bromley, considering the diverse mobility needs across the borough. Bromley Living Streets' work to-date has shown that alongside changes to our infrastructures, improved public awareness, education and changes in social norms are critical to support mobility transitions. The project will include data collection, engagement with the public and community representatives, and the mobilisation of engineering and technical expertise. The findings will draw on the research and engagement activities to explore potential futures for sustainable travel in Bromley, outline how the transition could be achieved in a just and inclusive way. 

Partner: Prime Minister’s Office Bangladesh
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Geoff Mulgan
Brief: This group project is with the a2i team in the Prime Minister’s Office of the Bangladesh government. They are widely seen as one of the most effective digital teams in government anywhere in the world, with a strong track record in digitising services and in using data and technology to handle the pandemic, as well as working on climate change.

The project would focus on designing new tools to help the 165m people of Bangladesh navigate their way to new skills and jobs. Automation is likely to sharply reduce numbers of jobs in fields such as textiles and agriculture that employ millions in the country. Remaining jobs will change. The challenge is to help people understand which jobs categories are growing or shrinking and what skills are likely to be in greater demand. In parallel, skills provision from colleges and other sources then needs to be adapted to likely areas of jobs growth. Very similar challenges face many countries around the world. Bangladesh hopes to be a pioneer in using technology and data to solve the problem, which requires complex multi-stakeholder engagement, including business, civil society as well as the public sector. Some of the work would focus on helping the design of the National Intelligence for Skills, Employment, Entrepreneurship and Education (NISE) platform. The UNDP sees a2i as a pioneer and so some of the ideas are likely to recommended to other countries around the world. The team will need to include members with backgrounds in data, digital design, user engagement, policy, and agile methods.

Partner: Publica
UCL STEaPP Supervisor: Ellie Cosgrave
Brief: The experiences, needs and realities of women, girls and gender diverse people have long been excluded from urban development processes. This has resulted in an under-provision of basic facilities that make public spaces truly accessible (e.g., adequate lighting, play spaces, sheltered rest spots, accessible, clear sight lines etc.) as well as well as an erasure of their experiences and needs in infrastructure investment decisions. As a result, many women, girls and gender diverse people feel inconvenienced, ill-at-ease and endangered in the urban environment.

In October, The London Mayor’s Office will release guidelines (researched and written by Publica) on how public realm design can be more cognisant of gender dynamics. Our core assertion is that actively including women, girls, and gender diverse people’s experiences, needs and realities at all stages of the design and policy process is the essential core action that needs to be taken to advance safer cities. We describe the existing barriers to participation and call for policy practitioners to be more experimental in both how they understand women’s needs and experiences as well as co- designing interventions with them.

Research Ask: We have seen many examples of how arts-based approaches to community engagement has been used to shift the power dynamic in consultation and get much deeper insights into the gendered experiences of space. Such methodologies include, for example, Photovoice and Body Mapping, as well as artistic co-design processes that use theatre and storytelling (e.g., the Flikrum – Places for Girls project).

We want to understand what works in artistic engagement methodologies with respect to understanding the experiences of women, girls and gender diverse people in cities. Why do they work? What are their limitations? Do they allow for a different kind of knowledge sharing related to embodied experience? What is different about them to traditional approaches, and how might policy makers set a better context for experimentation in these methods?

Project title: Developing a comparative ‘Global Atlas’ of science advisory mechanisms

Client: International Network for Government Science Advice (INGSA)

Brief: Challenges such as the pandemic and climate change have highlighted the necessity and value of science advice mechanisms as well as strong international touchpoints for information exchange. It has also shown that these are at play at every level of government – between countries but also between cities and regions. Yet there is currently no comprehensive mapping of the science policy & diplomacy ecosystems in each country, nor a clear framework for what elements to look for. Building upon INGSA’s 2014 global census of science advice structures, there is therefore a need to refine a classification system which would facilitate a fast and effective sharing of information as well as help identify elements of potential value to various jurisdictions.

The work: Partnering with INGSA, the project will help develop draft criteria for inclusion into the Atlas, based on policy literature and interviews/survey of INGSA’s key collaborators in international organisations and within the three INGSA regional chapters (Asia, Latin America and Africa). Criteria will then be tested against known science advisory mechanisms in selected jurisdictions to ensure that they are able to capture 1) the appropriate type of national, sub-national and transnational mechanisms and 2) appropriate features of each mechanism. If time allows, the project will use the developed criteria to launch a pilot survey in one of the INGSA region.

Read the final report here. 

Client: Chatham House and The African CDC

Brief: As part of the EDCTP funded PANDORA-ID NET, Chatham House brings together academics from different disciplines to support the new African CDC in responding with research to epidemics of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. While the importance of anthropology is well-established, other disciplines in the social sciences may have important knowledge and methods to contribute to outbreak response. This project will examine how research in the social sciences could be used to facilitate and enhance outbreak response. The Team will review how the different disciplines in the social sciences have contributed to policies for COVID-19 responses, together with what local, national and regional expertise and capacities have been harnessed to identify gaps in provision. The Project will help form the foundation for a coordinated and integrated strategy in the social sciences for outbreak responses across Africa.

Project title: Children, Climate Change and Public Policy: Exploring the impact of climate change on children’s well-being and the roles of state and non-state actors in mitigation and resilience mechanisms

Client: Save the Children

Brief: From access to health, education, food security and economic opportunities - climate change puts children’s most basic rights at risk. This project, which will be conducted in partnership with one of the world’s largest and oldest international children’s charities, Save the Children, seeks to understand the societal impacts of climate change from children’s perspectives. It builds on a project on ‘policy nexuses’ carried out by one MPA group with the same partner in the 2020-2021 cohort. This year’s project seeks to build an evidence base of child-centric climate adaptation measures that can be championed and implemented in different parts of the world through public policy and actors such as Save the Children. Through literature reviews, primary data collection and analysis, options and scenarios-building, this project will contribute to current global and national discussions on the interactions between climate change-related risks (e.g. disease pandemics) and structural inequalities that affect marginalised and vulnerable members of society, especially children, but also women, disabled and displaced people and indigenous communities. Candidates interested in sustainable development goals, the roles of stakeholder narratives, research, policy and evidence in tackling societal challenges, will find this project useful for the MPA learning journey and beyond.

Client: Publica

Brief: In 2020, the Greater London Authority (GLA) commissioned Publica to create the most ambitious night time guidance produced by any city in the world. Published in early 2021, it sets out the many benefits for councils, communities and businesses of creating diverse and inclusive night time plans together, with step-by-step guides and inspiring case studies from across the globe on how this can be achieved.

The night time offers unique opportunities to enrich and diversify the experience of a borough. By developing a night time strategy, local authorities can address such diverse goals as combating loneliness, improving feelings of safety at night, celebrating a wide range of cultures, increasing the wellbeing of night workers, and nurturing the next generation of creative workers, among many more.

Holistic planning for London’s communities between 6pm and 6am is critical to the economic, social and cultural vitality of the city. However, in working with boroughs, Publica has discovered that there is no established framework or set of indicators that allow local authorities to a) understand how well they are performing at night and b) make evidence based decisions about where to prioritise investment.

For this group project, Publica is looking for a group of imaginative and creative students to support us in developing a holistic set of indicators to for local authorities. This will involve researching existing urban indicator frameworks (such as healthy streets) to understand ‘what works’ for transforming urban policy, as well as building on Publica’s expert knowledge of night time placemaking to create a meaningful framework that can be used by local authorities in the coming years.

Client: Arup

Brief: Greenhouse Gas Removals (GGR) are outlined in the UK Governments ‘Net Zero Strategy: Build Back Greener’ as playing an essential role in the UKs journey towards net zero, compensating for residual emissions that cannot be mitigated. The strategy outlines a commitment to deliver £100 million innovation funding for Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage and other Greenhouse Gas Removal methods. The key GGR methods outlined by the strategy include Nature based approaches (Tree planting, Soil carbon sequestration) and Engineering based approaches ( Biochar, Bioenergy with carbon capture & storage, Direct air capture, Enhanced weathering & Ocean alkalinisation).

However, there is an acknowledgement that multiple issues and barriers exist in both current and future implementation of these GGR methods. For example, in an independent review of GGR methods, the Royal Academy of Engineering highlighted the following issues and barriers; land use pressures, resource requirements, interaction with biodiversity net gain, and social impacts.

This project should critically analyse the social, political, economic and environmental issues and barriers to implementation of these methods.

Where relevant, the research should also propose solutions for overcoming these barriers, particularly focusing on any innovative practice or lessons that can be learnt from a global perspective, to be applied in the UK.

Client: Highways England

Brief: Highways England are a public company that manage the major roads and motorways in England for the UK government’s Department for Transport. As such it is a key player in sustaining what some might regard as a key threat to future sustainability in climate and environment. They recently created a new post of Director of Sustainability who is tasked with helping HE think about its future and whether it will require a fundamental change to the operating model of the Company. Different levels of change are possible depending how active a role HE plays in contributing to wider climate and environmental challenges. What are the opportunities and challenges a more sustainable future brings, and how fundamental does change need to be? This project will report to the new Director of Sustainability, helping them understand and develop a vision for a future sustainable National Highways.

Project title: Rail System & Enterprise Architecture Security Priorities in an innovation-driven technology landscape: The role of a socio-technical approach

Client: East West Rail (EWR) and National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)

Brief: The threat landscape of modern railway systems is widening despite that the stakeholders of modern rail systems (MRS) are enjoying many benefits from technological advances like the commercial off-the-shelf (COTS), Internet, and Internet of Things (IoT) amongst others. Often, the benefits are along the improvement of performance efficiency for safety-critical railway systems. However, introducing open networks and COTS components into a previously proprietary safety system also introduce new security threats. Today, modern railway systems are facing increasing cases of cyber-attacks as system components can be directly compromised once a malicious agent gains access to the system through exploiting either the technical or social elements of the infrastructure. For example, the British rail network came under attack from hackers four times in 2015.

Thus, cybersecurity has become a critical issue of concern in modern railway systems, and solutions that explore a more socio-technical approach to security are needed for effective protection to be achieved. Holistically, modern railway system comprises of Signalling systems, Train and Communication Systems, and Automatic Train Supervision on the technical side, and human operators’ knowledge, behaviour and responses, processes, organisational structures, and policies on the social side. While technologies need to be hardened to improve security, gaps in security skills and competency for appropriate responses, processes, organisational structures, and policies also need to be plugged to achieve a more holistic security for modern railway system. From initial conception, through to design and implementation, a robust system & enterprise architecture that consider both technical and social attributes is a core contributor to enhanced security for railway systems. Rail industry stakeholders need to understand the key factors and attributes that can help to attain more holistic security, in order to better respond to, and address potential operational security concerns.

The group project aims to identify the security priorities and develop a robust socio-technical system & enterprise architectural security framework for operational security of modern railway system.

Client: UK government’s Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI)

Brief: What are the potential ethical risks in adopting data-driven technologies to achieve Net Zero targets? What levers can governments pull to address these potential risks?

Over the next few years governments all over the world will need to design new arrangements to handle the many data issues raised by strategies for achieving net zero. These include handling of smart meter data from residential homes or buildings; transport data; and data within high emission industries. These raise a host of issues around both how to maximise the public value of linking data so as to better understand carbon reduction patterns, and around ensuring privacy, since this data could be misused in many ways. The CDEI is the UK government’s main institution for thinking through the dilemmas of balancing innovation and ethics, particularly around AI. The project will involve mapping the key issues; examining lessons from cities and governments around the world grappling with similar dilemmas; and making proposals on policy options. It will require engagement with think tanks and researchers; businesses; NGOs and the public sector; understanding regulatory and legal contexts; and generating creative solutions.

Read the final report here.

Client: British Standards Institution (BSI)

Brief: In recent years, several regulatory proposals have been advanced to tackle the risks associated with the increased use of algorithmic decision-making, machine learning, and artificial intelligence tools in both the private and public sector (see, for instance, the EU AI Regulation proposal). In the UK, several initiatives from the Office for AI and the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation are in the pipeline to respond to critical concerns pertaining to AI developments and deployments. At the same time, standards-development work in this space has also advanced, in standards-making bodies such as BSI, IEEE, and ISO/IEC. In collaboration with BSI --- the UK National Standards Body --- this MPA project will investigate the emerging landscape for AI standards, both technical and normative. The aim of the project is to map out existing and emerging AI standards, and the extent to which they reflect current concerns and future risks associated with the use of AI tools, as well as ways in which future standards can support and supplement regulatory proposals for governing AI systems in a responsible, transparent, and accountable manner. By engaging directly with standardisation work conducted in national and international standards organisations, and consulting with a broad range of stakeholders via interviews, surveys and/ or workshops, the project team will draw evidence to provide future AI standardisation directions for BSI, so that the UK can continue to take international leadership in standards development in this area.

MPA candidates willing to take part in this project should have genuine interest and knowledge of AI issue from a technical, procedural, and/or policy perspective, as well as willingness to delve deep into existing standards and regulatory frameworks.

Read the final report here. 

Individual Project

Digital, technology and data-focused roles in are crucial to the machinations of London councils, as the people in them are responsible for designing, developing, testing and delivering digital public services. Digital teams also often lead councils' innovation and transformation efforts. But there is no available data on how many women, transgender or non-binary people work in digital, technology and data-focused roles across local — or central — government in the UK. 
 
This research endeavours to address a gap in literature, due to the dearth of data and research on gender diversity in public sector technology in the UK. It interrogates what works to recruit and retain women and gender diverse people in London councils’ digital teams by analysing the complex, layered and often imperceptible means by which social interactions reinforce gender norms, inequalities and expectations in the workplace. First-person data collection in the form of semi-structured interviews was used to elicit evidence on gender-driven workplace behaviours and standards. The interview data was coded and analysed to answer the research questions, and goal mapping was employed to develop a series of policy recommendations for the London Office of Technology & Innovation and London councils. 

Read the final report here. 

Client: Royal Academy of Engineering

Brief: The UK’s net-zero emissions challenge requires integration and deployment of viable known technologies at scale and pace; a challenge that the engineering community can play a vital role in and is uniquely placed and enthusiastic to support. It is engineers from every discipline that will design, build, retrofit, operate and make safe the infrastructure and technologies for a decarbonised UK to be fully achieved. Decision-making around net-zero policymaking will also need to be grounded in deep engineering expertise, drawing on the experience of engineers in designing and delivering infrastructure, but also on engineering creativity, problem-solving and systems thinking to address complex areas of policymaking. However, the lack of engineering expertise among civil servants in central government and in local authorities, particularly in relation to net zero, is widely recognised.

Partnering with the Royal Academy of Engineering – UK's national academy of engineering – the project group will look at the landscape of engineering advice around net zero, internal capability in central and local government, and where gaps in advice exist. It will examine the benefits and limitations of the various mechanisms available to government to access the necessary engineering expertise, such as recruiting engineers in senior roles or bringing staff in on secondments to address gaps, or other mechanisms such as policy fellowships and other forms of engineering policy advice. It will also examine where engineering expertise complements existing capabilities in government.

Client: Arup (Environmental Consulting Team)

Brief: Climate change is a global issue, yet the impacts and burdens are neither shared equally nor fairly within different groups in society. Within the built environment, exclusive climate planning and design within the built environment may perpetuate social fragmentation and environmental degradation whilst exacerbating issues of justice, equity, and equality. 

In recent years, the urgency for a low-carbon and climate-resilient transition has gained traction, with increasing calls for net-zero decarbonisation route maps, building adaptation for climate change, and the setting of Science-Based Targets within the sector. Such a transition is not without complexities – positing technological, political, generational, and financial questions amongst others. Incorporating principles of climate justice within public policy remains difficult yet necessary; especially where the intersectionality of climate justice in the built environment is all too frequently omitted from the discourse.

Partnering with Arup – an engineering consulting firm Arup headquartered in London – the group members will investigate how principles of climate justice can be asserted within public policy for sustainable infrastructure. How can we ensure that public policy is delivered that seeks to address the unintended consequences and co-benefits of climate change strategies within the built environment? How can we ensure that policy focuses on inclusion with a focus on those marginalised groups such as low-income groups, the elderly, and the BAME community? How should public policy differ to ensure climate justice is temporally and spatially applicable at the city, regional and national level?

Client: Access

Brief: UK Universities and HEIs have recently been forced to develop and manage a blended-learning teaching approach in response to the pandemic. In most cases, this is being delivered from the private homes of teaching staff which expands the digital footprint of these institutions significantly. In August 2020, the sector was warned by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) that it faced rising numbers of cyber-attacks. Indeed, many universities and further education colleges have already had to deal with the impacts of attacks in 2020 – many of them ransomware based. In September 2020, there were eight attacks reported by universities that disrupted the start of term. The financial, IP theft and reputational damage could be highly damaging, not only on individual educational institutions but also on important research and development work such as that currently underway at several UK institutions to develop a Covid-19 vaccine. This has led to concerns that increasing cyber-attacks are threatening to fundamentally disrupt the UK’s reputation for world-leading research institutions

Universities face unique challenges in developing a culture that supports people to practice good cyber security – in part because of the large turnover of people every year. It is vital for governing bodies and boards at universities and HEIs to have a good understanding of the impacts these attacks can have on their research and educational mission and to take responsibility for ensuring that effective measures are in place to protect the institution, their staff and students, as well as the highly valuable research and development work that many are carrying out. However, solutions to cybersecurity are not always technical. If security does not work for people, it does not work. This project will focus on the human and organisational factors that shape the cyber resilience of the HE sector.

Partnering with the Access Group – a business software provider serving the learning and education sector – the group members will investigate how aware senior leadership in UK HE is of organisational cybersecurity risk and resilience, particularly the human and organisational factors. The MPA candidates will develop recommendations based on primary and secondary data collected (through qualitative and quantitative methods).

Client: The Internet Society

Brief: Encryption keeps communications confidential between the sender and receiver so that no third-party can access the communications, including the company providing the service. Encryption also protects information stored on computers, mobile phones, and other digital devices, ensuring that if the device is lost or stolen the information on the device is protected. Encryption allows individuals to freely express themselves, exchange personal and other sensitive information, and protect their data. On the flip side, malicious actors are able to abuse the confidentiality, privacy and security encryption affords to plot and coordinate terrorist attacks, engage in organised crime and preserve their anonymity. Thus, some governments are increasingly exerting pressure upon tech companies to create ‘backdoors’ to their encrypted devices and services to provide these agencies with ‘exceptional access’. Undermining encryption in this way, however, can have extremely dire consequences, as any backdoors placed in a system for use by law enforcement could be also exploited by criminals, putting all users in that system at greater risk of multiple security and privacy harms. The anti-encryption movement is gaining momentum, as can be seen in the recent U.S. Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act bill, which essentially forces tech companies to build backdoors to allow access to encrypted data in certain contexts. 

In partnership with the Internet Society – a non-profit organisation formed by two of the ‘Fathers of the Internet’ – this project group will identify and weigh the risks and benefits of weakening encryption technologies, taking into account different interests at stake such as privacy, cybersecurity, public safety, national security, economic competitiveness, freedom of expression and the need to maintain an open Internet. Based on these findings, the MPA candidates are expected to develop a framework for decision-making that can guide lawmakers, policymakers, the technical community and other stakeholders in their discussions and debates over encryption and law enforcement.  

Read the final report here. 

Client: UK Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) (Standards Team)

Brief: Geopolitics in emerging digital technologies is about understanding the extent to which political and economic interest is embedded in the fora, processes and communities of practice that set the norms and standards through which global technology governance is enacted. The norms and standards that underpin emerging digital technologies from Artificial Intelligence (AI) and 5G to the Internet of Things (IoT), although initially regarded as the domain of the technical community, are increasingly the site where competing state and non-state interests, incentives, ideas and powerful actors collide or converge. 

On the one hand, setting the norms and rules of emerging digital technologies and their implementation is regarded by states as linked to national security, national interest and state power. On the other hand, the rising influence of non-state actors such as big tech (like Alphabet, Facebook, Amazon etc.) and influential consortia like the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) should not be underestimated. Consequently, understanding how different actors are engaging with norms and standards negotiations – which actors are taking newly assertive roles, and which actors are forming powerful alliances in key global forums – is critical to understanding how technology and geopolitics intersect.

Drawing on a range of qualitative and quantitative research methods, the MPA candidates will work with the Standards team at the UK Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to map this increasingly geopolitically influential ecosystem of powerful actors, incentives and implications. The map will provide a macro (global) overview of the direction of emerging digital technologies and future societies for policymakers, academics and publics.

Each group member will conduct primary research on a specific technology domain (e.g., AI, 5G, IoT etc.) and pool this as a group to identify and map the intersections-v-disconnections and the competitiveness-v-cooperation that drive the politics and economics at the global level. Primary research will require consultation with the client, interviews of key actors and exhaustive desk research along with an understanding of (or keen desire to understand) geopolitics, international relations and technology policy.

Client: Chatham House & Save the Children UK (Innovation Hub and Humanitarian Affairs Unit)

Brief: Apart from exposing societal inadequacies and leaving millions insecure and vulnerable economically and in terms of health, education, food and energy access, the pervasive and 'all at once' nature of the current Covid-19 pandemic, has reminded us of what history has taught us repeatedly – that policy arenas do not act in isolation. Urgent, agile and in many cases innovative societal and governmental reactions have seen communities and countries deploying and/or developing different cross-sectoral measures to deal with the impact of the pandemic. From decisions on the provision of personal protective equipment (PPE), rapid development and supply of diagnostic kits, ventilators and drug therapies, to insights feeding into social distancing guidance and rapid response measures to keep children in schools and communities fed, policy actors have deployed social and political skills while initiating changes that break with the status quo.

In this project, the MPA candidates will work with our partner organisations to explore and critically examine examples of how actors from different sectors have drawn from and adjusted sectoral policies in designing and implementing responses to the pandemic. The project will analyse the interactions among actors, policy instruments and other factors in and across health, energy and food security sectors in selected countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and America, to generate robust evidence, relevant for policy and practice, on managing policy interfaces during a global pandemic. The findings of this project will also be broadly relevant for decision-making and action on persistent social challenges.

Client: Arup (Planning Team)

Brief: Increasingly, local authorities are looking for decentralised energy networks to reduce emissions associated with the energy needs of local populations. However, supply and demand are not easily matched, with them sitting in different authority areas (e.g. using waste heat in one borough to provide low carbon heat to a population in another). This is particularly common where there is a waste energy source but a lack of density of population to supply to. Arup has worked on a number of district heating networks, e.g. TFL whereby the source heat is obtained in one London Borough but sourced housing in another.

Partnering with Arup – an engineering consulting firm headquartered in London – the MPA candidates will analyse the opportunities and constraints (practically, financially, with respect to policy and how it aligns to priorities and needs, etc.) to implement such schemes, and explore how local authorities – taking the UK as the example – can work together to delivery decentralised low carbon energy infrastructure including distribution or generation, where it may cross over authority boundaries. In addition, how can such projects be economically, financially and socially viable, enabling both authorities and their communities’ needs to be met?

Read the final report here.

Client: UNESCO, Division of Science Policy and Capacity-Building

Brief: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by all UN member states in 2015 set out 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This 2030 Agenda includes a "Technology Facilitation Mechanism" (TFM) that aims to support the practical implementation of the SDGs by 2030. In this “decade of action” towards realising the ambitious 2030 effort sits another core mechanism: the UN Interagency Task Team on Science, Technology and Innovation for the SDGs (IATT). 

The UN-IATT has several workstreams. One of these focuses on designing and delivering training courses and workshops for SDGs for policymakers and key STI managers from developing countries. It is this IATT workstream that this MPA group project will contribute to. (For context: another UN-IATT workstream focuses on delivering assistance and guidance to countries undertaking roadmaps development as part of the Global Pilot Programme on Development of STI for SDGs roadmaps. This was the focus of a STEaPP MPA group project last year.) 

The MPA candidates will contribute to the development of effective tools for national STI capacity development. Within the IATT workstream on STI capacity building, UNESCO specifically contributes to the preparation of the technical materials and training materials and online tools. This is not a trivial task. Countries require far more than just technical or scientific knowledge delivered in summary notes or access to databases. They require strategic, managerial and policy-making skills that will allow them to elaborate and implement specific STI strategies for development, inclusive public policies and effective means of governing. There is no dominant view on the most suitable or effective means of developing such capacity. This group project will contribute to UNESCO/IATT’s understanding of the specific requirements for developing innovative learning and development models to enhance STI capacity.

Read the final report here. 

Client: Karachi Urban Lab, Royal Academy of Engineering, University of Cape Town and Safetipin

Brief: Women’s mobility and liberty is deeply affected by the design of public space they travel through in both developed and developing countries. Indeed, it is here that the majority of sexual harassment occurs but often goes unreported and unaddressed. Furthermore, engineers designing this infrastructure are not able to adequately include a gender perspective in their designs. The goal of ‘Tell Me How You See It’ is to develop a workbook and checklist to support those designing mobilities infrastructure to include a gender perspective. On top of this, it will provide a suite of opportunities for dialogue between people and disciplines with diverse expertise and experiences related to urban mobility that will co-create gender-sensitive infrastructure solutions that can be scaled and replicated in different locations.

The project will create an international network of master’s students – 3 in each location of UCL London, University of Cape Town and the Institute of Business Administration, Karachi; for each location, local observations will feed into the analysis – coming from various disciplines that are responsible for the different elements of mobilities and public space. Each group will analyse typical transport situations within their respective cities and women’s use of them. They will exchange views on improvements and existing challenges, as a local group but also between the different locations. A bespoke auditing tool, built on the Safetipin platform, will be created to support the project’s auditing needs. The analysis will be presented to the wider expert group through two key workshops and will be distilled into a practical tool for cities and engineers (a workbook and checklist) that will be validated in a second virtual workshop.

Client: Arup

Brief: With COVID-19 accelerating the shift to working from home, coupled in recent years with increasing use of permitted development, it turns out that people are often working in inappropriate home working spaces. Lessons can be learnt from the development of spaces such as Maggie’s Centres, to design home living spaces that are better for our mental wellbeing. Maggie’s centres are purpose-built spaces to provide practical and emotional support for people with cancer and their families. The aim of the charity, through their spaces, is to provide therapeutic relief, both mental and physical, in order to aid in a patients’ rounded care. Arup has worked closely with architects on the Maggie’s Centre at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London to create a space that achieves this. With the use of natural lighting, home-style finishes and design that encourages social opportunities as well as quiet reflection, it is obvious that one of the main aims of these spaces is to improve the mental wellbeing of its patients. This is done by trying to remove them and their prognosis from an environment that is purely clinical and sterile.

Numerous studies have shown that there is a direct link between the quality of one’s environment and its effects on their mental and physical health. With an unmitigated increase of permitted development, the quality and condition of home living spaces (especially in large-populous cities) has deteriorated due to high demand and a finite supply. These new developments may not be geared towards providing the best possible space for the mental health of their residents due to cost constraints and profit-minded priorities. 

Partnering with Arup – an engineering consulting firm Arup headquartered in London – the MPA candidates will determine what are the opportunities for policy and technology to influence the design of future (living/working/travelling) spaces for mental wellbeing. The aim of this project is to explore how health and wellbeing, and more broadly social value, can be created/enhanced, with a focus on policy. In addition, it would be interesting to explore avenues to measure and benchmark these aspects as a tool to drive positive change.

Client: UNESCO

Team: Alessia Aquaro, Eduardo Carrillo Portillo, Maria Valenzuela Suarez, Manuel Calve, Catalina Frigerio Dattwyler, Maria-Paz Bravo Sandoval

Brief: UNESCO developed the Global Observatory for Science, Technology and Innovation (GO-SPIN) project in order to strengthen the Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) systems of its Member States. Through its on-line platform providing information on countries’ STI policies (https://gospin.unesco.org) and its methodological and training tools, GO-SPIN reinforces human capacities and supports policy-makers in STI policy development, monitoring and implementation. The project consists in conducting desktop studies, inventories, collection and analysis of STI policy and policy instruments related data and information in different countries, with focus on developing countries.

The work requires consultations and collaboration with different sectors including science-based ministries, governmental bodies, universities and research institutions, civil society representatives, with involvement in the design and implementation of STI policies.

Client: UNESCO

Team: Jodie McClintock, Mengchan Liu, Isla Kennedy, Ge Zhang, Yosuke Nagase

Brief: Within the framework of the UN Technology Facilitation Mechanism (TFM) and its Inter Agency Task Team (IATT), UNESCO is participating and co-leading with the World Bank, UN DESA, UNCTAD, and the EU Joint Research Centre, an initiative to develop STI for SDGs Roadmaps. Further to regional and international experts groups meetings, the workstream has developed a Guidebook for the preparation of the roadmaps and launched in July 2019 the Global Pilot Programme on Development of STI for SDGs roadmaps, with the implementation in five pilot countries (Ghana, Ethiopia, India, Kenya and Serbia). UNESCO is coordinating the pilot activities in Ghana, providing support to the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation. The project requires developing an understanding of the best practices of the IATT framework and country piloting as well as of the Ghana science policy landscape in order to best assist UNESCO and the Ghanaian government in their development, implementation and review of the roadmap process.

Client: Chayn

Team: Jay Neuner, Thomas Bermudez, Maddalena Esposito

Brief: Spouseware, stalkerware or spyware describes a particular family of malicious software, intended to coerce, control, and monitor targeted users. Such software applications are frequently not explicitly advertised to surveil partners or other potentially affected persons; rather, they are commonly promoted to facilitate parental or employee control. The programmes are often secretly installed on devices such as phones, deployed without a victim’s knowledge and consent, and offer disguised surveillance features such as location tracking, web filters, and key loggers. There is a growing body of research on the topic. However, guidance for victims/survivors as well as support services remains scarce. The proposed group project, therefore, sets out analyse the global trend of intimate partner violence (IPV) surveillance tools as well as any applied technical, practitioner, and policy responses. The study is run in collaboration with Chayn, a volunteer network which addresses gender-based violence through the creation of intersectional survivor-led online resources. Students interested in joining this project should be aware that they will be exposed to references to gender-based violence/harassment across the project and that they are expected to be available for research activities throughout the summer. Strong quantitative and qualitative research skills are essential, and prior programming skills desired.

Approach: The research team (Maddalena Esposito, Thomas Bermudez, Jay Neuner) under the supervision of Dr Leonie Maria Tanczer will be carrying out semi-structured interviews and an online survey with self-identified researchers and experts. Respondents are expected to work (or have worked) on and around the topic of technology-facilitated domestic/sexual violence and abuse, cybersecurity, and policing. We invite a wide range of potential knowledgeable parties to participate in our study, including academic researchers, representatives from voluntary and statutory support organisations, industry stakeholders, as well as journalists. All gathered findings will be written up in a report for Chayn, with the research team also hoping to engage in presenting the results at academic/public conferences, workshops, and events. 

Client: Axelos; Resilia

Team: Vido Chandra Panduwinata, Kairbek Abdrakhmanov, Takahiro Fujita, Serik Almatov, Shintaro Ikeda

Brief: Although cyber threats are reported as one of the top concerns for both CEOs and investors, a recent survey by the NYSE Governance Services found that only 11% of corporate directors believed their boards possess a high level of understanding of cyber security risk. The challenges that boards face in this area have recently been recognised by the UK National Cyber Security Centre as a key risk and there is now a recognition that boards have not received the level of support necessary to meet the demands that cyber insecurity place on business. Axelos / Resilia, a joint venture company created in 2013 by the UK Cabinet Office and Capita, has a track record of providing high level training support to organisations seeking to improve their understanding of and behaviours relating to a number of common ‘human factor’ cyber risks. They now wish to develop specific ideas and concepts for what effective and engaging ‘training’ to boards and executive management teams could look like. The dynamic nature of the cybersecurity ecosystem means that the provision of support to boards must be constantly reviewed and updated. Consequently, Axelos / Resilia has partnered with the NCSC and a team of researchers based at UCL to look critically at their training provision and work to update them.

This project will provide students with an exceptional opportunity to work on policy within a private organisation (partnering with the Cyber Readiness for Boards project) in one of the most demanding and fast-moving elements of board decision making.

Client: British Standards Institution (BSI); PETRAS

Team: Natalia Maj, Gabriella Ezeani, Malla Tedroff, Jiehui Song, Jan Sassenberg

Brief: Healthcare, medicinal therapies and medical devices represent an area that has received considerable regulatory oversight and stability in the past couple of decades, especially in established markets in Europe, North American and South-East Asia. Consumer protection centred on the safety and efficacy of medical therapies and devices have been crucial to successful regulatory frameworks and standardisation initiatives in healthcare, albeit perceived as inflexible by some market actors. However, new digital technologies/processes are currently disrupting these established and quasi-harmonised regulatory frameworks. The rise of connected fitness devices (e.g. Fitbit), connected medical devices (e.g. pacemakers) and devices using complex software systems based on Machine Learning/ Artificial Intelligence pose new challenges. In this group project, you will be working closely with the British Standards Institution (BSI) – the national standards body in the UK – to better understand, identify and offer recommendations about the current regulatory and standardisation gaps/ uncertainties resulting from the increased use of connected and intelligent medical devices.

In this project, the MPA group will conduct primary research to test some of the regulatory and standardisation gaps already identified by BSI – available here – and to identify new gaps and misalignments where standards-making bodies and regulators can intervene to ensure that new medical devices maintain a high degree of security, safety, transparency and accountability to those who deploy and use them. This is a highly important, life-saving area that requires novel thinking about the complex socio-technical opportunities and challenges that digital technologies in healthcare raise and where standards could offer stability and predictability in a changing market, when regulators/ policy-makers are struggling to catch up.

Read the final report here.

Title: Health systems strengthening and preparedness for global pandemics: an analysis of global and local health policy and practice

Client: DFID; World Health Organisation; Save the Children (UK)

Team: Alexandra Swanepoel, Xiaolu Zhang, Calum Savage, Katrina Barker, Arda Ozcubukcu

Brief: The UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and numerous global players such as the World Health Organisation, some pharmaceutical companies, product development partnerships and civil society organisations have worked with and through local partners in different parts of the world, in particular low-income countries, to strengthen health delivery systems.  Health systems consist of all organisations, people and actions whose primary interest is to promote, restore or maintain health, and are characterised by six building blocks, namely; service delivery, (ii) health workforce, (iii) health. information systems, (iv) access to essential medicines, (v) financing, and (vi) leadership/governance (WHO, 2007).

This project will look at the work of the DFID and its partners in three selected low-income countries with a view to understanding health system agility, preparedness and adjustments at decision-making and delivery levels, drawing lessons for both low- and high-income country health systems. 

Client: ARUP (Energy Team)

Team: Iris Somen, Jorge Jimenez Solomon, Anna-Mariya Kandzhova, Rodon Miraj, Okky Oktaviani, Lorena Cordero Maldonado

Brief: Globally, our current trajectory is moving us rapidly towards more than 2°C of warming, which for the UK will bring hotter, drier summers and milder, wetter winters with an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. The first half of 2019 has seen unprecedented global recognition that we are facing a 'Climate Emergency', with mass climate protests, school strikes, warnings from the Bank of England, and strong advice from the UK Committee on Climate Change urging the Government to commit to a new net zero carbon target 2050. Many Local Authorities in the UK are making the initial step of declaring a 'Climate Emergency'. However, there is no established or recognised pathway to delivering the actions required (e.g. deep energy efficiency retrofit of buildings, delivering low-carbon heat supply, supporting low-carbon transport modal shift) to achieve the overarching objective. There is limited understanding of the strategic process required and the appropriate delivery models to enable Local Authorities to deliver on their climate pledges.    Investigation into previous experiences of significant structural change in government operation (e.g. adoption of digital technology over last 20 years) could help to identify key lessons that could be applied to the Climate Emergency process. 

More specifically, the research may explore one or more of the following areas regarding how authorities: 

• Achieve the necessary structural/organisational changes and what these may be  
• Access additional/alternative funding streams  
• Accelerate procurement processes  
• Accelerate recruitment in specific skills areas (e.g. building energy retrofit)  
• Achieve behavioural change of both government employees and residents (e.g. transport modal shift).

Client: ARUP (Sustainability Assessments Team)

Team: Xiangru Chen, Edgardo Garcia Chaves, Stephanie Chow, Naomi Black

Brief: The shift from a traditional linear economy of making, using and disposing, to an alternative circular one that aims to minimise waste and make the most of resources has become increasingly widespread. In the construction industry public realm projects are required to be resilient and future-proofed in cost-effective ways to mitigate risks of resource depletion and landfill. A circular economy approach requires innovative thinking when it comes to design, procurement and in-use. When designing public realm projects, the whole lifecycles needs to be considered. The benefits of this approach can be achieved by changing the way the urban space is perceived, designed, constructed, operated, maintained and re-used. But how can circular economy principals be embedded in the public realm? What are the challenges designers and planning authorities face today? Is current policy strong enough to safeguard our public spaces for the future? How can the circular economy make public realm more sustainable?

Client: ARUP (Energy Team)

Team: Weiming Pan, Annie Amrhein, Yuh Shyuan Lee, Evita Moawad, Salman Khan, Ryan Leung

Brief: The consumption of goods and services drives greenhouse gas emissions, directly and indirectly, through the emissions associated with the extraction and refining of raw materials, manufacturing and production of products and energy used in storage, distribution and disposal. This is of particular relevance to cities, which (unless they have a significant manufacturing economy, for example) are typically centres of consumption and whose consumption-based emissions profiles are often therefore much larger than when emissions are considered on a production basis. Consumption is closely linked to wealth (GDP); however, it is more difficult to quantify links between consumption and wellbeing or happiness effectively. Addressing the climate crisis will need to include action to reduce consumption-based emissions and, in some cases, this may be argued to require overall reductions in the volume of goods and services consumed.

This is a difficult topic for policy-makers to address, in part because of concerns around the impact on GDP. However, the impact on happiness/wellbeing of citizens is not often considered, and could provide evidence of benefit to support certain reductions in consumption of particular products or services. People are increasingly questioning the basis of assessing success based on GDP and other limited indicators. 

• Would happiness or wellbeing be a better indicator to use or include?
• What correlation is there between spending on goods/services and wellbeing or happiness?
• Does it vary by sector or product category?
• Is there a minimum threshold above which, additional consumption of goods and services on an individual level does not necessarily result in increases in happiness or wellbeing?
• What indicators could be used in a city context to infer happiness or wellbeing benefits associated with reduced consumption?  

Client: ARUP (Energy Team)

Team: Weiming Pan, Annie Amrhein, Yuh Shyuan Lee, Evita Moawad, Salman Khan, Ryan Leung

Brief: Another completely different angle would be to explore how disparate individual consumption levels are in different cities; previous ARUP research was done at a high level for a global cohort of cities, only taking the average spend in each city ‚ but this could mask important differences in inequality levels and the 'spread' of individual spending in a given area. It is widely acknowledged that as you move up the percentiles, the level of spending/emissions associated with lifestyle (consumption of goods/services) increases significantly. This project would explore the options for targeting consumption-related policies in a progressive way to ensure that those who can most afford to change, and who are most responsible for emissions, bear the cost and impacts on those who have less impact and can least afford to change are minimised?

Client: UAE PM office

Brief: There are certain behaviors prevalent in the UAE society, one of which is overconsumption and low savings. The impact of low savings goes beyond the individual level to include the impact on the overall economy on the medium and long run.

We are looking to learn more about this pattern and potential solutions. The work could include:

• Data and indicators about the issue/problem (globally, regionally, within UAE, based on other demographic or geographic factors) for a period of not less than ten years.
• Causes (including social, economic openness and globalization ... etc) supported by as well as relevant data and indicators for a period of not less than ten years.
• The system dynamic of the issue (cause and effect). The stock and flow as well as equation will be an added value.
• Negative effects, harms and threats of the issue/problem including relevant data and indicators on the for a period of not less than ten years
• The cost of damage or harms to the society and/or the financial cost to the government and the economy
• Suggested Policies (programs/initiatives/legislations) to address the issue/problem and prevent or reduce its impact
• Effects of addressing the issue based on the suggested interventions including the unintended effects and how to mitigate them
• Cost of addressing the issue/problem and implementing the suggested solutions /government interventions and government savings in financial terms for the first year and next five years.
• Successful practices in other countries, federal or local governments to address the issue (problem) (at least three practices including nature of the harm/damage, causes, how the government dealt with it and results achieved from the intervention)

Client: Overseas Development Institute (ODI)

Brief: The aggregate global market for diesel generators between 2018 and 2022 is estimated to be $115 billion. In 2015, developing countries bought about 600,000 units, with a total installed capacity of 29 gigawatts. Around half of these generators were smaller than 0.3 megawatts. The market is forecast to continue to grow at a moderate rate, driven by the unreliability of power supplies, limited grid networks, low capital cost of diesel generators, and well-established markets and support services. But the continued and growing use of diesel generators is incompatible with the 1.5°C global warming goal of the Paris Agreement. To achieve climate change objectives, the energy services provided by small diesel generators need to transition to renewable energy sources.

What is the technical and economic feasibility of substituting decentralised renewable systems for small diesel generators (1 MW or smaller)? What are small diesel generators used for by residential, commercial, industrial and public service consumers? What are the capacities and costs for different uses? Which decentralised renewable energy systems can provide equivalent services for these various uses of diesel generators? What are their costs? What non-cost factors need to be considered when substituting decentralised renewable energy systems for diesel generators?

Brief: Certain digital technologies are seen as disruptive and can be at the certain of new ethical debates and challenges that we have yet to find answers. However, these can still tackle critical development challenges. The use of big data, geospatial technologies, digital identification, and other advances technologies could be explored or considered to current challenges such as response to disasters, reduce corruption or even promote financial inclusion. We should consider the work of the World Bank, BCG and other consulting companies that have experience working in the scope of such project.

Client: Open Rights Group; Michael Veale

Brief: The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regulates data protection and privacy for all individuals within the EU and the European Economic Area. It guarantees important rights for data subjects, including the right to request access to and rectification or erasure of personal data. One of the most understudied articles of the GDPR is Article 20, which guarantees data subjects the right to receive their personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, in order to, for example, transmit this data to another data controller. In the emerging IoT environment, the right to data portability offers great opportunities. Data subjects could move to choose to move their data between different IoT vendors, incentivizing a more heterogeneous IoT ecosystem. However, it remains unclear how Article 20 is actually currently applied and not only technically but practically implemented.

The group project, therefore, sets out to: a) study how IoT and other tech vendors currently deal with data portability requests; b) analyse what technical and policy measures are required to make Article 20 a useful and actionable right (e.g., data format standardization); and c) develop a standardised ‘data portability template’ that data subjects can use to request their personal data for transmission.

Key project outputs

• Port My Data website
• Right to Data Portability flyer

Client: Red Cross; Red Crescent Climate Energy Centre

Brief: Forecast-based Financing is a methodology to set up resources and financing to be automatically available to humanitarians and development practitioners to use when they receive a forecast of a potential disaster, without needing to wait until after the disaster happens to respond. FbF programmes develop a set of pre-agreed forecast triggers and early actions, to ensure that early action is taken immediately when the triggering forecast arrives. This is one method to adapt to the rising risk of extreme events due to climate change, especially in vulnerable contexts where people are greatly impacted by extreme events. Several climate finance mechanisms have been developed and proposed in recent years, in particular to mobilise the goal of 100 billion per year from the Paris Agreement for mitigation and adaptation. This research project would tackle the question of how climate finance can be mobilised for Forecast-based Financing programmes, outlining the pros and cons of different sources of funding being invested in different types of FbF programming. In particular, the research will investigate whether and how FbF could be used as a mechanism for climate finance to reach the most vulnerable people in conflict-affected and fragile state contexts. One dimension of this research is to provide guidance on dealing with uncertainty in climate-change attribution.

Title: Understanding Innovation and the IoT Ecosystem: The Role of Standards in Meeting SMEs Strategic Priorities

Client: BSI

Brief: SMEs play a fundamental role in the development of IoT products and services. They are a key stakeholder group in the IoT ecosystem, advancing innovation at multiple levels: atop their existing product line by adding connectivity (e.g. smart home appliances), within their business operations by adding data collection, automation and actuation (e.g. health services), and/or by innovating directly in the IoT (e.g. hardware, software, cloud services). Despite this important role, SMEs are generally underrepresented in policy-making and standards-development processes. The British Standards Institution (BSI) – the UK national standards body – has recognised this gap by actively engaging with SMEs operating in the IoT space to ensure that their business priorities are reflected in national and international standards. The BSI IoT/1 Technical Committee has worked closely with SMEs, consumer and manufacturing associations to produce a White Paper entitled Navigating and Informing the IoT Standards Landscape: A Guide for SMEs and Start-Ups(BSI and PETRAS, Jan 2019).

The group project contributes to this ongoing work by: a) validating and further identifying SMEs priorities for IoT standardisation via a large-scale survey and one-to-one interviews; b) mapping operational and organisational challenges that SMEs are facing when navigating, adopting and implementing IoT standards; c) developing a framework that will help SMEs engage more systematically in these IoT standards-making processes.

Read the final report here.

BSI Student Research Programme Case Study on the project

Client: UCL Department of CEGE (Clemence Cavoli); UN Habitat; World Bank.

Brief: The project, called T-SUM (Transitions to Sustainable Urban Mobility), is an existing interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaborative research project that aims to identify the conditions under which sustainable and inclusive transport and land use development can be accelerated in growing cities in the Global South. It is grounded in the observation that where there is still-low-but-rising levels of motorization, economic growth and increasing social and spatial inequalities, the formulation and implementation of policies, practices and partnerships that can support an accelerated implementation of sustainable mobility structures is an urgent concern for rapidly developing cities. This project will initially focus on Maputo, Mozambique, and Freetown, Sierra Leone, as apposite examples of growing urban economies in Sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the Global South. T-SUM is a cross-departmental collaboration between UCL Development Planning Unit at the Bartlett and the Centre for Transport Studies, part of the Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering. It involves a range of partners in Maputo and Freetown, including academics, consultants and policy-makers and institutions such as the World Bank and UN-Habitat. This project will work with Work Package 3: Vision pathways and implementation strategies. Students supported the research team in developing policy lessons and training for city governments hoping to make Transitions to Urban Mobility.

Cient: London City Hall (Greater London Authority); BOP Consulting

Brief: The World Cities Culture Report is the most comprehensive data of global cities and culture; it is published every three years and the 3rd edition published in November 2018 will comprise 33 cities including Buenos Aires, Cape Town, London, Moscow, New York, Paris, Seoul, Shenzen, Sydney and Tokyo. The Report is the main pillar of the World Cities Culture Forum, an influential network of senior leaders from 38 global cities that promotes urban leadership in cultural policy (like a 'C40 for culture'). The network is chaired by London's Deputy Mayor for Culture and Creative Industries and managed by the Greater London Authority and BOP Consulting. The relationship between data and cities is an area of growing interest often promising to solve a range of urban problems. It includes terms such as Smart City, an alluring prospect for many city leaders and 'thick data', where data is used for greater citizen participation. In culture, there are emerging developments in data driven tools, including the European Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor that aims to promote mutual exchange and learning between cities and boost culture-led development and the world’s first ever Cultural Infrastructure Plan being developed in London.

As cities develop new methods to collect data and open data to their citizens, this project will explore the next steps for the World Culture Cities Report. It will address questions such as: How can the Report best inform urban policy problems with data-driven solutions? How can cities best collect, share and communicate data about city cultural assets and citizens cultural behaviours? What new methodologies are emerging for collection and use of data? Where is the innovation? How can measurements on infrastructure and cultural participation be used for further comparable purposes across such a diverse group of cities? How does the Report track and influence global trends? How and where can the Report best be communicated to the wider public?

Project title: Urban Green Infrastructure: Converting research into policy action

Client: Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO)

Brief/ Background

The Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) is a research agency that exists as a collaboration between the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Johannesburg and the Gauteng provincial government, South Africa. They produce research and analysis around many regional social, environmental and economic challenges. The GCRO is unusual in the context of urban observatories in its engagement with multiple governance levels, taking place across a heterogeneous city-region rather than a single, constrained urban core.

The GCRO has an ongoing programme of work on 'Green assets and infrastructure' in the city-region. Over the last few years the GCRO have conducted mapping and documenting exercises, resulting in the "State of Green Infrastructure" report. They have also run a series of stakeholder engagements known as 'CityLabs' to start to understand experiences and leverage expertise present in the development and management of green infrastructure projects. GCRO are now in the process of digesting the outcomes of this work in appropriate ways to benefit to a range of decision-making communities, in a variety of decision-making contexts, across a diverse city-region.

Objectives

• Review current modes of communication in terms of how successful / unsuccessful they have been in engaging decision-makers around the topic of green infrastructure.
• Look at what can research do to support the uptake of a green infrastructure approach into urban planning, and/or project development and implementation
• Use a relevant green infrastructure case study to explore how co-production can assist with bridging inter/intragovernmental challenges in these types of cases.
• Co-produce guidance and action plan in response to points above in collaboration with stakeholder groups

Read the final report here. 

Project title: Scaling up urban experiments

Client: C40 Cities Group

Brief: With more than half of the world's population living in cities, and 70 million new urban dwellers every year (the equivalent of 7 new "Londons" per year), urban innovation is now critical to the future of sustainable development and the agendas shaping the future of our planet. The C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, now in its 10th year, connects more than 80 of the world's greatest cities, representing over 600 million people and one quarter of the global economy. 

Created and led by cities, C40 is focused on tackling climate change and driving urban action that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks, while increasing the health, wellbeing and economic opportunities of urban citizens. C40 has been partnering with ARUP and UCL STEaPP's City Leadership Laboratory since 2015, producing a series of three landmark reports that paved the way to the participation of cities in the new Paris climate agenda and Paris Agreement.

Research by C40, ARUP and the Lab has demonstrated that cities that collaborate are far more effective than individualist, top-down, cities -not only in the number of actions they take but also in the capacity to scale up pilot projects to transformative city-wide actions. 

• Watch a video to find out more about the Lab and this project

Objectives

• The project will explore the drivers, mechanisms, and challenges of scaling up experiments and how C40 can best leverage these dynamics.
• The team will collaborate with C40's London secretariat and the Lab team at STEaPP, producing a C40 report (as with the previous three), with analysis and a series of informative case studies, written and video blogs, a briefing for C40 staff and transferrable lessons for C40 cities.
• The project will involve direct access to a pool of selected C40 cities (e.g. C40's steering committee chaired by Paris, and including Mexico City, London, Seoul, Milan, Rio and Jakarta), as well as to C40 staff in the London secretariat, and will require both analysis of C40 data as well as interviews with practitioners (including experts from the broader pool of Lab partners like the OECD, World Bank and Uk Government) and possible workshopping activities with C40 experts and cities. 

Project title: Productive use of energy for enhancing wellbeing

Client: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

Brief: STEaPP is collaborating on a research project with the IIED is to identify what interventions are needed to help poor people in rural areas access decentralized energy services that strengthen their capacity to earn a living. 

Decentralized energy encompasses mini-grids and standalone energy devices, such as solar water pumps or efficient ovens. Many people agree that energy services need to go beyond the household, providing power for irrigation, energy for food processing and building local businesses, particularly in rural areas. This project focuses on energy services targeted at people working in small-scale agriculture, fishing, forestry and local services (retail, hospitality, trades). 

IIED is aware of interest in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Nepal, India and Bangladesh in this area of work.

Objectives

The group project will focus on a number of challenges such as: 

• identifying the specific evidence and practice gaps of different stakeholder groups;
• designing the key research questions and prototyping methods
• working out who will participate and partner with IIED, and the incentives/barriers to this
• clarifying the results and pathways to take-up.

Client: Technopolis Group (consultancy partner) for DfiD and British Council

Brief: The Strategic Partnership for Higher Education Innovation and Reform (SPHEIR) programme, a collaboration between the Department for International Development (DFID) and British Council, provides development assistance to higher education institutions in developing nations, with a focus in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. This assistance can take many forms, with a focus on quality, accessibility, relevance, affordability, scale, sustainability and technology (SPHEIR, n.d.b). Technopolis Group, a consulting firm located in the U.K., has been hired by the British Government to assist in the evaluation of SPHEIR and to assess the impact and scalability of the SPHEIR programme. The authors of this report work under the direction of Technopolis Group.

This report has been written to assist in the identification of emerging innovative pedagogies in the SPHEIR regions, in addition to Latin America. Pedagogical innovations were identified within the foci listed above through the application of a variety of frameworks. These frameworks, developed by universities and international organisations, were applied to existing literature and further complemented by conversations with experts in the education field. With these combined elements, a plethora of pedagogies which may be considered to be ‘innovative’ were identified in the selected countries; the Appendix contains detailed descriptions of each pedagogy identified.

Objectives

The group project will focus on three broad objectives:

• Definition of Innovative Pedagogies
• Examples of Innovative Pedagogies
• Feasibility and Replicability

Read the final report here.