As part of the SHAPEDEM project, and Oxford Belarus Observatory, we published a new piece at Carnegie Europe: https://twitter.com/Carnegie_Europe/status/1671119260972621824

The standoff between Belarusians & Lukashenka's regime continues. To ensure regional & global security, the EU needs a strategy to support the Belarusian people. By Tatsiana Chulitskaya & Elena Korosteleva

http://carnegieeurope.eu/p-90005Link opens in a new window

On Monday June 19 Dr Vangelis Pitidis visited community members at Stoke Primary school in Ball Hill, Coventry, as part of an internal project focusing on tackling air pollution in the area through participatory research methods. Dr Pitidis discussed the concept and potential practical use of Citizen Science tools and methods to support the engagement and participation of local communities in envirnmental issues, preparing the ground fo the Citizens' Jury sessions that will be taking place on the area later this year. More information about the project can be found here: Link opens in a new window 

On Wednesday 14 of June, Dr Pitidis participated in the 2nd Risk Awareness Workshop organised in Fraunhofer Forum in Berlin in the context of the EU Horizon 2020- funded project RiskPACC. The purpose of this workshop was to present the outputs of the project during the first two years of its development and implementation as well as to present some of the technical solutions developed and tested in different case studies to external observer cities that might be interested in adopting similar two-way communication tools between citizens and Civil Protection authorities. The workshop included a full practical session where the technical solutions to enhance disaster preparedness and response were tested by the participants.

Last week we had our first ever ECR Sustainability Training School at Warwick! It has been a huge success, thanks to all the support we had received and our participants!

The ECR STS brought together participants from 26 countries, of different age, religion, philosophy, and discipline - embodying the very spirit of future solutions to sustainable development for a more resilient world. The participants enjoyed a great hospitality that only Warwick can offer 😉, including the weather! They also shared their individual research, with in-depth feedback, and learned to work together through team-building skills and group projects. They were exposed to innovative methods, public and policy engagement; and enjoyed their sustainability trails, and engagement with sustainability champions and strategic partner-networks. Team IGSD - well done - you rock!

#research #sustainabledevelopment #training #EarlyCareerResearchers #IGSD #EUTOPIA #MONASHAlliance #TheGUILD #UNSDSN UK

On Monday 27 March 2023 the event 'Social Science Impact celebration event' took place in the Slate, organised by the Warwick Social Sciences Faculty and emphasising the extensive impact of projects funded through the ESRC Impact Accelaration Account between 2019-2023, across the world. During this event, IGSD's member, Assistant Professor Dr Vangelis Pitidis, was awarded the Outstanding Early Career Impact Award for his project 'Accelerating the Impact of Citizen-Generated Data for Improving the Monitoring and Management of Catastrophic Flooding'. Dr Pitidis's Project received a funding of £49,523 throught the ESRC IAA and was geographically focused on Brazil initially emphasising on combining and expanding the results of two previous larger research projects.

As an extension to the impact work already in progress, Dr Pitidis and his team took advantage of strongly established connections with local communities and of personal experience in organising and implementing participatory mapping activities with local partners in Brazil to introduce a critical mapping campaign across three different Brazilian marginalised communties: Cai Cai in São Paulo, 06 de Agosto neighbourhood in Rio Branco and Guarani Kaiowá in Contagem, Minas Gerais. of our new collaborator’s, the NGO Teto partnership network (Guarani Kaiowá in Contagem, Minas Gerais). Such activities allowed researchers to apply the a newly developed methodology entitled 'dialogical participatory mapping' and maximise the benefits from its implementation by introducing it to a new partner and collaboratively implementing it not only to one of the existing project sites but also to a newly selected area without any prior exposure to our dialogical methods. It should also be mentioned here that our new project partner, TETO, has now added participatory mapping as an operational technique in their organogram, already implementing it in other sites beyond the one piloted in the context of this project.

Based on the graphic and visual support, the maps produced in the application of the participatory-dialogical methodology provided visibility to the most urgent problems in the territory, identified by local residents. The reflection and connection with other themes, signalling the consequence of the perpetuation of such problems. Throughout the application of the methodology in the three different neighbourhoods, researchers observed the different types of risks at the local level and, through participatory mapping, shaped from the dialogue with citizens, it was also possible to produce outputs rich in technical content and relevant information in the community context. Such output included:

• Community workshops in all three neighbourhoods.
• Several participatory mapping events, with the participation of local citizens and authorities
• Artistic exhibitions
• Policy Briefs
• Manuals regarding the implementation of dialogical participatory mapping in English and Portuguese (https://publishing.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/uwp/catalog/series/water)
• Videos including reflections by researchers and community members involved in the participatory mapping process
• Academic publications