JRF newsletter - October 2007

JRF newsletter - October 2007 (view on website)

* News and latest research

• Lone parents working under 16 hours a week ('mini-jobs')
• The impact of tax credits on mothers' employment

The Commission on Rural Housing in Wales

On Wednesday 3rd October, the JRF launched an independent Commission to examine the issue of housing need in rural Wales.

The Commission has been asked to take a range of existing and new evidence from policymakers, practitioners and the public. Its aims are to:

• establish insights and recommendations to take forward the issue of housing need in rural Wales;
• build consensus on the potential solutions to identified problems.

As the JRF focuses on the whole of the UK, we also hope that this exercise will highlight best practice both inside Wales that can be used elsewhere in the UK, and outside Wales that can be imported in.

The Commission will be chaired by Derec Llwyd Morgan, and will hold a number of evidence sessions across Wales before publishing its final report in April 2008.

Further details about the Commission, including its membership and a consultation paper, can be found at:

http://www.jrf.org.uk/ruralhousingwales

* Forthcoming publications for October:

• An evaluation of two initiatives to reward young people
• Youth poverty in Europe
• An evaluation of the use and impact of dispersal orders
• The voluntary sector's contribution to place-shaping
• Heavy cannabis use, vulnerability and youth transitions
• Providing Gypsy and Traveller sites: contentious spaces
• Attachment to place: Social networks, mobility and prospects of young people
• Devolution and regional governance: Tackling the economic needs of deprived areas

Please note: publication dates are subject to change.

CALL FOR BOOK REVIEWS

CALL FOR BOOK REVIEWS

Crime Prevention and Community Safety: An International Journal is at the leading edge of research and debate on the most effective strategies, theories, methods and policies relating to the problem of crime and its reduction or solution. Academics and practitioners are invited to submit original reviews of recent publications in the following subject areas of interest:

¨ Crime trends

¨ Audits for crime and disorder

¨ Policing measures and initiatives

¨ Multi agency partnerships

¨ Crime prevention through environmental design

¨ Victimisation

¨ Drugs and crime

¨ Crowd behaviour

¨ Civil disorder

¨ Zero tolerance policing

¨ Strategic planning

¨ Fear of crime

¨ Training crime investigation technologies

¨ Evaluating crime prevention

¨ Criminal justice process

¨ International perspectives

¨ Distortion and the media

¨ Moral panic

¨ Crime statistics

¨ Crime and the media

¨ Racial harassment

Authors may also choose to review books taken from a list of publications which can be sent out on request. Guidelines for authors are set out below, and further details can be obtained from the Review Editor – Elaine.Campbell@ncl.ac.uk.

Please also visit the journal website at http://www.palgrave-journals.com/cpcs

Submitting your Book Review: A Guide to the House Style

Crime Prevention and Community Safety: An International Journal

A good review should include a critical appraisal of the item being reviewed, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses, as well as the reviewer's general impression of the work. Reviews should be fair and criticisms should be justified and explained.

Reviews should preferably be in Word and the format should be as follows:

· Text should be word-processed in English.

· Text should be keyed in as simply as possible with no bold or centring.

· All text should be 12pt.

· All text should be in Times New Roman.

· Text should be double-spaced throughout.

Reviews should be approximately 800- 1200 words in length and should include the following information at the beginning:

· Title

· Author(s)

· Publishers

· Year published

· ISBN number

· Price

· Number of pages

· Reviewers name, email and postal address and affiliation

Reviews should be sent to: Dr Elaine Campbell, Reviews Editor, Crime Prevention and Community Safety: An International Journal, School of Geography, Politics & Sociology, Claremont Bridge Building, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 7RU. Tel: +44 (0) 191-222-5030. Email: Elaine.Campbell@ncl.ac.uk.

Dr Elaine Campbell
Senior Lecturer in Criminology
School of Geography, Politics and Sociology
Claremont Bridge Building
University of Newcastle Upon Tyne
NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE NE1 7RU
UK

Tel: +44-(0)191-222-5030
Fax: +44-(0)191-222-7497
E-mail: Elaine.Campbell@ncl.ac.uk

Depth is just another surface.

The Regeneration Hub at the University of Glamorgan: Regenerate Forum - Wednesday 31st October 4-6 pm J 132- John Low from the JRF talking re: Neighb

The Regeneration Hub based at the University of Glamorgan is running a
series of Regenerate Forums as a follow up to the conference held last
March. The first of these forums features John Low of the Joseph
Rowntree Foundation talking about the JRF's Neighbourhoods Programme and
its outcomes.
It takes place on Wednesday 31st October 4-6p.m. in room J132 (
Treforest campus) and should be of interest to all academics, policy
makers and practionners who work in the area of social policy or whose
work forms part of the regeneration agenda so please pass this on to any
colleagues you feel may be interested. Places are limited so please let
me know in advance if you are coming
Many thanks
Penny




Penny Byrne
Programme for Community Regeneration
HLASS
University of Glamorgan
CF37 IDL
01443 483680

Trade Union Identity Under Challenge?

Working Lives Research Institute seminar series
Trade Union Identity Under Challenge?

*Union decline and Community Unionism
Professor Jane Wills, Queen Mary University of London & Andy Snoddy,
Unite (TGWU)

Thursday 29th November, 5.30-7.30pm
London Metropolitan University
31 Jewry St, London, EC3N 2EY
Room JS3-85*

Over the last few years there is a growing interest in the idea of
'community
unionism' as a potential organising approach for rebuilding the labour
movement,
yet its meaning is unclear. The widespread but undefined use of the term
'community unionism' is often unhelpful as the term is interpreted in a
myriad of
ways and it seems to mean all things to all people. However at its
basic, and in
today's climate whereby union membership decline has caused unions to
rethink
their organising approaches, it implies a renewed relationship between
and trade
unions and wider 'communities'.

In this presentation Professor Jane Wills, who has written widely in
this area, will
explore the reasons why some unions are finding renewed impetus to develop
closer relationships with non-labour organisation, highlighting the
significance of
subcontracting, temporary labour and changing identities at work. The
presentation
will use examples from London Citizens' London living wage campaign and
will be
followed by a presentation from Andy Snoddy from Unite (TGWU) who will speak
about the advantages and difficulties of community/trade union link ups
from a
trade union perspective.


This event is free, open to all, and there is no need to register
Contact Max Watson, WLRI Research Administrator, in JS2-77
Further enquiries, call: 0207 320 3010 email: m.watson@londonmet.ac.uk
WLRI

Thinking the Economy Differently: Heterodox Approaches in Economic

Call for Papers
American Association of Geographers, Boston
April 15-19 2008

Thinking the Economy Differently: Heterodox Approaches in Economic
Geography

Convenors: Jane Pollard (Newcastle), Cheryl McEwan (Durham), Alison
Stenning (Newcastle)

In recent years there has been a renaissance and development of
heterodox or 'post-' approaches to economic geography. Economies are
diverse, proliferative, alternative, disseminated, multiple, performed,
practised, post-capitalist, overdetermined and much more. These attempts
to re-think and re-vision 'the economy' are inspired by a range of
interrelated theoretical frameworks including feminism, queer theory,
postcolonialism, post-structuralism, post-development, post-socialism
and others - and have sought to challenge the way we research and
theorise the economic by exploring the geographical construction and
performance of 'the economy' and the articulations between 'the economy'
and its others. In addition, such approaches have aimed to problematise
academic and pedagogic divisions of labour between 'Economic Geography',
'Development' and 'Area Studies' and to confront the geographical
production of 'Economics'.

Yet for all their common concerns, these approaches - and those who
employ them - use different languages and methodologies and prioritise
different politics and political strategies. In this session, we are
interested in bringing together recent work which explores the merits
and challenges posed by different heterodox approaches to 'economy' and
in developing a dialogue, across and between the different approaches,
which might enable us to articulate a common agenda and promote a shared
politics. For this reason, we are particularly keen to attract papers
which explicitly work across some of conceptual and theoretical
frameworks outlined above.

We invite papers which explore some of the following themes:
* How do different heterodox approaches comprehend and re-vision
the economic?
* What common notions of economy inspire different heterodox
approaches?
* What are the relative merits of different heterodox approaches?
* Is there the potential for a common language shared across these
heterodox approaches?
* What are the politics of different heterodox approaches to
economy?
* How might heterodox approaches challenge our teaching of
economic geography?
* How do different heterodoxies shape different kinds of
methodologies and research practices?

Expressions of interest should be sent in the form of an abstract
acceptable to the AAG (see
http://www.aag.org/annualmeetings/2008/papers.htm#abstracts) by 22nd
October 2007 to any of:

Jane Pollard (J.S.Pollard@ncl.ac.uk)
Alison Stenning (Alison.Stenning@ncl.ac.uk)
Cheryl McEwan (Cheryl.McEwan@Durham.ac.uk)

'Peripatetic Practices': a workshop on walking

'Peripatetic Practices': a workshop on walking

This one-day interdisciplinary workshop in central London aims to address different ways of thinking through and about the practice of walking. For the workshop we are keen to receive papers which address walking as a topic or a mode of social research. Themes to be addressed in the workshop include; walking in urban and rural environments; walking as ethnographic practice; researching contemporary walkers and walking behaviour; walking as a form place making and mode of embodied knowledge; walking as a mode of travel and walking as a leisure activity.

Discussants:

Professor Tim Cresswell (Royal Holloway, University of London)
Professor Tim Ingold (University of Aberdeen)
Dr John Wylie (University of Exeter)

This event will be held on Monday 31st March 2008 at Bedford Square, Gower Street, London WC1E (detailed programme to follow)

Please send abstracts of no more than 200 words to both Hannah Macpherson (Hannah.Macpherson@rhul.ac.uk) and Jennie Middleton (Jennie.Middleton@rhul.ac.uk) by 31st October 2007.

Urban Youth: cultures, identities and spatialities

AAG 2008 Second Call for Papers

Urban Youth: cultures, identities and spatialities

Organised paper session
2008 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers 15-19th
April Boston, Massachusetts

Organisers
Lorraine van Blerk (University of Reading)
Gareth Jones (London School of Economics)

Background
Recent international media interest has heightened awareness of,
and ‘criminalised’, the identities of youth ‘gangs’ on inner city estates,
streets and neighbourhoods in the West. Similar youth cultures present in
many cities in the South has become part of everyday life for large
numbers of young people growing up in poverty. These representations of
urban youth have implications for the way young people are able to
participate in peer culture, express particular identities and display
connectedness to specific localities. This session aims to bring together
these important strands by addressing some key questions including:
What does the general criminalisation of urban youth cultures mean for
young people’s negotiation of public space? How do young people construct
their identities as urban youth in light of these negative associations?
How are youth cultures and identities impacted by processes of
globalisation and global interconnectedness?

Themes
We welcome abstracts for papers related to any aspect of this topic.
Possible themes may include (but are by no means limited to):

• Urban youth cultures: gangs, violence and street identities
• Youth offending: criminal identities, prison cultures and
surveillance
• Transient geographies: young people’s social and spatial (im)
obilities in the city
• Global interconnectedness and youth cultures

Abstracts
Please send abstracts (250 words maximum) by 8th October, to: Lorraine van
Blerk (l.c.vanblerk@reading.ac.uk) or Gareth Jones (g.a.jones@lse.ac.uk)

Decisions on abstracts will be made and all participants notified by 16th
October in order to register online with the AAG by the 31st October
deadline.

It's All About You: Citizen-centred welfare

Dear colleague,



ippr today publishes a new report called It's All About You:
Citizen-centred welfare
,
edited by Jim Bennett and Graeme Cooke.


The Government published its welfare reform Green Paper, In Work, Better
Off, on 18th July. In this new report, we put forward our own
recommendations for the direction of welfare reform over the next ten
years. We look at the potential of a single working-age benefit and
argue that much more personalisation is needed in welfare-to-work
services if the Government is to deliver on its pledges to end child
poverty and achieve an 80 per cent employment rate.



The entire report can be downloaded free of charge from the ippr website
.



Best wishes



Kate Stanley

Director of Research Strategy and Head of Social Policy

ippr

FURS 2008 ESSAY COMPETITION

FURS 2008 ESSAY COMPETITION

PRIZE FOR THE BEST ESSAY ON URBAN AND REGIONAL THEMES BY YOUNG AUTHORS.



In collaboration with the International Journal of Urban Regional Research and Blackwell Publishers, the Foundation for Urban and Regional Studies is organising a fourth international essay competition for the best essay on urban and regional themes by young (under 35) scholars.



A prize of £1,000 will be awarded to the overall winner, three second prizes of £500 and three third prizes of £250 will be awarded respectively for: 1) essays written in English by native English speaking authors; 2) essays written in English by non-native English speaking authors; and 3) essays written in French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.



Please find further details attached. Direct all inquiries to:



nicoletta.carmi@unimib.it

ESRC-Seminar Series Physical activity, the built environment and obesity

Seminar 3: Physical activity, the built environment and obesity

Date: Tuesday 30 October 2007

Time: 10.00am – 4.00pm

Booking forms for this seminar will be available here from Monday 24th
September 2007

Venue: Chandos House, 2 Queen Anne Street, London W1G 9LQ

Programme

Confirmed speakers
Billie Giles-Corti (The University of Western Australia)
Kim Proctor & Dianna Smith (University of Leeds)
Martin White (Newcastle University)
Members of the CASA team (University College London)
Brian Saelens (University of Washington)

Despite much theorising about the environmental pathways for obesity,
studies that directly link these hypothesised determinants with measures
of obesity are rare. The lack of work in this area is partly a function
of the inherent methodological and analytical challenges in undertaking
primary studies, and it is no surprise that such work in this field has
produced conflicting findings. Studies have not typically used directly
measured features of the environment relevant for obesity, but have
relied on 'off-the-shelf' proxies such as area deprivation to
distinguish between different social and physical environments. Other
studies have relied on self-reported perceptions of local environmental
conditions, but a consistent lack of correlation between objective and
subjective views of the same environments has been demonstrated. This
seminar brings together presentations on recent innovations in study
design and method used by researchers overseas and in the UK, and will
stimulate discussion about how best to operationalise, measure, generate
and analyse high quality proximal and distal environmental data. A
variety of techniques will be covered, such as direct environmental
audit and the exploitation of routine official, commercial and
administrative data. The possibilities offered by recent advances in GIS
techniques in generating environmental data will also be discussed.


Programme
10.00 Registration
10.40
Welcome
10.45
Billie Giles-Corti
School of Population Health, The University of Western Australia
11.30 Kim Proctor & Dianna Smith
School of Geography, University of Leeds
12.15
Lunch
13.00 Martin White
Institute of Health & Society, Newcastle University
13.45 CASA team
Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London
14.30 Tea
15.00 Brian Saelens
Children's Hospital & Regional Medical Center, University of Washington
15.45 Panel discussion
16.00 Close

URBAN KNOW-HOW: PRACTICE, POLITICS, AND PERFORMANCE

URBAN KNOW-HOW: PRACTICE, POLITICS, AND PERFORMANCE

Annual Conference of the AAG, Boston, Massachusetts, April 15-19, 2008

Organisers:
Shiloh Krupar (University of California, Berkeley)
David Pinder (Queen Mary, University of London)


Cities stimulate and provide the grounds for a profusion of creative practices that seek to engage
urban spaces critically. From the works of avant-garde artists to the interventions of scholars and
cultural workers, the range and inventiveness of attempts to know cities within and beyond the
academy, in both past and present, is striking. The session explores some of the strategies and
tools, used by cultural practitioners, artists, academics and people during the course of everyday
life, to document, represent, write, perform, and protest aspects of cities.

The session seeks to address the politics as well as the poetics of these strategies, and is
particularly interested in the emergence of new pedagogies that cultivate the potentialities of
cities and that are radically open, contingent and complex. Papers are invited that might involve
discussions of - or embody in themselves - writing strategies or uses of film, theatre,
performance, photography, guided tours and the like that foreground urban life and the politics of
cultural practice. This may include studies of creative practices from different places and periods,
as well as attempts to employ experimental methods for critical ends. As the session title
suggests, papers might also work to bring avant-garde experimentation and "practical/applied"
knowledge into tension with one another.

Please send proposals of up to 250 words to BOTH:

Shiloh Krupar (shiloh@berkeley.edu)
and David Pinder (D.Pinder@qmul.ac.uk)

by Monday 15th October.

Thanks.

Just published on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation website

* Lone parents working under 16 hours a week ('mini-jobs')
This study examines whether encouraging lone parents to work in
jobs of less than 16 hours a week could increase their employment
rate.
http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/2111.asp


* The impact of tax credits on mothers' employment
This study looks at the impact of tax credits on mothers'
employment.
http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/2108.asp



** JRF newsletter

Sign up for monthly updates on JRF activity:

http://www.jrf.org.uk/mailinglist/default.asp?newsletter=1

Third way urban policy: Land and property markets, instruments and regulation

Second Call for Papers - AAG 2008 Boston, USA 15th-19th April 2008



Third way urban policy: Land and property markets, instruments and regulation




'I shall take it 'third way' refers to a framework of thinking and policy-making that seeks to adapt social democracy to a world which has changed fundamentally over the past two or three decades. It is a third way in the sense that it is an attempt to transcend both old-style social democracy and neoliberalism.' (Giddens, 1998, p. 26)




So-called 'third way' urban policies refer to a more wide-spread concept than the Blair government's soft(er) (compared to harsh-neoliberal project of Thatcher) neoliberal policy development and implementation nowadays, and are now disseminating throughout the world. Third way urban policy refers to an era of rolled-out neoliberalism where many urban governments around the world seek ways to implement neoliberal policies and develop implementation instruments to ensure economic growth and to safeguard some kind of social justice at the same time. Entrepreneurialism and property-led development have been accelerated through the neo-liberal project, making urban land and property markets key players in urban regeneration. Naturally, instruments of neoliberalism have been adopted within different policy contexts at different periods of time and have therefore different meanings and outcomes in different institutional contexts. How do third way politics interact with land and property markets? How do land and property markets evolve within these ever shifting contexts? What new actors are emerging? How are new power relations between key actors being established? What new instruments (land and property market instruments, legal instruments, urban design instruments, economic instruments, etc) are being invented? How do changes in land and property markets reflect those changes? And how are these reflected in urban space?



Papers in this session will take a critical approach to refer to two sides of the same coin: first, the particularities of policy development and the implementation via land and property markets of third way politics; and second, the changes in the urban development regime that aim to regulate the land and property market, and specific instruments that are developed to implement them. The main aim of this session is to put together a variety of approaches (to third way urban policy) to underline the growing diversity within the neoliberal urban policy implementation. Paper topics may examine themes such as: role of urban regeneration projects in neoliberal urban development, third way land and property market instruments, market-led development and social welfare, socially mixed communities, safe places, entrepreneurial policy and social justice, and importance of urban design.





Please send an abstract of no more than 200 words before October, 15th to one of the following organizers:



Guy Baeten, Lund University, Sweden, guy.baeten@keg.lu.se

Tuna Taşan-Kok, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, t.tasankok@gmail.com

Mark Boyle, National University of Ireland at Maynooth, mark.g.boyle@nuim.ie

Energy and the Political Economy of Capitalism

Call for Papers: 2008 AAG Meeting, Boston, MA, April 15-19

Energy and the Political Economy of Capitalism

Organized by Matt Huber (Clark University) and Diana Ojeda (Clark University)

How can we theorize the relationship between energy and capitalism? What are
the contingent power relations that emerge from the centrality of
fossil-fuels to the production and reproduction of capitalist social
relations? Would a transition to ‘alternative’ energies necessarily
accompany transformations in the social and political relations of capitalism?

As the geopolitical and ecological politics of energy loom large in the
headlines, this call for papers seeks contributions that attempt to
integrate energy into a geographical understanding of capitalism. Following
recent theoretical and empirical work into the political economy of nature
(e.g. Heynen et al. 2007; Mansfield et al. 2007), we assert that
energy-society relations provide an underexplored terrain for critical inquiry.

We especially seek contributions that integrate a conception of energy
within already established social theories of nature-capital relations (e.g.
ecological Marxism, the regulation approach, ecological modernization
theory, ecological economics).

Possible topics include but are in no way restricted to –

- Theorizing fossil-capitalism
- Energy and dialectics
- Energy and cultural hegemony
- Energy consumption and neoliberal governance
- Oil, geopolitics and international finance
- The politics of the energy-state
- Peak Oil: Malthus revisited or geological calamity?
- Bio-fuels, land-use, and the “food versus fuel debate”
- Energy, economic growth, and the politics of climate change
- Capital accumulation and alternative energies
- The (new) political ecology of nuclear power
- The political ecology of access to and control over natural gas

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent to Matt Huber
(mhuber@clarku.edu) and Diana Ojeda (dojeda@clarku.edu) by October 15.

Cultural economies of space design - Call for Papers

Call for Papers - AAG 2008 Boston, USA 15th-19th April 2008



Organisers: James Faulconbridge (Lancaster University UK) and Donald
McNeill, University Western Sydney, Australia)





Cultural economies of space design



This session aims to consider how detailed studies of the agents and
conditions of the production of urban space can invigorate existing
theoretical discussions of the city. Architectural firms, property
developers, interior designers, and software firms are now receiving
increasing attention, not least because of the implications of their
work for local/regional economies and development. In this session we
aim to explore the business practices and strategies of these and other
space designers. Potential topics of interest might include (but are not
limited to):





* the organisational tactics of firms and the way these influence
the geographies of design;

* theoretical debates relating to how space designers shape
regional economies and milieu.

* Evaluations of the conceptualisations of such agents as
'symbolic analysts' and alike

* the way designers and their firms interact with and are part of
the development of 'creative', 'cultural' industry clusters;

* the geographical practices of architects and other designers;

* the new international division of labour and design firms;

"True Urbanism: Designing the Healthy City"

CALL FOR PAPERS
46th International Making Cities Livable Conference on
"True Urbanism: Designing the Healthy City"
La Fonda Hotel, Santa Fe, NM, June 1-5, 2008
Co-sponsored by The City of Santa Fe, Santa Fe County & NM Dept. of
Transportation
Co-organized with the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture

For more information, see www.LivableCities.org/46ConfSantaFe.htm
An international conference for city officials, developers,
practitioners and scholars in planning, urban design, architecture,
landscape architecture, transportation planning, health policy and
social sciences from many parts of the world. Purpose: to engage in a
dialogue on the relationship between the built environment and
livability, health and sustainability; to learn from the best models,
and to establish working relationships to effect change.
Paper topics include:
Sustainable Urban Design ** Planning Pedestrian & Bike Networks **
Transit Oriented Design ** Traditional Urban Planning ** The Built
Environment, Social & Physical Health ** New Designs for Human Scale
Mixed-Use Urban Fabric ** The Walkable "City of Short Distances" **
Urban Form & Well-Being ** Redesigning Suburban Malls as Neighborhood
Centers ** Designing Town Squares for Social Life ** Building
Community Identity ** New Achievements in Urban Transit ** Respecting
Regional Character & Historic Heritage ** Transforming Commuter
Suburbs into Mixed-use Urban Villages ** Child- & Family-friendly
Urban Planning ** Integrating Diversity through Urban Planning **
Community Participation in Urban Planning.

Please send a 250 word abstract to: Suzanne.Lennard@LivableCities.org.
Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard Ph.D.(Arch.), Program Committee Chair, IMCL
Conferences, PO Box 7586, Carmel, CA 93921. Fax: +1- 831-624-5126. Paper
abstracts must be prepared for blind peer review (as email attachments).
Cover letter or email should identify the author. deadline for paper
proposals: October 31, 2007. Notification sent within 4 weeks of
submission. Accepted papers must be presented in person at the
conference.

How to get the world eating local

How to get the world eating local

By Mark Palmer BBC News

Whether it's west Africa or Wales, food can go from the farm gate to the school gate, according to Francisco Espejo.

He heads the World Food Programme's school feeding service, responsible for satisfying the hunger of 20m children across the globe each day.

He was at Cardiff University to address a seminar at its School of City and Regional Planning.

It has been carrying out research into how small-scale local farmers can provide food for schools.

"We want to cut out the middleman and the profits that he makes and get schools working as close as possible with local farmers," said Mr Espejo.

"This is the best way for schools to get good quality food at a good price while the farmer in turn gets a good return.

"The work being done by Cardiff University is so important for the future of our children, whether it is here in Wales or in west Africa.

We talk of children being our future and for them to be that, they need help today Francisco Espejo

"Of course, you don't have children starving in Wales, but it is crucial that they - and children across the world - get good quality food.

"It is good for the local economy if as much of that food is sourced as locally as possible and it's also good for the environment, with food miles [the measure of the distance a food travels from field to plate] being cut," he added.

Dr Roberta Sonnino of Cardiff University, who has carried out a major research project in Scotland with East Ayrshire Council, told delegates that the 12 primary schools the council had been working with were now providing better quality meals.

Radical menus

They were also putting £160,000 a year into the local economy and drastically cutting food miles by two-thirds.

Robin Gourlay, from East Ayrshire Council, said it was possible to provide quality meals for 72p per head [a cost which was just for the food and did not include overheads].

"It's been a great challenge with radical menus and recipes," said Mr Gourlay.

"We've needed to give our staff some extra training, but they have risen to that challenge".

Mr Espejo told the conference that in parts of Africa the World Food Programme could provide "a very basic" lunchtime meal of about 700 calories for just under 5p per child.

But he said that much of that food was being imported and it was time for local producers to benefit by bridging that gap.

He said good work was being done in Ghana and Nigeria but more effort was needed because "we talk of children being our future and for them to be that, they need help today".

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/wales/7012878.stm

Published: 2007/09/25 18:11:29 GMT

© BBC MMVII

People, Place & Policy Online

Issue 2 is now available free to download at www.ppp-online.org

Issue 2 contents:

*
Gated communities in England as a response to crime and disorder: context, effectiveness and implications
Sarah Blandy
*
Cities and their hinterlands: how much do governance structures really matter?
Tony Gore and Steve Fothergill
*
Active citizenship in the governance of anti-social behaviour in the UK: exploring the non-reporting of incidents
Rionach Casey and John Flint
*
Offenders in the post-industrial labour market: lubricating the revolving door?
Del Roy Fletcher
*
Resistance and identity: homeless women's use of public spaces
Rionach Casey, Rosalind Goudie and Kesia Reeve


About People, Place & Policy Online

This new journal provides a forum for debate between academics, policy-makers and practitioners thinking about major societal challenges and concerned with identifying problems and suggesting solutions.

PPP-Online publishes:

* research findings, including emerging findings from ongoing research
* methodological discussions and reflections on research and evaluative techniques and approaches
* policy reviews
* literature reviews
* opinion pieces, stimulating ongoing debate across issues

PPP-Online welcomes both empirically and theoretically informed discussion from different viewpoints about: the problems facing contemporary society; how they are perceived and presented by policy makers; the appropriateness and effectiveness of the policy and practice response; the practical and political realities of policy orientated research; perspectives on different methods and methodologies; and the conflicts and challenges encountered by the researcher and the researched.

For further information please visit www.ppp-online.org

SRA Events 2007

The Social Research Association
24-32 Stephenson Way
London, NW1 2HX
Tel: 020 7388 2391

admin@the-sra.org.uk

This document outlines forthcoming SRA events throughout 2007.

Key forthcoming event:

SRA ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2007 Tuesday 4th December 2007 “Learning from others: Innovations in Social Research”

Brunei Gallery, SOAS, University of London Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, This year, through key note speakers, a series of workshop sessions and a panel debate, the SRA conference aims to inform the research community and promote discussion on innovative and exciting developments in the design, planning, implementation, analysis and dissemination of social research. In the morning we have a line up of excellent plenary speakers. Ian Pearson (Minster for Science and Innovation) will outline the social and economic impact of social research and provide a government perspective on the current and future role of social research in policy development. Karen Dunnell (National Statistician) will be providing a perspective on the role of social science based social research and the issues it faces if it is to make a key and continued contribution to policy and practice. She will also discuss implications for social statistics users of recent changes in the organisation of British statistics as well as providing some insight into the innovations the Office for National Statistics is making to its production and dissemination of statistics. Professor Peter Halfpenny (Executive Director, ESRC National Centre for e-Social Science) will be discussing, in a milestone address, developments in Information and communication technology (ICT) and the role they will play in advancing social research processes. In the afternoon, a series of 12 workshops delivered by research experts from academia, government and the private sector will examine and discuss upcoming developments on the following themes: · Innovations in the development of research design and strategy · New methods and techniques for undertaking research, and exploring or interpreting data · Connecting research to policy development · New methods of disseminating research to reach wider audiences Finally a panel discussion including Peter Halfpenny, and policy and researcher actors from the Central Office of Information (invited) and the Future Foundation (invited) will discuss “Looking ahead: Innovations and issues for the next ten years”. Tickets are £150 for SRA members Non members: F/T workers: membership at £60 a year and a place at £150 (total fee £210 per delegate) P/T workers or Retired: membership at £45 a year and a place at £150 (total fee £195 per delegate) F/T time Student or Unwaged: membership at £22 a year and a place at £150 (total fee £172 per delegate). General attendance (without membership) £200 The conference fee includes all day access to the event, conference pack, lunch and tea/coffee and drinks reception. Fees do not include travel costs or accommodation. Registration starts at 9.30am SRA General Meeting (SRA members only) at 10.00am SRA Annual Conference opening at 10.30am A booking from can be found on the SRA website or you can request one from the administrative office. A variety of advertising and sponsorship options are still available. Please contact the administrative office for more details.

Other events:

DATE	EVENT TITLE AND DETAILS
Tuesday 23th October	CONSULTATION EVENT: The UK Household Longitudinal Study This is a joint meeting organised by the SRA and the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex. It forms part of the wider consultation process on the content for the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS). The aim of the meeting is to provide information on progress and plans for the UKHLS and allow discussion and seek views on content for the study. An overview of the UKHLS design will be provided by Heather Laurie (ISER) whilist Lucinda Platt (ISER) will talk about the ethnic minority boost sample elements of the study. There will also be time for a general discussion. The meeting takes place at the SRA offices and starts at 2.30.
Monday 29th October	What’s happening to British Statistics? This event organised by SRA, RSS and ACSS will provide an opportunity to find out more about important changes to the social research sector as a consequence of the Statistics and Registration Service Act coming into effect from 1st April 2008. This event will highlight changes to ONS’s formal status as well as examine the introduction of the new Statistics Board. This meeting takes place at the British Library and will start at 3.30.
Thursday 8th November	SRA CYMRU EVENING SEMINAR Presenting Data SRA Cymru are pleased to announce the first in a new series of seminars for researchers based in Wales. The first seminar in this new series will focus on presenting data. The challenge of presenting data faces us all at some point or another – whether writing a research report or as part of an analysis of a problem or service. By the end of the seminar, participants will: · Have an understanding of the principles behind presenting data; · Be familiar with the difficulties of presenting numerical data; and · Have an insight into some of the challenges associated with the effective presentation of data. The seminar will be led by Ed Swires-Hennessy from the Local Government Data Unit. He is a member of the Government Statistical Service and has worked on different areas of official statistics for over 35 years. The majority of this time has been spent on Welsh statistics with the Welsh Assembly Government and its predecessor, the Welsh Office. His main areas of interest are in surveys (he has been responsible for the majority of major housing surveys in Wales since 1978) and the dissemination of statistics (having been the General Editor of Welsh statistical publications for over 20 years). This meeting takes place in Cardiff at the Local Government Data Unit and starts at 5pm. To book a place at this event, please contact Naomi Copestake (02920 825595/ naomi.copestake@wales.gsi.gov.uk) There is a small charge of £10 to attend this event.
Wednesday 14th November	SRA EVENING SEMINAR: Counting disabled children and their households Clare Black burn and Janet Read (Associate Professors, School of Health and Social Studies, University of Warwick) will be speaking about their ESRC funded research into “Can We Count Them? Disabled Children and their Households”. It is widely recognised that quantitative data on disabled children and their households in the UK has its limitations. This research set out to scope and evaluate existing data sources in order to inform the development of more robust data on this important population of children and their circumstances. Clare and Janet’s presentation will highlight some of the project's key findings (including those from secondary analysis work using FRS and FACS) and their policy implications. This meeting takes place at the Nuffield Foundation and starts at 4.30. There is a small charge of £10 to attend this event.
Tuesday 20th November	CATHIE MARSH MEMORIAL LECTURE: Using SAR’s to research the experience of ethnic minorities This year the joint SRA and RSS memorial lecture aims to illustrate the use of SARs’ as a Resource for Researchers and will also give key examples of their use to examine the experience of ethnic minorities within the labour market. Professor Ed Fieldhouse (University of Manchester) will give an overview of the use of SARS. Ken Clark (Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of Manchester and Research Fellow, IZA, Bonn) will examine the dynamics and diversity of ethnic minority labour market outcomes using evidence from the use of SARs’ Lisa Buckner (Senior Research Fellow, University of Leeds) will highlight the use of SARs’ to explore the situation of ethnic minority women within local labour markets. Rachel Leeser (Greater London Authority) will act as a discussant at this event. This meeting takes place at RSS and starts at 4.30. It is followed by a drinks reception.
Thursday 22nd November	SRA EVENING SEMINAR: The UK Study of Abuse and Neglect of Older People The abuse and neglect of older people is increasingly acknowledged as a social problem, particularly in the context of increasing longevity and the concomitant growth in the numbers of people with disabilities, mobility and cognitive problems. A series of studies commissioned by Comic Relief with co-funding from the Department of Health and conducted by NatCen and King’s College London, has begun to address what had been a lack of research into this area. This SRA seminar bring together key researchers on the projects to discuss findings from these various studies. Bob Erens (NatCen) will present findings from the national survey, looking at the overall estimated numbers of older people experiencing abuse and neglect in the community and, within this, the characteristics of abuse and neglect for different types of older people. Josie Dixon, Alice Mowlam and Rosalind Tennant (NatCen) will present findings from the in-depth interviews with some survey respondents. These findings highlight some issues relating to how abuse and neglect of older people is defined and explore the nature and impacts of abuse and neglect, factors that influence older people’s ability to cope and recover from abuse or neglect and the barriers to reporting abuse or neglect. Professor Simon Biggs (King’s College London) will reflect on the relevance of these findings for wider research and policy in this area. This meeting takes place at the Nuffield Foundation and starts at 4.30. There is a small charge of £10 to attend this event.

Please email admin@the-sra.org.uk to book to attend any event or find out more details (including any cost of attending). Details can also be found at www.the-sra.org.uk

Events are open to both SRA members and non-members.

If you are interested in supporting the SRA events committee in any way, please contact:

Oliver Hayllar, Chair SRA Events Committee o.hayllar@natcen.ac.uk

We are always keen to have new committee members, contacts or ideas for events.