Design Innovation and Land-Assets (DI&L)

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The Design Innovation and Land Assets (DI&L) network will be made up of academics, practitioners, specialists in rural sustainability, human geography, cultural policy and groups undertaking community land reform projects. In working to develop a framework, the network will focus on the context of community landownership in the Hebrides in Scotland as an exemplar case. This rationale is based on the prominence and maturity of the issue, and its special relevance for the subject of land-asset decision-making. Drawing on the network's expertise in this area, it is expected that the resulting framework will have wide applicability, knowledge exchange and transferability to other contexts in the UK and beyond. The proposed DI&L team from the GSA's Innovation School comprises of Dr. Lynn-Sayers McHattie as Principal Investigator and Dr. Brian Dixon as Co-Investigator with one part-time research assistant. Lynn has extensive experience of directing and delivering UKRI projects, including AHRC funding bids. The team will be supported by Prof. Frank Rennie at the University of Highlands & Islands. Frank's research involves the animation of grassroots community development, especially mechanisms for participation in integrated rural development initiatives. His expertise extends to the practical systems for securing sustainable development and the attendant cultural and social issues as a mechanism for development. Further stakeholders in the network will include those involved in rural land use and shared land assets who in turn would mobilise their networks allowing for enhanced engagement and impact. It is intended that these organisations and experts would include Scottish Government representatives, Highlands and Islands Enterprise; design leaders, experts in land-reform; and academics working in the area of regional specialisation and policy; as well as three Hebrides communities that are currently in the process of undertaking community landownership projects. DI&L will take place over the course of eighteen months and will involve three inter-related phases. The DI&L launch would take place at the Innovation School's Winter School in January 2020, a two-week long seasonal school at GSA's Highlands & Islands Campus bringing together over 100 Post Graduate students and international academics. We envisage DI&L partners would convene to scope and visually map potential opportunities and challenges, related to governance and decision making, the legalities of land reform and wider socio-cultural issues. The insights from this event would then inform the design of three workshop events based in Hebridean contexts, the Research Assistant who has been identified is actively engaged in community land reform. The DI&L team are experts in design innovation approaches, which can be applied to support democratic engagement and decision-making in relation to the specific opportunities and challenges identified. Based on the findings, a series of initial parameters and principles for a decision-making framework would be formulated. The project would conclude with a symposium, which will aim to simultaneously draw together, evaluate and disseminate the initial framework amongst the wider network. Impact beyond academia will be an embedded component within the project, in the sense that real democratic issues will be explored in the workshop settings with community members and activists. Dissemination of the project will be through the production of a publication/report, visual assets (videos and photography) and academic publications to be distributed both physically and digitally amongst all network partners, relevant regional and international policy-makers and wider publics. Equally, it is intended that all network events will be live-streamed, allowing multiple external stakeholders to input at various stages in the process and enhancing the project's ecological and environmental positioning by avoiding unnecessary travel.