A recent article in 'Nature: Climate Change' (Castree et al. 2014) asked what kinds of global environmental change research for what sorts of earth futures? In other words it queried the questions and methods the research community should use to develop the knowledge required to understand and face the challenges posed by ongoing and uncertain changes in the earth's environmental systems. The paper notes challenges the science community face from global environmental change (hereafter GEC) as both a complex research problem requiring multiple perspectives beyond those of science, and as a pressing issue that demands the gap between knowledge and action be closed. The solution its authors proposed was a more robust engagement with social science and humanities research perspectives. While they note that GEC research does recognise the value of interdisciplinarity, they find the current field to be based on limited conceptions of social science and to virtually ignore the humanities. The aim of this fellowship is to investigate and promote the value of arts and humanities approaches to GEC research. It does so not only to assert the value of these approaches, but also as part of the wider advancement of the interdisciplinary field known as the GeoHumanities. GeoHumanities is not a new field, but recent years have seen a convergence of arts and humanities scholarship and practice with geography's interdisciplinary concerns with environment, place and community. Key to current GeoHumanities work are creative research approaches that either produce art and/or use arts based research methods to generate 'data'. This might include, for example, a geographer-artist generating sound maps to explore the effects of sea-level rise or the development of community-based participatory-writing and performance workshops to explore local flood experiences and questions of water and citizenship. While not as established as the fields of Medical Humanities or Environmental Humanities, GeoHumanities is becoming an increasingly formalized research terrain through edited collections, a new journal and a series of events, research projects and centers. As yet however, it lacks the critical commentary and strategic reflection found within more established fields. In response, this fellowship is designed to advance the GeoHumanities at a crucial point in its evolution and it will do so though exploring the value of arts and humanities approaches, specifically creative research approaches, to GEC research. The fellowship will be delivered through three work packages of activities: 1)GeoHumanities Ethnographies: Ethnographic research on creative approaches to GEC, including projects in the global north and south and an artist residency instigated as part of the fellowship. 2)Networking GeoHumanities: An online forum and series of events designed to develop much-needed advocacy of creative approaches to GEC within and beyond that research community. This includes organising a series of early career collaborations to support the next generation of scholars and practitioners to develop new creative projects in this field. 3)GeoHumanities At Large: An exploration of audience engagement with creative approaches to GEC, and public advocacy for these approaches. Working with two fellowship partners (an arts organisation engaged with GEC and a research networking organisation) these activities will; a) generate intellectual leadership on the form and import of creative research approaches to GEC b) advocate for creative research approaches within and beyond the academy by creating spaces for dialogue c) respond to widespread calls for an evidence base around the effects of creative approaches to GEC on their publics Together these activities will shape research agendas in GEC and in the emerging interdisciplinary field of the GeoHumanities, and advocate for such agendas within and beyond the academy.

Journeys through environmental change: narratives by and for communities Many people feel put off by the way environmental issues are talked about, and find it difficult to identify with or respond to them. When policy makers talk of improving the 'eco-efficiency' of production and consumption, or, at the other end of the emotional scale, NGOs stoke fear of environmental catastrophe, a lot of people seem to switch off. The Journeys Project will reveal the fact that understanding and action on global environmental issues can be far more dynamic and compelling, and involve many more voices. The project will make the most of what is unique about the humanities, arts and social sciences. An interdisciplinary team including architects, artists, producers, geographers, historians, media and literature researchers will come together to study and advance a set of literal as well as imagined journeys. Some of these will be designed with and undertaken alongside community groups. These journeys will explore how human communities rely on each other and on the non-human natural world, to meet their needs and wants, drawing together present practices and past experiences, and anticipating future developments.The development grant will allow us to further elaborate our ideas for a set of two cross cutting work packages (CWPs) that will develop our thinking about the theories and methods we will use. It will also see us co-design with community groups and their representatives and other partners approximately three to five journey work packages (JWPs). These will look at big environmental issues such as energy, food and the built environment in a fresh way. It is also an opportunity to cement and enhance our team, and to gather critical advice and develop new partnerships.

The ways we have lived with energy in the past has often changed - and will change again. The question is: what changes do we want and how do we tell these stories of change? The 'Stories of Change' project works with a range of communities to explore the varied and changing ways in which humanity has lived with energy in the past, and the choices available to us all in the future. It draws on history, literature, social and policy research and the arts to encourage a more imaginative approach to energy choices. The project supports the cross-party commitments to decarbonisation that sit at the heart of the UK Government's Climate Change Act. Research has shown that many people feel disengaged, disempowered or actively hostile to the kinds of changes to the UK's energy system required to meet the targets embedded in the Act. Societies the world over are faced with pressing shared challenges about future energy choices. Polling points to wide acceptance that actions will be required to reduce demand and cope with future environmental hazards. But new developments and measures to manage or reduce demand can generate conflict. Our project seeks to make space to work through the areas of conflict and identify elements of a collective vision. We are inspired by the example of the Mass Observation movement's stories of everyday life in the UK, above all in the 1930s and 1940s. Their work combined a desire to give ordinary people a voice, radical innovations in social research and bold new ideas about media and the arts. It has inspired our three objectives: 1. To listen to and give a platform to more diverse, often unheard, voices; 2. To mobilise change through research and the arts, and; 3. To innovate in use of digital media. 'Stories of Change' is organised around three mini research projects, or 'stories' and one cross-cutting project 'Energetic' that supports these, and draws wider conclusions. The project works with communities in three locations; each representing a different area of life. 'Policy Story: Demanding Times' gathers a novel mix of communities of interest around energy policy, and generates new accounts of energy policy and politics past, present and future. 'Industry Story: Future Works' is rooted in the English midlands, and seeks to unearth fresh accounts of the long relationship between energy, industrial making and landscape, and explores where it might go next. 'Everyday Story: Life Cycles' engages with the role that energy resources have played in shaping communities and everyday life in south Wales, from migration, for example from within Wales and as far as Somalia to work with coal, to new movements of people and things that support the UK's largest wind array. We are working with stories because they offer a popular and engaging route into thinking about the past and present and imagining possible futures, and also because stories, narratives and narration are concepts that people from a range of academic and creative disciplines can gather around. History, digital storytelling, fictional narratives, and scenarios of the future all communicate different ideas about the consequences of change for everyday life, and explain different perspectives and attitudes towards change. We will gather these stories - old and new - into an online publicly accessible collection (our 'Stories Platform'). We will offer pathways ('stories') through the materials, but it will also be easy for users to browse, or make up their own stories of change by threading material together using digital tools we provide. The academic team will also produce academic articles and a book, policy briefs and popular materials. The communities, our creative partners and the research team will also collaborate to produce a mix of creative writing, songs, short films, performances and museum and festival shows.

Our national infrastructure - the systems of infrastructure networks (e.g. energy, water, transport, waste, ICT) that support services such as healthcare, education, emergency response and thereby ensure our social, economic and environmental wellbeing - faces a multitude of challenges. A growing population, modern economy and proliferation of new technologies have placed increased and new demands on infrastructure services and made infrastructure networks increasingly inter-connected. Meanwhile, investment has not kept up with the pace of change leaving many components at the end of their life. Moreover, global environmental change necessitates reduced greenhouse gas emissions and improved resilience to extreme events, implying major reconfigurations of these infrastructure systems. Addressing these challenges is further complicated by fragmented, often reactive, regulation and governance arrangements. Existing business models are considered by the Treasury Select Committee to provide poor value but few proven alternative models exist for mobilising finance, particularly in the current economic climate. Continued delivery of our civil infrastructure, particularly given current financial constraints, will require innovative and integrated thinking across engineering, economic and social sciences. If the process of addressing these issues is to take place efficiently, whilst also minimising associated risks, it will need to be underpinned by an appropriate multi-disciplinary approach that brings together engineering, economic and social science expertise to understand infrastructure financing, valuation and interdependencies under a range of possible futures. The evidence that must form the basis for such a strategic approach does not yet exist. However, evidence alone will be insufficient, so we therefore propose to establish a Centre of excellence, i-BUILD, that will bring together three UK universities with world-leading track records in engineering, economics and social sciences; a portfolio of pioneering inter-disciplinary research; and the research vision and capacity to deliver a multi-disciplinary analysis of innovative business models around infrastructure interdependencies. While national scale plans, projects and procedures set the wider agenda, it is at the scale of neighbourhoods, towns and cities that infrastructure is most dense and interdependencies between infrastructures, economies and society are most profound - this is where our bid is focussed. Balancing growth across regions and scales is crucial to the success of the national economy. Moreover, the localism agenda is encouraging local agents to develop new infrastructure related business but these are limited by the lack of robust new business models with which to do so at the local and urban scale. These new business models can only arise from a step change in the cost-benefit ratio for infrastructure delivery which we will achieve by: (i) reducing the costs of infrastructure delivery by understanding interdependencies and alternative finance models, (ii) improving valuation of infrastructure benefits by identifying and exploiting the social, environmental and economic opportunities, and, (iii) reconciling national and local priorities. The i-BUILD centre will deliver these advances through development of a new generation of value analysis tools, interdependency models and multi-scale implementation plans. These methods will be tested on integrative case studies that are co-created with an extensive stakeholder group, to provide demonstrations of new methods that will enable a revolution in the business of infrastructure delivery in the UK. Funding for a Centre provides the opportunity to work flexibly with partners in industry, local and national government to address a research challenge of national and international importance, whilst becoming an international landmark programme recognised for novelty, research excellence and impact.