Field advisors play a key role in enhancing the skills and development of tens of thousands of farming and land management businesses, now a key imperative for government and industry. However, advisors themselves face complex and ever changing calls on their expertise and must keep their knowledge up to date. At the same time, research funders are heavily investing in major research programmes into land use challenges, including food security and mitigation of and adaptation to environmental change, but they lack effective means and models for research delivery and processes of knowledge transfer and exchange. Through a series of knowledge exchange activities the Follow-on project will build a learning network between researchers and land-based professionals. The project will draw upon research findings from the ESRC funded 'Science in the Field' research project. Science in the Field considered three groups of specialist advisors - veterinarians, applied ecologists and land agents/surveyors - and their role as knowledge brokers between scientific research and land management. The research has shown how advisory services are facing a number of key problems: (i) The advisory landscape is now characterised by a fragmented system of field advisers which poses problems of coordination and interprofessional working; (ii) There has been a move away from state sponsored agricultural extension, but there remains a lack of a coherent model of knowledge transfer, particularly to inform the professional training and renewal of field advisers; (iii) Research agendas have become disconnected from technical dissemination capacities, and vice versa. There is a lack of institutional linkage between research and professional development. The Follow-on Project will aim to address these problems by enhancing the knowledge development and inter-professional learning of field advisors. More specifically, it will: 1. Learn from experiences of inter-professional working to identify the implications for training and professional development and the demand and scope for long term networks for knowledge exchange; 2. Identify opportunities for enhancing the knowledge renewal of advisers and test the prospects for giving greater recognition to on-the-job learning within formal training provision; 3. Highlight ways to improve knowledge exchange between the professions and research community, including systems of professional training and research decision making. The project will involve a range of knowledge exchange activities, including learning workshops, an e-learning forum, testing of CPD materials and extensive dissemination of the implications of the project through publication of a Policy and Practice Note. It will closely involve, and be advised throughout, by stakeholders and field advisers from across the professions who have expressed strong support for the project. Outcomes of the work will be improved linkages between the land-based professions and academic research communities and identification of effective approaches and techniques for knowledge exchange. Through improvements to advisor learning and training the project will lead to enhanced advice to farming and land management businesses.

Green infrastructure (GI) is recognised globally as an essential component of liveable and sustainable places. It is generally defined as encompassing most vegetated elements in the built environment, for example trees, shrubs, wetlands and other planting. It is widely acknowledged that GI provides numerous benefits to health and well-being and there is a substantial body of research demonstrating these benefits. Despite this there is still considerable uncertainty amongst the multiple stakeholders of 'what good GI is'. Currently, there is no overarching benchmark or standard for GI. This Innovation Fund will address this by developing a national benchmark for GI. The Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments at the University of the West of England, Bristol are already developing a local benchmark for GI with the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust through a Knowledge Transfer Partnership. This benchmark is, however, focussed on local priorities in Gloucestershire and the West of England. This Innovation Fund will expand the local benchmark to ensure it can be used across England in a wider range of GI initiatives. This benchmark will allow an assessment of the process of GI creation, from policy, through to planning, design, delivery and long-term management, ensuring that current good practice has been adopted at all stages. The stakeholders, or end-users, for the national benchmark include planners, property developers, ecologists, urban designers, landscape architects, engineers, public health professionals, urban foresters, community safety officers and maintenance contractors. The objectives are as follows: - To work with a range of end-users to expand the local benchmark into a national benchmark and ensure that it is fit-for-purpose and user-friendly. - To apply this national benchmark to a series of GI demonstration projects including new commercial and residential developments and retrofitting initiatives across England to demonstrate its effectiveness. The national benchmark will then be formally launched and made available online for anyone to use for free. User documentation and reports detailing the demonstration projects will be available on a website for the benchmark. The outcome of the Innovation Fund is ultimately the delivery of high quality GI. This will maximise the benefits provided by GI including to nature conservation, health and well-being, economic growth, climate change adaptation and resilience. The key impacts include: Allowing developers to demonstrate to planning authorities, stakeholders and customers that they are providing high quality GI, which will act as a selling point for their developments. Enabling local authorities to communicate their expectations for GI in new developments and retrofitting projects (e.g. of social housing) and its maintenance; easily identify those planning applications that are meeting their requirements for the GI elements of developments; and demonstrate the quality of their own GI assets. Allowing built environment consultants to demonstrate compliance with a respected and recognised benchmark to their clients. Enabling policy makers to develop more effective policies, by being able to specify their expectations for GI at a national and local level in a range of contexts. This will improve clarity on the requirements for GI. Benefit residents and communities in both new and existing neighbourhoods who will gain from the provision of high quality GI and the associated benefits. This will ultimately improve, for example, their quality of life, health and well-being, environmental quality, resilience to climate change and the local economy. Benefit broader society which will have more consistent access to high quality GI and the associated positive outcomes from this including, for example, improved population health and well-being, inward investment, biodiversity, climate change adaptation and environmental justice.

The critical challenge for contemporary urbanism is how cities develop the knowledge and capability to systemically reengineer their built environment and urban infrastructure in response to climate change and resource constraints. In the UK and elsewhere cities are increasingly confronted with, or have voluntarily adopted, challenging targets for increasing renewable and decentralised energy, carbon reduction, water savings, and waste reduction. Looking forward to 2020 and beyond to 2050, as current policy drivers and initiatives begin to bite, we need to envisage a systemic transition in our existing built environment, not just to zero carbon but across the entire ecological footprint of our cities and the regions within which they are embedded, whilst simultaneously promoting economic security, social health and resilience. Responding to this challenge in a purposive and managed way requires cities to bring together two strongly disconnected issues: what is to be done to the city (technical knowledge, targets, technological options, costs, etc) and how will it be implemented (institutions, publics, governance). We start from the perspective that the processes of urbanisation which underpin the development of cities are complex, and that urban environments can best be understood as complex socio-technical systems. Cities become 'locked in' to particular patterns of energy and resource use - constrained by existing infrastructural investments, sunk costs, institutional rigidities and vested interests. Understanding how to better re-engineer our cities and urban infrastructure, to overcome 'lock in' and facilitate systems change, will be critical to achieving sustainability. The core aim of the project is to develop the knowledge and capability to overcome the separation between the what and how of urban scale retrofitting in order to promote a managed socio-technical transition in built environment and urban infrastructure. The project will comprise a total of 5 Work Packages. Four interlocking Technical Work Packages: i) Urban Transitions Analysis: ii) Urban Foresight Laboratory (2020-2050); iii) Urban Transitions Management; iv) Synthesis, Comparison and Knowledge Exchange, and; v). the Project Management Work Package. The technical component of the research will explore urban scale retrofitting as a managed socio-technical transition, focusing on prospective developments in the built environment - linking buildings, utilities, land use and transport planning - and in so doing we will develop a generic urban transitions framework for wider application. The geographical focus will be on two of the UK's major 'city regions': Cardiff/South East Wales and Greater Manchester. Both areas have a long history of urbanisation and post industrial decline, and are actively seeking manage a purposive transition to sustainability through harnessing processes of master planning, regeneration, and economic development, and driving through significant programmes of retrofitting and infrastructural development, together with institutional and governance innovations, such as the establishment of Low Carbon Zones. The proposal brings together an experienced, interdisciplinary team of leading academic researchers, with commercial and public sector research users. The academic partners comprise: the Welsh School of Architecture (WSA), Cardiff University; Sustainable Urban and Regional Futures (SURF), Salford University; the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development (OISD) at Oxford Brookes University; and the University of Cambridge, Department of Engineering, Centre for Sustainable Development (CSD). Commercial collaborators will include Corus and Arup. Regional collaborators will include Cardiff and Neath Port Talbot Borough Councils, WAG and AGMA/Manchester City Region Environment Commission. National dissemination will take place through the Core Cities, CABE, RICS, and the national science advisor of DCLG.

The proposal integrates the expertise of the research centres and project partners in transport policies and planning, design, operations and evaluation. The UK government, European Commission and other agencies rightly emphasise the importance of socially inclusive and sustainable interventions. As yet, however, there is a dearth of comprehensive 'toolkits' and resources to support those who are working to reduce social exclusion in journey environments. The shared vision is to produce rigorous methodologies for sustainable policies and practices that will deliver effective socially inclusive design and operation in transport and the public realm from macro down to micro level. Three Core Projects will develop decision-support tools that will establish benchmarks and incorporate inclusion into policies, and support the design and operation of journey environments and transport facilities. A real-world but controlled 'Testbed' facility will allow these to be piloted in the context of the policy intentions and constraints that shape implementation. Solutions will then be tested and transferred to other Case Study areas and sites. Phase 2 of AUNT-SUE will build on the suite of tools developed in Phase I and apply these to intensive case studies of transport interchanges, nodes and development areas. This will both develop and test techniques to design accessible journey environments (routes and facilities) and transport provision and planning, and consult on these with people who have been identified as socially excluded from travel. Three inter-linked research modules will be validated through integrated case studies outlined below, utilising a GIS-based platform supported by CAD, relational databases and both quantitative and qualitative social surveys.

The proposal integrates the expertise of the research centres and project partners in transport policies and planning, design, operations and evaluation. The UK government, European Commission and other agencies rightly emphasise the importance of socially inclusive and sustainable interventions. As yet, however, there is a dearth of comprehensive 'toolkits' and resources to support those who are working to reduce social exclusion in journey environments. The shared vision is to produce rigorous methodologies for sustainable policies and practices that will deliver effective socially inclusive design and operation in transport and the public realm from macro down to micro level. Three Core Projects will develop decision-support tools that will establish benchmarks and incorporate inclusion into policies, and support the design and operation of journey environments and transport facilities. A real-world but controlled 'Testbed' facility will allow these to be piloted in the context of the policy intentions and constraints that shape implementation. Solutions will then be tested and transferred to other Case Study areas and sites. Phase 2 of AUNT-SUE will build on the suite of tools developed in Phase I and apply these to intensive case studies of transport interchanges, nodes and development areas. This will both develop and test techniques to design accessible journey environments (routes and facilities) and transport provision and planning, and consult on these with people who have been identified as socially excluded from travel. Three inter-linked research modules will be validated through integrated case studies outlined below, utilising a GIS-based platform supported by CAD, relational databases and both quantitative and qualitative social surveys.