Work Stream 5

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Work Stream Leader: Chris Rogers

Work package 5.1:  ‘Decision Theatre’ Visualisation and Decision-Support Toolkit

Lead Investigator: Stephanie Glendinning; Lead Researcher: Mark Powell

Infrastructure business decisions, if they are to be successful, require the consensus of a wide range of stakeholders with frequently differing backgrounds and priorities.  We have developed a range of socio-informatics tools and experience within Earth Systems Engineering (EPG013403) known as a ‘Decision Theatre’.  These can be tailored to different stakeholder groups (e.g. pen and post-its; citizens juries to explore public perception of infrastructure; multi-screen visualisations of computer simulations in their most sophisticated) and will underpin our pathways to impact.  We will apply these approaches, using a combination of ethnographic and digital visualisation methodologies, in a series of workshops, to help groups of stakeholders visualise and disentangle the complex and multi variable decisions.  This approach will be used to help integrate the inputs and outputs of the various workstreams within the project and to support decision making around the case studies in which outputs of the research are translated into outcomes of the Centre. The ouputs will form the basis for cross-centre publications (including integrated multi-discplinary methodologies, results and conclusions).

Work Package 5.2, 5.3 & 5.4: Co-Creation Activities, Engagement and Maximising Impact

Lead Investigator: Chris Rogers; Lead Researcher: Mark Powell, Chris Bouch, David Dawson, Claire Walsh

Work Stream 5 provides a focal point for intra- and extra-Centre communication, building capacity, training, delivery of results and impact.  The creation and advancement of a centre of excellence is being achieved through a range of mechanisms that include an annual assembly, a newsletter, an interactive website, externally-facing presentations in a variety of fora, regular co-creation events, symposia, seminars, and multiple direct contacts with our project partners and other stakeholders.  We aim to make full use of our consortium’s existing activities and networks of academics, policy makers, practitioners and civil society organisations from an early stage to help grow the Centre’s community and impact.  In particular, this aim is being met by the establishment of local iBUILD centres in Birmingham, Leeds and Newcastle.  One specific aim of iBUILD is to grow the collaborating network of project partners.  To this end, we will hold regular briefing meetings with our stakeholder partners and produce, and widely circulate, succinct briefing notes.  Additional events will be organised with individual stakeholders or sector groups.  WS5 will progressively assimilate refinements and developments in the core research programme (WS1-4) into increasingly sophisticated analyses of innovative business models for infrastructure delivery.  The process is continuous but will take place in three distinct phases, each yielding outputs for academic, industry and government partners.