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Aim of this white paper is to provide decision-makers, administrations and stakeholders with the most current research findings in order to promote the optimal use of bioenergy from manure in the Swiss energy transition. For this purpose, the results of the Swiss competence center for bioenergy research - SCCER BIOSWEET - are summarized and presented in a broader context. If nothing else is mentioned, the results refer to Switzerland and in case of the feedstock to the domestic biomass potentials.

We conducted semi-structured interviews with 31 local community members in and around the Fylde region of Lancashire on the topic shale development. The interviews were conducted between April and June 2019. We recruited participants through purposive and snowball sampling. We intentionally sought participants who had been visibly active on the issue locally, and also sought a good balance of both views on the matter and geographical spread of participants within the region. Once initial participants had been recruited, we used the snowballing technique to identify further possible participants. This approach resulted in a sample of 31 interviewees from three geographical areas in the region (rural Fylde, coastal Fylde, and the wider region); of whom 19 were anti-fracking, 6 were pro-fracking and 6 were ambivalent. Our semi-structured interview protocol included questions about attitudes to and general perceptions of shale development; beliefs about impacts (local, national and global; actual and potential); views on governance, regulation and energy policy; reactions to archetypal positions put forward in the shale development policy debate; and experiences, expectations and perceptions of participatory opportunities.Hydraulic fracturing ('fracking') is a technology that allows the extraction of unconventional fossil fuel resources (oil and gas). The technology has been widely used in North America over the last decade but is in a much earlier stage of development in the UK. Government policy in the UK is actively encouraging the deployment of this technology and test drilling has taken place at several sites in the UK. There has been significant policy and public controversy around the use of the technology: it is simultaneously viewed by some actors as a novel and risky technology with the potential to adversely affect public health and the environment, but by others as rather more mundane and manageable. Shale gas, furthermore, is viewed by some as able to help the UK meet emissions reduction objectives but by others as hindering this task. Finally, the governance of shale gas development is also a source of conflict, with varying ideas about the ways and extent to which publics and local communities should have a say in policy and decision-making. This contested nature of shale development amongst different groups and stakeholders represents a key socio-political challenge for development in the UK. We analyse this challenge as arising from distinct ways of understanding and viewing the fracking issues ('framing') amongst different kinds of actors. We aim to improve understanding of this socio-political challenge facing shale development in the UK through an investigation of the relationships between three distinct but related research areas: public perceptions of the issue, policy debates ('frames') around shale gas and fracking, and formal processes of public engagement and participation on the matter. A nationally representative survey of public perceptions, as well as in-depth interviewing in a local community case study (the Fylde, Lancashire), will provide a better understanding of public perceptions on fracking for shale and the actors and processes of its governance, and the public acceptability of shale development in the UK. Policy debates will be analysed to better understand the arguments ('frames') put forward by advocates, their contestation, and how these debates have shaped and continue to shape UK policy. Finally, formal processes of public engagement and participation will be examined in order to assess the extent to which they help to resolve or amplify the public acceptance challenge for shale development in the UK. We are particularly interested in the relationships between these three research areas. For example, we ask, how well do policy debates reflect public views? And can the public influence decision making? Research findings will be of interest to policy makers, industry actors, regulators, environmental groups, and members of the public with an interest in the issue of fracking and shale gas development specifically, but also the issues of climate change, democracy and social controversies over technology more broadly. The primary benefit of the research will be to provide both a better understanding of the scale and nature of the social and political challenges facing shale gas development in UK, and a better understanding of the potential of public participation and engagement to help address these challenges. We interviewed 31 local community members from in and around the Fylde region of Lancashire, UK. The Fylde is an area that has experienced shale gas exploration activity by the company Cuadrilla since it acquired a license in the area in 2008. We recruited participants through purposive and snowball sampling. We intentionally sought participants who had been visibly active on the issue locally, and also sought a good balance of both views on the matter and geographical spread of participants within the region. Once initial participants had been recruited, we used the snowballing technique to identify further possible participants. This approach resulted in a sample of 31 interviewees from three geographical areas in the region (rural Fylde, coastal Fylde, and the wider region); of whom 19 were anti-fracking, 6 were pro-fracking and 6 were ambivalent (see Tables 1 and 2). The rural Fylde area covers the more rural inland part of the Fylde, including the area around the Preston New Road site and in and around the village of Roseacre. Coastal Fylde refers to the more urban and populous coast, including the towns of Lytham, Lytham St Annes and Blackpool. Wider region refers to the wider region in and around Cuadrilla’s license area (PEDL 165), and includes the city of Preston. The interviews were conducted between April and June 2019. The interviews were audio-recorded with participant consent. The recordings were then selectively transcribed by the researchers. During selective transcription, passages of an interviewee's response were typed up if they were felt to be potentially significant in relation to the research questions of the project. The transcripts were anonymized through the removal of direct and indirect personal identifiers. Where passages have been removed or words changed to preserve anonymity this is indicated by the use of {} brackets in the transcripts. The interviews lasted between 30mins and 2hrs. 30 of the interviews were conducted face-to-face and 1 of the interviews was conducted by phone. The interviews were semi-structured, and the interview protocol (and follow up questions) can be seen in the transcript files. Our semi-structured interview protocol included questions about attitudes to and general perceptions of shale development; beliefs about impacts (local, national and global; actual and potential); views on governance, regulation and energy policy; reactions to archetypal positions put forward in the shale development policy debate; and experiences, expectations and perceptions of participatory opportunities. The third section of the interviews involved participants looking at and responding to prompts. These prompts were designed to represent an archetypal perspective on the fracking issue. There were nine prompts, 4 pro-shale development and 5 anti-shale development (although there was often not time to go through each prompt). Participants were given information sheets and informed consent was secured for the use of anonymised quotes in publications stemming from the research and for anonymised transcripts to be published as open data in the UK Data Service’s repository. We are publishing the participant information sheet and (blank) consent form alongside the transcripts.

Work Package 3 of this ESRC Knowledge Exchange project was the only one of four work packagaes generating new data. This new data was a modest scoping study of ethical markets for wildflowers in the Western cape of South Africa. Further details of the methodology and implications for the data archive are included in one of the documents submitted to ReShare. In summary, Work Package 3 combined interviews with focus groups conducted between September 2013 and March 2014 to understand emerging ethical markets in the region into which ethical wildflower bouquets fit. The Western Cape is an appropriate case study for research into South African ethical consumption for two key reasons. First, Cape Town is home to a large number of NGOs, industry associations and ethical consultancy firms at the leading edge of ethical initiatives, as well as the location of the corporate headquarters of the two South African grocery retail chains most associated with ethical product ranges. Second, the Western Cape is second only to Gauteng in terms of the size of its middle class population—the socio-economic group most targeted by new ethical marketing initiatives.This project aims to develop and promote best practice in sustainable harvesting within the South African wildflower industry - a sector supplying high-value, ethically-sourced bouquets to UK and South African high street retailers and supermarkets - with positive outcomes intended for both environmental and socio-economic aspects of ethical wildflower harvesting. As a Knowledge Exchange project, the work will be conducted in collaboration with the Flower Valley Conservation Trust (FVCT) - a Western Cape NGO at the vanguard of sustainable harvesting. The FVCT has piloted an innovative programme of work, which seeks to achieve conservation goals through the development of market opportunities. The FVCT is located in the Cape Floral Region of the Western Cape of South Africa, which is the smallest and richest of the world's six floral kingdoms. The main vegetation type is known locally as fynbos ('fine leaved bush'), which has been harvested from the wild for many decades because the distinctive appearance of the flowers has proven popular with consumers. Large quantities of fynbos are exported every year from the Western Cape to European markets, with UK high street retailers and supermarket chains being the most significant customers. However, unsustainable harvesting of wildflowers is one of the threats to the biome and the fynbos industry has been loosely organised and weakly regulated. In environmental terms, this has led to excessive pressure being placed upon the resource base, as marketable species have been exploited beyond their capacity to reproduce. Given the UK's commercial influence, stakeholders in this country have a responsibility to co-develop more sustainable harvesting practices. The project sets out to develop the work of the FVCT and to promote the cause of sustainable harvesting in both South Africa and the UK through a set of progressive and applied mechanisms. Opportunities for devising mechanisms for ensuring the integrity of the sustainable harvesting programme and improving stakeholder outcomes are met through four inter-connected work packages. Work Package 1 develops audit methodologies to enable the effective monitoring of sustainable picking practice and landscape management. Work Package 2 develops training materials and programmes in order to improve the skills, opportunities and socio-economic gains of a culturally-diverse harvesting workforce. Work Package 3 develops a better understanding of how sustainable harvesting in horticulture fits into the wider context of ethical consumerism in South Africa as well as in the UK. Interview-based and focus group methods will trace consumers' ethical values and decision-making in the context of their everyday lives and purchasing practices. This will not only construct useful marketing knowledge for the FCVT and its commercial partner, Fynsa, but will also provide a pilot study of ethical consumption in the global South of interest to transnational corporations, NGOs and labour unions working in this area. Work Package 4 promotes the sustainable harvesting agenda to a wide set of stakeholders through 'Learning Events', including a multi-stakeholder workshop in Cape Town. Twenty-one interviews were conducted with the key Western Cape institutions playing leading roles in the development of ethical markets and consumption (qualitative, theoretical sampling identified these twenty-one very clearly). Table 1 of the introductory project document in ReShare presents a comprehensive list of the interviewees (using pseudonyms and generic job and organisational descriptors to protect anonymity) and the dates of the interviews. In summary, these included companies (consultancy firms, corporate retailers carrying ethically-labelled product lines, companies pioneering and marketing sustainably produced goods, upmarket restaurants showcasing their novel use of sustainable ingredients and social auditors), as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) responsible for ethical initiatives, ethical trade multi-stakeholder organizations and industry associations. In order to capture the ways in which consumers in the Western Cape understand and respond to ethical consumption initiatives in the context of their everyday lives, we adopted a focus group methodology to complement the suite of interviews. This captures inter-subjective knowledge concerning consumers’ narratives on how they consider ethics in their everyday lives. Ten focus groups were held in the Western Cape. Seven of these covered a wide middle class demographic, including three groups in Cape Town (one in the city centre and two in the suburb of Newlands) and one each in Hermanus, Bredasdorp, Croydon and Cloetesville. Three further groups, one in Cape Town and two in Elim, were conducted with members of working class communities and were included to address other related research questions concerning regional commodity knowledges. Focus groups were recruited via two local fieldworkers and three of the key informants interviewed for the project. The Western Cape is diverse demographically in terms of ethnicity, first language, socio-economic status, urbanization and culture. The focus groups captured insights from across these groups including: lower middle class (urban) ‘coloured’ people from Cloetesville near Stellensbosch; middle class coloured people from Croydon near Somerset West; white middle class people (Afrikaans first language) living in and around the rural town of Hermanus; white middle class rural people (also Afrikaans first language) from around Bredasdorp; professionals in Cape Town from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds; Xhosa people (who are either migrants from the Eastern Cape or are first generation) who work at a Cape Town restaurant; and Coloured rural people from the Mission community of Elim. The document in ReShare explains in detail that there is permission given by interviewees to archive 15 of the 21 interview transcripts, but that focus group participants have asked that the focus group transcripts be left out of the archive. The document submitted to ReShare explains this in detail.

Local interviews: policy and other actors engaged in planning and delivery of sustainable housing. This project will examine the challenges and tensions associated with new housing growth in South Central England. It is concerned with the complex relationships between local communities, government agencies and the house building industry, at a time of market and public policy uncertainty. Using the Milton Keynes/Northamptonshire area as the laboratory, the project investigates the tensions and debates about new housing developments in three periods: before the slow-down in the housing market, during the property crash period, and in the current period of slow growth, public expenditure reductions and radical changes in Government planning and housing policy. Using reports and documents (such as local newspapers and planning reports) and interviews with local authorities, developers and community leaders, it will explore how attitudes to new housing among local policymakers have changed, why some areas find it acceptable and some do not. The research will also examine changes in support for sustainable development. Sustainability was a much-publicized objective of the previous government, with the promise to create "sustainable communities" through better urban design (including low carbon buildings), community-based planning and improved public transport, and remains a core element of contemporary planning policy. Interviews

This collections consists of two interview summaries with centrally placed representatives of companies working with the Cuban government in the energy sector. This research adds to a larger project on Cuba's energy sector. Over the past decades, the Cuban state has attracted foreign capital by forming joint ventures with international companies. The study’s aim is to better understand this transformation of state policy from the perspective of two international companies in Cuba's electricity sector.In the early 1990s, Cuba lost around 85 percent of its oil supplies as a result of the Soviet Union's collapse. At this time, all electricity, transports, and not least the highly mechanised Cuban sugar industry were heavily dependent on Soviet oil. In his manifesto for a revolution, Fidel Castro had notably avowed that electricity would 'reach to the last corner of the Island'. Increasing energy consumption was seen as a prerequisite for industrialisation and automation, and by extension, the transition to communism. National energy infrastructure also interconnected the revolutionary nation as a socio-spatial unit, constructing the socialist state as a vehicle of redistribution. Centralised energy infrastructure allowed the government to distribute energy equally to everyone. Before the Revolution, the United States had provided companies in Cuba with oil. But in the heat of the Cold War, revolutionary Cuba became increasingly reliant on Soviet resources. Soviet oil was counter-traded for Cuban sugar on highly beneficial terms. Unsurprisingly, the Soviet collapse led to an acute lack of oil in Cuba. A decade of rolling blackouts and immobile transport systems followed. The Cuban economy went into free fall and mistrust in the socialist state increased. During the 'special period', Cubans had to develop new modes of energy use and rely on informal networks to get hold of energy resources. This also generated new narratives of energy use that interwove with notions of Cuban nationhood and development. Many international observers soon started describing Cuba as an 'energy miracle' - a real-life example of successful 'de-growth' and the only country in the world to have achieved 'sustainable development'. In the mid-2000s, in turn, the Cuban government launched a nationwide 'Energy Revolution', overhauling the national energy systems. Once more, the carbon intensity of the Cuban economy decreased. The Energy Revolution, however, also radically changed the political nature of the Cuban Revolution. The work I carry out during my ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship examines the history of energy use in Cuba from the Revolution of 1959 via the tumultuous 'special period' to the present day. My research focuses on the Cuban governmental sphere, exploring how and why the Cuban socialist project became as oil dependent as it did, but also on everyday urban household life and experiences in Cuban industry. It is based on extensive ethnographic and archival fieldwork in Cuba. From a more abstract perspective, I develop my work in the context of the interdisciplinary research field political ecology. Political ecology links geography, anthropology, and development studies to investigate how the interaction between humans and nature is shaped by and shapes social and political relations. The Fellowship has five aims. The first is to develop a set of peer-reviewed publications in geography journals and, in the longer-term, also a research monograph from my PhD thesis. These publications engage with discussions in political ecology, energy-, and Latin American studies. The second aim is to carry out further limited research into the international dimensions of Cuba's current energy system. In recent years, the Cuban government has invited foreign capital to form joint ventures with Cuban state-companies. To better understand this new 'internationalisation' of the Cuban socialist state, I am engaging with corporate actors in Europe and North America, active in the Cuban energy sector, to complement earlier fieldwork in Cuba. The third aim is to communicate my research findings to academic and non-academic audiences in the Caribbean, North America, and Europe; the fourth to extend my professional networks; and the fifth, to develop a new research project through these networks. Two semi-structured interviews with centrally placed representatives of companies working with the Cuban government in the energy sector. They were selected on the basis of belonging to a select few organisations in this position.

This project asks: what might we learn from today’s climate models? This is a tremendously important question for the social science of climate change. The evidence produced by complex computer simulation models has the capacity to make or break social scientific analysis, as well as the use of such information in decision-making by governments, businesses and households. The hope is that adaptation planning will be informed by these predictions. Where does the balance lie? The project is divided into two sections: i) Interpreting climate models: climate science (L.A.Smith and Piers Forster) This draws on computer science, physics and statistics to understand in detail the uncertainties in state-of-the-art climate models. ii) Interpreting climate models (N. Cartright) This applies the philosophy of science and the philosophy of social science to climate change modelling. It aims to understand and clarify the standards of evidence provided by climate models, linked to economic models, and to articulate the philosophical assumptions behind the predictive expectations projected on to these models. No data was generated in this project but secondary data was used. This data collection consists solely of a ReadMe file describing the project and the secondary data used. The research produced publications that can be placed into three categories. i) Research of a philosophical nature or perspective pieces that reflect on the procedures used in climate science and their relevance for policy. ii) Research which uses simple nonlinear or statistical models to understand issues in climate model interpretation. iii) Research which involves analysis of the output of large ensembles of climate models which has been generated by other projects; often international projects.

This collection includes all bar one of the interviews conducted for this project. Those interviewed represent a cross section of leading actors in bio fuels policies in the EU (10, excluding one), US (14) and Brazil (6). This research uses historical institutionalism to analyse the dynamics and drivers of recent developments in public policies targeting agricultural commodity production, where such production has competing uses as food and energy: specifically biofuels. There is a long history of public policy intervention in food production, but concerns over energy supply security and the environmental impact of energy production have seen public policies promoting ‘alternative’ energy supplies. These end-uses thus compete for inputs. Trade liberalisation has also increased the scope for these effects to be transmitted across national borders. These issues give rise to the primary research question for this project: What explains the dynamics of policy change in biofuels policies, and related agricultural commodity sectors, where there is also international trade? The sole method of primary data collection has been semi-structured elite interviews. Unstructured interviews with leading actors in bio fuels policies.

26 online interviews were conducted of which 22 are available in this archive. One female UK interviewee did not audio-record clearly enough for accurate transcription; and one female UK interviewee and two non-UK interviewees - one man, one woman - gave consent for analysis in the orginal project but not for making their anonymised transcript more widely available. UK Sample Gender: 3 men, 11 women (2 women interviewed together) GCRF Strategic Portfolio Theme: 1 Education, 7 Health, 1 Cities, 2 Security, 1 Food, 1 Environment Research Council: 3 AHRC, 1 BBSRC, 1 EPSRC, 2 ESRC, 3 MRC, 3 NERC, 0 STFC World Region (Some sampled projects covered more than one region): 5 Africa, 4 Americas, 2 SE Asia, 1 Europe, 1 Eastern Mediterranean, 4 Western Pacific, 2 Global Non-UK Sample Gender: 4 men, 9 women GCRF Strategic Portfolio Theme: 3 Education, 7 Health, 0 Cities, 1 Security, 2 Food, 0 Environment Research Council: 2 AHRC, 1 BBSRC, 2 EPSRC, 2 ESRC, 3 MRC, 1 NERC, 0 STFC, 2 Not Applicable World Region (Some sampled projects covered more than one region): 2 Africa, 3 Americas, 3 SE Asia, 1 Europe, 1 Eastern Mediterranean, 3 Western Pacific, 1 GlobalWorldwide, one billion people have a mental health disorder, placing these among the leading causes of ill-health and disability. Moreover, poor mental health disproportionately affects people in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMIC) where there exists also a huge mental health workforce gap. Arguably, mental health is a right and tackling poor mental health is also a means of facilitating sustainable socio-economic development. Global Mental Health aligns with Sustainable Development Goal 3: 'Good Health and Well-Being,' specifically 3.4: 'By 2030, reduce by one third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being.' Our ambition is to trigger a step-change in how the research community thinks about where, how and by whom mental health in LMICs can be impacted to benefit people experiencing poor mental health. Specifically, we believe there is untapped potential for global researchers to impact mental health whilst delivering their core (non-mental health) project aims, and that this can be done without significant resource implications. Therefore, to accelerate global action on mental health our long-term aim is to produce a Global Mental Health Impact Framework with potential for use in all research in developing countries. Our first stage project will establish a foundation and pathway towards this long-term aim by creating a beta version of the Impact Framework, based on arts and humanities methodologies first, ready for future testing and development across a broad range of GCRF projects in a second stage application. At this second stage, we will also develop an implementation plan to support funders, researchers and LMIC partners to understand and use the Framework. The Challenge Cluster brings together 16 GCRF projects funded by the AHRC, ESRC and MRC, a University of Leeds (UoL) AHRC-GCRF Network Plus, and UoL AHRC-led GCRF Hub totalling over £6.5 million and collaborator from outside the academy who has worked on non-GCRF ODA-oriented projects. A huge advantage of the Cluster is that it builds on the activities and resources of Praxis: Arts and Humanities for Global Development: an AHRC-led GCRF Hub at the UoL. We will develop our own Praxis Nexus approach to bring together what has been found and engage with researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers to accelerate impact on a cross-national scale commensurate with the significance of the GCRF programme. Measurable, realistic, achievable objectives for the first-stage 12-month project are to:- 1. Complete a scoping review of (i) material practices and (ii) implicit and explicit mental health activities in non-mental health focused GCRF projects funded to date; 2. Complete a report outlining the basis for a Global Mental Health Impact Framework around collaborative material practices; 3. Develop and strengthen equitable international academic, policy and practitioner partnerships and build capacity in LMIC and the UK; and, 4. Use this work to assist in developing the agenda and programmes of research to be undertaken in the second stage application. In relation to potential applications and benefits we will: 1. Raise the awareness of UK and LMIC funders, researchers and organisations that they may be missing 'low hanging fruit' opportunities to impact mental health in their portfolios and projects; 2. Provide them with a basic understanding of how Global Mental Health challenges can be conceptualised and identified in non-mental health focused projects; and 3. Explain ways that diverse projects could achieve mental health impact at micro, meso and macro levels as part of their routine activities without overstretching project expertise or resources; and, 4. Stimulate LMIC organisations and government departments to think about how they might integrate mental health impact across their diverse agendas and projects. GCRF grants were scoped using information on the UKRI gateway to research (GtR: https://gtr.ukri.org/). GCRF grants were excluded if their primary research aim was mental health, i.e. which were classified on GtR as ‘Mental Health’ Research Topic or Health Category (N = 36). The remaining grants, awarded from the beginning of the GCRF programme towards the end of 2015 until the end of May 2020, were sampled for diversity across research council, GCRF strategic challenge portfolio, and world region: Africa, Americas, South-East Asia, Europe, Eastern Mediterranean, and Western Pacific (https://www.who.int/about/who-we-are/regional-offices). Where sample diversity allowed, closed (total pool N = 484) rather than active (total pool N = 740) grants were selected for completeness of available GtR information. Differentiation of lead organisation and Research Category was also sought (final N = 36). The principal investigator (PI) of each of the 36 grants was emailed an invitation to take part in an interview. All who expressed interest were interviewed. One reminder email was sent to PIs of projects that would increase the diversity of our interview sample, specifically male PIs, PIs in LMIC, and PIs of STFC grants. This secured 11 interviews with UK PIs (one jointly with the grant research assistant), one with a co-investigator based in the UK at the time of the grant, and one with a non-UK-based PI. We snowball sampled by asking each of these interviewees to introduce us to a non-UK-based collaborator. In this way, we secured a further five interviews and snowballed again to a sixth. We then used our own GCRF networks and returned to the GtR to close gaps in our sampling, securing a further four interviews and snowballing to a fifth. Our networks and snowballing provided us access to two non-UK-based collaborators who are experts in mental health and it was decided to undertake these interviews to add this perspective to the project. In total, we conducted 13 UK-based interviews and 13 non-UK-based interviews across 18 GCRF grants, two of the non-UK-based interviewees associated more tangentially with the GCRF programme as networked collaborators. Interviewing stopped when sampling for diversity across relevant variables was met. The interviewer reviewed the information sheet, answered questions, and took verbal consent to take part in the study and to be recorded. A semi-structured format was used such that the interviewer covered pre-planned areas relevant to the research question, while using follow-ups to elicit further detail and facilitating the interviewee to lead the topical flow. The following questions were always covered: Can you tell me about your involvement in GCRF/international development work?; To what extent is there potential to incorporate mental health impact into the kind of work you do?; What do you see as the main challenges of incorporating mental health impact into the kind of work you do?; How might these challenges be overcome?; What support would enable you to incorporate mental health impact in your work?; To what extent do you think there is an appetite to incorporate mental health impact into the kind of work you do? Each interview lasted around one hour.

This project analysed local authorities in the UK in order to ascertain what capacities they have to engage in sustainable energy, and how these relate to a range of social, political and material contexts. This is a fast-moving landscape as local authorities increase their ambitions in relation to emissions reduction and try to match them with a wider range of local priorities. The main focus of the project is on understanding the relationships between local capacity to act, in five leading local authorities, and energy system decentralisation and varying types of relationship with national government. This information was built up through a process of documentary analysis, 48 extended semi-structured interviews with those most involved at the local authority level, two placements, and two knowledge exchange workshops. The project concludes that re-shaping local-national political relationships can open up opportunities for action at the local level, whilst renewable energy decentralisation has opened up opportunities for local energy transitions but also for new revenue streams for local authorities. It also concluded that greater co-ordination between: local authorities, and between local authorities and national government bodies is required to improve opportunities for other local authorities to act.Both energy and political landscapes are changing in the UK, but so far no analysis has considered how these movements towards greater decentralisation relate to one another. Indeed, local authorities are becoming increasingly involved in enabling and providing sustainable energy programmes whilst, at the same time, many are applying for and securing devolution deals. Some scholars and policy analysts have argued that decentralising energy will be vital in securing popular buy-in to sustainable energy transitions through greater civic participation whilst others are point towards the power of the local in delivering better-attuned services. This research project will reveal the details of how these two decentralisation movements interact with one another in practice by exploring and mapping five local authority sustainable energy programmes and critically examining their relationships with central government. This research is timely and innovative. It is timely because according to the Climate Change Committee (CCC), whose job it is to monitor the UK's progress on climate mitigation, the UK is at risk of missing its Fourth Carbon Budget and because central government support for solar and wind generation has also recently been cut (Energy Spectrum 2015). At the same time, however, local authorities have been emerging as one area of innovation with regard to sustainable energy, partly by creating new energy companies that operate according to non-traditional business models and partly by offering supply services focused on affordability. The project is innovative in that it combines conceptual insights from socio-technical transitions, political science and human geography to reveal the emerging role of local authorities in sustainable transitions whilst also exploring these changes within the context of political decentralisation. This project has been designed with input from Ofgem, the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) and two local government personnel. It aims to engage on a regular basis with practitioners and stakeholders at the local authority level with the intention of on-going knowledge exchange and co-production about this fast changing area. The project is also designed so that local authorities will have the opportunity to engage with one-another through a targeted, practitioners' workshop. Towards the end of the project findings about how local authorities and central government work together in practice, in particular with regard constraints and opportunities for improvement, will be shared with Ofgem, the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and local authority networks such as the Local Government Association. The findings from this research project should be relevant not only to academics working on local government and local energy in the UK, but also to scholars interested in questions of scale and of civic participation in sustainable energy transitions. By undertaking and completing this project the PI will be given a valuable opportunity to develop and further improve her research skills, create new networks, produce groundbreaking research and to continue on her trajectory to becoming a world leader in the field of climate and energy governance. Step 1: Documentary analysis of local authority policy documents (including devolution deals) and websites, and a third party (University-led) survey of local sustainable energy policy in the UK. Available documents were limited given how new this policy landscape is. Case studies were chosen on the basis of having sufficient sustainable energy experience, as well as having made some progress in terms of re-shaping their relationship with national government. This section of the research also identified key contacts at the local level as candidates for interviews. Step 2: The next phase was to embed myself into local authorities over 2-day placements to get a better idea of the range of activities in sustainable energy, how local authorities had capacity to act in these areas (i.e. on what basis), how this relates to opportunities (new business models, new technologies) that became available through energy decentralisation, and how local authorities have actively sought to re-shape their relationships with national government to facilitate greater local capacity. Step 3: Semi-structured qualitative interviews. 48 interviews were undertaken with those identified during Step 1 and Step 2. Most of these were face-to-face over a number of hours, but there were also follow-up telephone conversations to clarify issues, or if the policy landscape changed during that time period. These allowed me to create an in depth picture of how policymakers both respond to changing landscapes (social, political, technical), but also seek to change those landscapes in order to support sustainable energy action. Step 4: Knowledge exchange workshops. This last stage widened out who the project had exposure to, to include about 30 different local authorities. There were two workshops designed to support specific knowledge exchange between local authorities on the various innovations in policy, business models and technology that were becoming available and tried and tested. This also provided the project with opportunities to deepen understandings of how local authorities are affected by, and seek to affect, their contexts in order to pursue sustainable energy.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. This research project aimed to produce a critical assessment of the prospects for local food networks and chains in the light of the UK government's 'Report of the Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food' (the 'Curry Report'), published in 2002, which extolled these novel food chains as one of the greatest opportunities for farmers and producers in the UK to add value and retain a greater slice of the retail price. The project therefore had the following objectives:to examine the changing regulatory environment of the agri-food sector in the light of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)reformto assess the scope for devolved action in the design and delivery of regional agri-food strategiesto examine the nature of producer-retailer relationships in local agri-food chainsto evaluate the effectiveness of the regional support systemto contribute to theoretical debates about multi-level governance, globalisation and localisationTo pursue these objectives, the project focused on two different regulatory contexts: firstly, the macro-regulatory context of CAP reform and secondly, the regional context in which these local systems are directly promoted by regional development agencies and other bodies. The research used three regional case studies: Wales and South West England, where local food is a relatively new regional strategy, and Tuscany in Italy, which is one of the most innovative regions in the European Union in producing and promoting local and organic food products. This qualitative dataset contains 70 interviews (16 focus groups and 54 individual interviews) with food providers and government representatives from the three areas, conducted during the course of the project. Main Topics: Topics covered in the interviews include: food network initiation and establishment; networking and linkages; autonomy for food producers; local food products and network sustainability; quality; political/institutional support; sustainability. Purposive selection/case studies Face-to-face interview Telephone interview