The experience of forced displacement is profoundly shaped by where people find shelter. The most urgent concern for migrants is how to find safe and stable spaces in which to live, rest and sleep, both during their journey and when they arrive at their destination. Tents and camps dominate media images of forced displacement, but forced migrants find shelter in many other ways. They may make use of abandoned buildings, stay on the floors of friends and relatives, find rest in self-built shelters, or sleep under trees in the natural environment. Some may find themselves placed in reception centres and immigration detention facilities against their will. Others may be housed in specially created spaces, such as 'villages' made from shipping containers or IKEA-designed prefabricated shelters. Still others may find accommodation through private rentals, supported by cash transfers from aid agencies or forms of welfare from governmental bodies. These types of emergency shelter form a vital infrastructure that result from human improvisation and contingency as much as design or planning. At present this infrastructure is very poorly understood. Architectures of Displacement begins with the observation that material forms of shelter offer unique insights into migration and refugees. By developing a new interdisciplinary approach to the physical dimension of the refugee experience, this research will provide unique perspectives upon the processes of human adaptation to new circumstances through displacement. The project will explore the impact of different shelter on the fate of refugees, as well as the political and legal consequences of forced migration and its entanglement with the exigencies of shelter. Given the scale of global displacement and the number of people living in 'non-traditional' spaces in large urban areas, there is a particularly urgent need to understand the variety of forms that shelter takes and the experiences and consequences of living in its various forms. The project draws together three disciplines with distinct but complementary approaches to the study of material forms: Anthropology, Architecture and Archaeology. It will develop a new approach to recording and understanding the variety of temporary architectural forms and material ephemera that are so central to the experience of forced migration. It will document and categorise, for the first time, the diversity and consequences of emergency shelter. And by focusing on the connections between material environments and human experiences, the data gathered by the project will assist policymakers in making informed choices about how to manage the arrival of refugees. The cross-disciplinary approach of this project builds on three main bodies of research and practice. 1) Architecture brings a focus on the significance of the built environment for human life. It provides a way to consider how forms of shelter are constructed and used, a method for categorising different forms of shelter, and a technique for examining how spaces function. 2) Archaeology brings an awareness of time, duration, and loss to the study. It enables the project to explore the connections between abandonment and shelter, the material circumstances of the repurposing of existing structures, the ephemeral interventions and adaptations made in the natural environment in order to shelter in it, and the traces left by refugees through sheltering practices. 3) Anthropology offers a technique for studying how people react to displacement. It enables the project to study everyday life in different forms of accommodation, exploring how beneficiary populations understand, alter, reimagine, and accept or resist the shelters they are provided with; examining the processes, motivations and practicalities through which they find places to shelter for themselves; and exploring the ways in which sheltering practices lead to adaptations in social life.

Africa's population is growing rapidly and is expected to increase by over 150% between 2000 and 2050. This will result in an increased demand for water. Groundwater has been identified as having the potential to meet much of the growing water requirements for domestic use, food production and other productive uses, especially as it is seen as being more resilient to climate variability than surface water resources. However, it is recognised that in large regions of Africa where the groundwater store is relatively small there may be occasions when extended periods of low groundwater recharge result in water shortages. As groundwater is being promoted as a means to address Africa's future water supply needs, further research is crucial to study the potential vulnerability of communities that become more reliant on these low storage aquifers. This will allow better decisions to be made when planning groundwater development. The BRAVE project (Building understanding of climate variability into planning of groundwater supplies from low storage aquifers in Africa) aims to take advantage of recent developments in models of climate, the land surface and groundwater to improve the understanding of how these groundwater resources are affected by climate variability, under present and future climate, and by changes in land use and water demand. A key element of the project is to ensure that the output from the model is in a form that addresses the questions being asked by those making decisions on water resource development. The BRAVE project will use the River Volta Basin (RVB) in West Africa as a case study area, working in Burkina Faso and Ghana. It brings together a strong team of internationally-recognised meteorologists, hydrogeologists, land surface modellers and knowledge exchange experts, with extensive experience of working in Africa, and builds on recent NERC-funded research.

The GRRIPP Network+ will build an international, network of scholars, policy makers and practitioners to promote gender and intersectionality. This requires networks of disciplines, sectors and interests and a range of partners who are willing to think and work together in new ways. We seek to establish a radical vision which begins and centres upon gender and intersectionality rather than adding it, post hoc, to domains and sectors. The primary challenge we identify is to embed gender and intersectionality in resilience thinking, policy making and practice through better understanding the drivers of gender inequality of risk and resilience in order to build gender responsive resilience (GRR). We will focus on Resilience to Environmental Shocks and Change and ask: what difference would it make to re-envision the many global challenges facing ODA countries through a gender lens? We will also focus on sustainable infrastructure, which allows us to apply a gender and intersectionality lens to the planning, design, construction and governance of cities and communities; both in the everyday and in the context of disaster risk reduction and resilience. Initially we propose working directly across three regions Africa; Latin America and the Caribbean; and South Asia. We plan to ensure diversity within regions and countries to reach rural and smaller urban locations and stakeholders and not just capital cities/ large urban centres. We plan an ambitious Commissioning programme for cutting edge research and capacity building activities which will encompass major nationally identified and significant challenges. We aim to mentor and support to leave no-one behind by actively involving very local and informal groups and networks through our various partners. We aim to leave our mark in the academic, policy and practice spheres through the diverse and wide-ranging outputs we seek to support and produce. For example: We plan to have a major influence on theoretical debates; we will engage policy makers and policy implementers to ensure theoretical and practical insights can be presented in policy-friendly ways that speak directly to their agendas; Through global & regional workshops, we will collectively deliver expert discussions and research trainings, plan collaboratively written, presentational and advocacy activities. Our "research mentor" scheme will partner more experienced researchers with junior ones to focus on confidence-building for the next generation of thinkers and policy-influencers. The legacy of GRRIPP will be connected, knowledgeable and empowered researchers, practitioners, communities and policymakers; theoretical innovations on gender, intersectionality and resilience; gender- and intersectionality-responsive disaster and conflict management policies; and a context-relevant information and evidence base for embedding gender and intersectionality into policy and policy into action. We hope that the actions and outputs of the GRRIPP Network+ will support positive change in the everyday lives of people living in ODA countries while building socially-responsible and socially-productive capacity in the academic, policy and practice communities of the UK.

Poorly constructed buildings are often the largest cause of injury, trauma and death in the event of a natural disaster. Most families rebuild houses relying on their own resources, with little or no external support. They "self-recover". An analysis of statistics shows that the impact of aid agencies on housing recovery rarely reaches more than 20% of affected families and is frequently in single figures (Parrack, 2014). Moreover, much of that support is in the form of temporary housing intended to last only a few years. Therefore, we know that 80%, or more, self-recover. The potential impact is huge: any one emergency can leave hundreds of thousands of families homeless, with women and girls disproportionately affected (Bradshaw, 2015). As things stand, these homes are too often rebuilt using the same pre-disaster bad practice that caused so much death, injury and economic damage in the first place. Currently, shelter professionals lack understanding of the recovery process and therefore of inherent opportunities for appropriate and effective support. Families choose when and how to rebuild based on little-understood circumstances. Empowering them in the exercise of informed choice is integral to assisting self-recovery. There are neither tools nor knowledge to effectively support this at scale. The challenge for the humanitarian community, as well as national and local organisations, is to support this inevitable process of self-recovery. While efforts are made to include Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) into many emergency and recovery shelter interventions, these activities are often very narrow in scope, frequently limited to the printing of simple guidance sheets. These have very little impact on resilience of self-built housing stock. We know that simply informing people about risk - poor engineering, construction, and hazard risk - does not result in changed behaviour (van Wijk 1995), or in better, safer homes and communities. We also know there are no universal solutions. Evidence from post-disaster needs-assessments shows that families rapidly rebuild their homes with little or no knowledge of safer building techniques or the environmental factors that may increase their vulnerability. However there is evidence that demand for technical assistance can be very high soon after a rapid onset disaster. Only 12% of respondents interviewed for a CARE Nepal survey were able to name any techniques for improving seismic performance of a house, but 60% listed building safety as a top concern. Currently, the international aid community lacks skills to adequately contextualise each unique situation, arrive rapidly and reliably at key technical messages and effectively transmit and promote those messages in a way that allows informed choice and ensures maximum acceptance by the affected population. Current post-disaster programmes do not systematically or effectively address the motivations (want), resources (can) and abilities (know-how) of beneficiaries in the process of self-recovery. Through the multidisciplinary research of scientists, engineers and humanitarian practitioners, this proposal addresses the needs of those who self-build. It specifically addresses two important gaps: - Technical best practice - what key construction and siting messages will make a substantial improvement to self-building in different contexts? - Changing current practice - getting the message across; what communication and promotion methods really work; learning from current technology transfer and public education approaches. References: Parrack, C; Flinn, B and Passey, M (2014): Open House International van Wijk, C; Murre, T (1995): UNICEF Bradshaw, S., Fordham, M., (2015): Elsevier