Publications
29 results found
Nguyen NT, Collins A, Collins CM, 2024, Trends and patterns in the application of co-production, co-creation, and co-design methods in studies of green spaces: a systematic review, Environmental Science and Policy, Vol: 152, ISSN: 1462-9011
BackgroundParticipatory and collaborative approaches such as co-production, co-creation, and co-design have become popular as they encourage meaningful participation of wider stakeholders in research and decision-making processes to ensure that greenspace benefits the local community. There is, however, a need to understand why and how researchers use these approaches and how successful each are. This systematic review synthesizes the existing evidence to provide answers to such questions.MethodsThis systematic review followed the PRISMA guidelines and includes studies using a co-production, co-design, or co-creation approach to study green spaces. The search was conducted from August to November 2022 in four academic databases, including SCOPUS, Proquest, Web of Science, and EBSCOhost. Thematic analysis was used to analyze and synthesize data. Sixty-one studies met the inclusion criteria and were reviewed.FindingsWe show that co-production, co-creation, and co-design methods have the potential to increase public engagement and to help develop green spaces that satisfy the needs of communities. To realize the full potential of stakeholder engagement, however, researchers need to consider enablers and constraints such as social capital, the attributes of the stakeholders involved, and the overall research design. The work illustrates some barriers that might restrain effective implementation of such methods. Particularly, the lack of description of the processes and of impact evaluation makes it challenging to understand how they are more effective than conventional participatory approaches in which research subjects or participants play a passive role. In addition, co-production, co-creation, and co-design are largely used interchangeably.
Van Oijstaeijen W, Silva MFE, Back P, et al., 2023, The Nature Smart Cities business model: A rapid decision-support and scenario analysis tool to reveal the multi-benefits of green infrastructure investments, Urban Forestry and Urban Greening, Vol: 84, ISSN: 1618-8667
Incorporating natural spaces within urban areas has been shown to have multiple benefits. However, despite greening and adaptation strategies at different levels of government, progress remains slow with a lack of easy to use and comprehensive tools identified as key to overcoming this. This paper presents a co-designed tool with academic and local authority partners to demonstrate the ecosystem service benefits of small-scale urban green infrastructure projects. Through the tool, users can readily assess the impact of green infrastructure investments on the delivery of a selection of ecosystem services in the early stages of a project. Furthermore, the tool provides a standardised assessment of cultural ecosystem services’ contributions, as well as offering a method to score spatial designs on the impact on habitat for biodiversity. Use of the tool is demonstrated using a pilot study in Kapelle, the Netherlands. The results set out an overview of the impacts of the spatial design on estimated ecosystem service delivery. They also show the tool's potential to add value in early project stages and as a planning and design tool, helping to maximise the benefits that can be achieved through green infrastructure design. Complementing these arguments with ball-park estimations on green infrastructure costs, the Nature Smart Cities Business Model aims to offer public sector officers the means to create a business case for green infrastructure measures, facilitating the translation from strategies to actual plans, thus benefitting green infrastructure implementation in the public realm.
Tayia A, Collins AM, Gilmont M, 2022, The role of virtual-water decoupling in achieving food-water security: lessons from Egypt 1962-2013, Water International, Vol: 47, Pages: 1118-1139, ISSN: 0250-8060
Since the 1970s, many economies have increasingly relied on ‘importing’ water embedded in food imports, a process referred to here as virtual-water ‘imports’. In water scarce countries virtual water ‘imports’ are used to protect the economy’s own water that would otherwise be consumed in food production to meet growing population and economy food needs, or to support population food needs beyond that sustainable by internal water resources. This process is referred to here as virtual-water decoupling. Water-scarce countries use virtual-water decoupling to secure the water embedded in food and feed consumption, referred to here as food-water. Food-water insecurity poses significant existential threats to societies and political economies due to the crucial role food plays in human life, be it through drought precipitating hunger, or through drought precipitating food price rises and social dislocation. Despite, or perhaps because of the significant threat posed by food-water insecurity to political-economic systems, it has rarely been foregrounded in public policy or as a research priority. While food production has always been the major water consumer by society in most countries and regions, the importance of water in food security, and food systems as key actors in water management, is invariably politically silent. This study examines the role of virtual-water decoupling to achieve a version of food-water security for water scarce societies. The paper analyses the Egyptian virtual-water decoupling policy during the period 1962-2013. Egypt food-water policy was chosen as a case study as it provides an important example of an economy that has relied on virtual-water decoupling to achieve its food-water security. The Egyptian case has shown that virtual-water decoupling can close the gap between the locally available physical water resources and the water actually needed for food and fibre by the economy. Importantly, the
O'Shea R, Collins A, Howe C, 2022, Offshore multi-use setting: Introducing integrative assessment modelling to alleviate uncertainty of developing seaweed aquaculture inside wind farms, Environmental Challenges, Vol: 8, Pages: 1-11, ISSN: 2667-0100
The offshore multi-use setting is a concept that reduces spatial competition in the marine economy. Seaweed Aquaculture inside Wind Farms has been suggested as a multi-use setting design, however, the uncertainty surrounding impacts associated with multi-use setting activities is a key barrier to the development of the concept. To begin alleviating uncertainty on the Seaweed Aquaculture-Wind Farm system, a systematic literature review was performed to identify the potential negative consequences of developing seaweed aquaculture inside of Wind Farms. Findings suggest negative consequences may result across multiple objectives. The study findings were used to construct cognitive models that are necessary to facilitate further integrative assessment modelling on social and ecological impacts of integrating seaweed aquaculture and Wind Farms. The interdisciplinary frameworks and research strategy proposed by this study is the first attempt to formalise holistic sustainability assessment and novel management of an emerging bioeconomic innovation being pursued in Europe
Collins AM, Haddaway NR, Thomas J, et al., 2022, Existing evidence on the impacts of within-field farmland management practices on the flux of greenhouse gases from arable cropland in temperate regions: a systematic map, ENVIRONMENTAL EVIDENCE, Vol: 11
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- Citations: 1
O'Keeffe J, Pluchinotta I, De Stercke S, et al., 2022, Evaluating natural capital performance of urban development through system dynamics: A case study from London., Science of the Total Environment, Vol: 824, Pages: 1-12, ISSN: 0048-9697
Natural capital plays a central role in urban functioning, reducing flooding, mitigating urban heat island effects, reducing air pollution, and improving urban biodiversity through provision of habitat space. There is also evidence on the role played by blue and green space in improving physical and mental health, reducing the burden on the health care service. Yet from an urban planning and development view, natural capital may be considered a nice to have, but not essential element of urban design; taking up valuable space which could otherwise be used for traditional built environment uses. While urban natural capital is largely recognised as a positive element, its benefits are difficult to measure both in space and time, making its inclusion in urban (re)development difficult to justify. Here, using a London case study and information provided by key stakeholders, we present a system dynamics (SD) modelling framework to assess the natural capital performance of development and aid design evaluation. A headline indicator: Natural Space Performance, is used to evaluate the capacity of natural space to provide ecosystem services, providing a semi-quantitative measure of system wide impacts of change within a combined natural, built and social system. We demonstrate the capacity of the model to explore how combined or individual changes in development design can affect natural capital and the provision of ecosystem services, for example, biodiversity or flood risk. By evaluating natural capital and ecosystem services over time, greater justification for their inclusion in planning and development can be derived, providing support for increased blue and green space within cities, improving urban sustainability and enhancing quality of life. Furthermore, the application of a SD approach captures key interactions between variables over time, showing system evolution while highlighting intervention opportunities.
Hinson C, O'Keeffe J, Mijic A, et al., 2022, Using natural capital and ecosystem services to facilitate participatory environmental decision making: Results from a systematic map, PEOPLE AND NATURE, Vol: 4, Pages: 652-668
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- Citations: 6
Munafò MR, Chambers C, Collins A, et al., 2022, The reproducibility debate is an opportunity, not a crisis., BMC Res Notes, Vol: 15
There are many factors that contribute to the reproducibility and replicability of scientific research. There is a need to understand the research ecosystem, and improvements will require combined efforts across all parts of this ecosystem. National structures can play an important role in coordinating these efforts, working collaboratively with researchers, institutions, funders, publishers, learned societies and other sectoral organisations, and providing a monitoring and reporting function. Whilst many new ways of working and emerging innovations hold a great deal of promise, it will be important to invest in meta-research activity to ensure that these approaches are evidence based, work as intended, and do not have unintended consequences. Addressing reproducibility will require working collaboratively across the research ecosystem to share best practice and to make the most effective use of resources. The UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN) brings together Local Networks of researchers, Institutions, and External Stakeholders (funders, publishers, learned societies and other sectoral organisations), to coordinate action on reproducibility and work to ensure the UK retains its place as a centre for world-leading research. This activity is coordinated by the UKRN Steering Group. We consider this structure as valuable, bringing together a range of voices at a range of levels to support the combined efforts required to enact change.
Back P, Collins AM, 2022, Negotiating the green obstacle course: Ranking priorities and problems for municipal green infrastructure implementation, URBAN FORESTRY & URBAN GREENING, Vol: 67, ISSN: 1618-8667
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- Citations: 5
Stevenson S, Collins A, Jennings N, et al., 2021, A hybrid approach to identifying and assessing interactions between climate action (SDG13) policies and a range of SDGs in a UK context (vol 2, 43, 2021), DISCOVER SUSTAINABILITY, Vol: 2
UK Reproducibility Network Steering Committee, 2021, From grassroots to global: A blueprint for building a reproducibility network., PLoS Biol, Vol: 19
Researchers, institutions, funders, and publishers are considering how to improve research culture and quality, but no single part of the research ecosystem can effect change on its own. The UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN) was established to facilitate the necessary coordination. Its experience can inform the establishment of like-minded networks around the world to drive positive change.
Stevenson S, Collins A, Jennings N, et al., 2021, A hybrid approach to identifying and assessing interactions between climate action (SDG13) policies and a range of SDGs in a UK context, Discover Sustainability, Vol: 2, ISSN: 2662-9984
In 2015 the United Nations drafted the Paris Agreement and established the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for all nations. A question of increasing relevance is the extent to which the pursuit of climate action (SDG 13) interacts both positively and negatively with other SDGs. We tackle this question through a two-pronged approach: a novel, automated keyword search to identify linkages between SDGs and UK climate-relevant policies; and a detailed expert survey to evaluate these linkages through specific examples. We consider a particular subset of SDGs relating to health, economic growth, affordable and clean energy and sustainable cities and communities. Overall, we find that of the 89 UK climate-relevant policies assessed, most are particularly interlinked with the delivery of SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) and that certain UK policies, like the Industrial Strategy and 25-Year Environment Plan, interlink with a wide range of SDGs. Focusing on these climate-relevant policies is therefore likely to deliver a wide range of synergies across SDGs 3 (Good Health and Well-being), 7, 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), 11, 14 (Life Below Water) and 15 (Life on Land). The expert survey demonstrates that in addition to the range of mostly synergistic interlinkages identified in the keyword search, there are also important potential trade-offs to consider. Our analysis provides an important new toolkit for the research and policy communities to consider interactions between SDGs, which can be employed across a range of national and international contexts.
Haddaway NR, Callaghan MW, Collins AM, et al., 2020, On the use of computer‐assistance to facilitate systematic mapping, Campbell Systematic Reviews, Vol: 16, Pages: 1-9, ISSN: 1891-1803
The volume of published academic research is growing rapidly and this new era of “big literature” poses new challenges to evidence synthesis, pushing traditional, manual methods of evidence synthesis to their limits. New technology developments, including machine learning, are likely to provide solutions to the problem of information overload and allow scaling of systematic maps to large and even vast literatures. In this paper, we outline how systematic maps lend themselves well to automation and computer‐assistance. We believe that it is a major priority to consolidate efforts to develop and validate efficient, rigorous and robust applications of these novel technologies, ensuring the challenges of big literature do not prevent the future production of systematic maps.
Li L, Collins AM, Cheshmehzangi A, et al., 2020, Identifying enablers and barriers to the implementation of the Green Infrastructure for urban flood management: A comparative analysis of the UK and China, URBAN FORESTRY & URBAN GREENING, Vol: 54, ISSN: 1618-8667
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- Citations: 32
Back P, Collins A, 2020, Getting More Green: Smaller municipalities' approaches to delivering green infrastructure, Nature Smart Cities Across the 2 Seas, Publisher: Imperial College London and Southend on Sea Borough Council
The report sets out the results of 53 semi-structured interviews conducted between November 2019 and February 2020, with officers and elected members in selected local authorities in the Netherlands, Belgium, France and the UK, all with populations less than 550,000. The research aimed to support the development of a Business Model to help smaller municipalities to build a business case for Green Infrastructure (GI). It sought an understanding of funding and approval processes for GI project implementation, the obstacles that might obstruct GI development, and the use (or non-use) of tools intended to help these processes.
Munafo MR, Chambers CD, Collins AM, et al., 2020, Research Culture and Reproducibility, TRENDS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCES, Vol: 24, Pages: 91-93, ISSN: 1364-6613
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- Citations: 22
Collins AM, Haddaway NR, Macura B, et al., 2019, What are the impacts of within-field farmland management practices on the flux of greenhouse gases from arable cropland in temperate regions? A systematic map protocol, ENVIRONMENTAL EVIDENCE, Vol: 8
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- Citations: 3
Hillier JK, Saville GR, Smith MJ, et al., 2019, Demystifying academics to enhance university–business collaborations in environmental science, Geoscience Communication, Vol: 2, Pages: 1-23, ISSN: 2569-7110
In countries globally there is intense political interest in fostering effective university–business collaborations, but there has been scant attention devoted to exactly how an individual scientist's workload (i.e. specified tasks) and incentive structures (i.e. assessment criteria) may act as a key barrier to this. To investigate this an original, empirical dataset is derived from UK job specifications and promotion criteria, which distil universities' varied drivers into requirements upon academics. This work reveals the nature of the severe challenge posed by a heavily time-constrained culture; specifically, tension exists between opportunities presented by working with business and non-optional duties (e.g. administration and teaching). Thus, to justify the time to work with business, such work must inspire curiosity and facilitate future novel science in order to mitigate its conflict with the overriding imperative for academics to publish. It must also provide evidence of real-world changes (i.e. impact), and ideally other reportable outcomes (e.g. official status as a business' advisor), to feed back into the scientist's performance appraisals. Indicatively, amid 20–50 key duties, typical full-time scientists may be able to free up to 0.5 day per week for work with business. Thus specific, pragmatic actions, including short-term and time-efficient steps, are proposed in a “user guide” to help initiate and nurture a long-term collaboration between an early- to mid-career environmental scientist and a practitioner in the insurance sector. These actions are mapped back to a tailored typology of impact and a newly created representative set of appraisal criteria to explain how they may be effective, mutually beneficial and overcome barriers. Throughout, the focus is on environmental science, with illustrative detail provided through the example of natural hazard risk modelling in the insurance sector. However, a new conceptual model of ac
Collins AM, Coughlin D, Randall N, 2019, Engaging environmental policy-makers with systematic reviews: challenges, solutions and lessons learned, Environmental Evidence, Vol: 8, ISSN: 2047-2382
The creation and accumulation of robust bodies of knowledge, along with their dissemination, utilisation and integration in decision support are key to improving the use of evidence in decision-making. Systematic reviews (SRs), through their emphasis on transparency, replicability and rigour, offer numerous benefits throughout the policy-making cycle and for improving the use of evidence in environmental policy-making. As a result there have been numerous calls to increase the use of SRs in environmental policy-making. This commentary paper introduces the challenges of engaging policy-makers with SRs and, using experiences of producing SRs with Government Departments and Agencies within the UK and Europe, identifies possible solutions and shares our lessons learned. It highlights that co-production can help to overcome a number of challenges by ensuring that review questions are policy-relevant, that the context of the review is taken into consideration and that review’s findings are communicated so that they are recognised and used in policy decision-making processes. Additionally, a pragmatic approach to the review’s methodology may be required to respond to policy-making requirements. Here, a risk-based approach can communicate the trade-offs between the rigour and timeliness of the review. Ensuring that systematic approaches are upheld at all times can help address impartiality concerns and can develop skills in both reviewers and policy-makers to increase awareness of systematic methods, leading to changes in practice and culture within decision-making organisations and the promotion of evidence informed policy development and decisions.
Sutherland WJ, Broad S, Butchart SHM, et al., 2019, A horizon scan of emerging issues for global conservation in 2019, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol: 34, Pages: 83-94, ISSN: 1872-8383
We present the results of our tenth annual horizon scan. We identified 15 emerging priority topics that may have major positive or negative effects on the future conservation of global biodiversity, but currently have low awareness within the conservation community. We hope to increase research and policy attention on these areas, improving the capacity of the community to mitigate impacts of potentially negative issues, and maximise the benefits of issues that provide opportunities. Topics include advances in crop breeding, which may affect insects and land use; manipulations of natural water flows and weather systems on the Tibetan Plateau; release of carbon and mercury from melting polar ice and thawing permafrost; new funding schemes and regulations; and land-use changes across Indo-Malaysia.
Bennett MG, Lee SS, Schofield KA, et al., 2018, Using systematic review and evidence banking to increase uptake and use of aquatic science in decision-making, Limnology and Oceanography Bulletin, Vol: 27, Pages: 103-109, ISSN: 1539-607X
To support sound decision‐making in environmental management, we need rigorous, defensible, and transparent synthesis of scientific evidence. The Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography and associated aquatic science societies are leaders in applying science to decision‐making, and yet many environmental decisions are still at risk of having to be made without a comprehensive, well‐synthesized evidence base to support them. In this article, we discuss two synergistic approaches that can help science inform decision‐making: systematic review and evidence banking. Our aim is to promote the use of these approaches, and to enlist support and action from you, the aquatic science community. We propose that you can improve the use and uptake of science in decision‐making by making your research more compatible with synthesis efforts by: considering risk of bias when designing your study and reporting results; reporting all relevant contextual information; analyzing your data using standard effect size approaches; and publishing your raw data. Awareness of how primary research feeds into informing policies can help you broaden the impact of your research, making it more directly relevant to decision‐making and more likely to contribute to the protection of aquatic ecosystems.
Norton SB, Webb JA, Schofield KA, et al., 2018, Timely delivery of scientific knowledge for environmental management: a Freshwater Science initiative, FRESHWATER SCIENCE, Vol: 37, Pages: 205-207, ISSN: 2161-9549
Haddaway NR, Collins AM, Coughlin D, et al., 2017, Including non-public data and studies in systematic reviews and systematic maps, ENVIRONMENT INTERNATIONAL, Vol: 99, Pages: 351-355, ISSN: 0160-4120
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- Citations: 2
Haddaway NR, Collins AM, Coughlin D, et al., 2017, A rapid method to increase transparency and efficiency in web-based searches, ENVIRONMENTAL EVIDENCE, Vol: 6, ISSN: 2047-2382
Haddaway NR, Woodcock P, Macura B, et al., 2015, Making literature reviews more reliable through application of lessons from systematic reviews, CONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Vol: 29, Pages: 1596-1605, ISSN: 0888-8892
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- Citations: 190
Haddaway NR, Collins AM, Coughlin D, et al., 2015, The role of Google Scholar in evidence reviews and its applicability to grey literature searching, PLoS ONE, Vol: 10, ISSN: 1932-6203
Google Scholar (GS), a commonly used web-based academic search engine, catalogues between 2 and 100 million records of both academic and grey literature (articles not formally published by commercial academic publishers). Google Scholar collates results from across the internet and is free to use. As a result it has received considerable attention as a method for searching for literature, particularly in searches for grey literature, as required by systematic reviews. The reliance on GS as a standalone resource has been greatly debated, however, and its efficacy in grey literature searching has not yet been investigated. Using systematic review case studies from environmental science, we investigated the utility of GS in systematic reviews and in searches for grey literature. Our findings show that GS results contain moderate amounts of grey literature, with the majority found on average at page 80. We also found that, when searched for specifically, the majority of literature identified using Web of Science was also found using GS. However, our findings showed moderate/poor overlap in results when similar search strings were used in Web of Science and GS (10–67%), and that GS missed some important literature in five of six case studies. Furthermore, a general GS search failed to find any grey literature from a case study that involved manual searching of organisations’ websites. If used in systematic reviews for grey literature, we recommend that searches of article titles focus on the first 200 to 300 results. We conclude that whilst Google Scholar can find much grey literature and specific, known studies, it should not be used alone for systematic review searches. Rather, it forms a powerful addition to other traditional search methods. In addition, we advocate the use of tools to transparently document and catalogue GS search results to maintain high levels of transparency and the ability to be updated, critical to systematic reviews.
Collins A, Voulvoulis N, 2014, Ecological assessments of surface water bodies at the river basin level: a case study from England, ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT, Vol: 186, Pages: 8649-8665, ISSN: 0167-6369
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- Citations: 5
Collins A, Ohandja D-G, Hoare D, et al., 2012, Implementing the Water Framework Directive: a transition from established monitoring networks in England and Wales, Environmental Science and Policy, Vol: 17, Pages: 49-61
Dhaniram D, Collins A, Singh K, et al., 2012, Industrial Chemicals, Pages: 147-179
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- Citations: 2
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