We lead on and contribute to a range of projects:

 

COGOV – Co Production and Co Governance: Strategic Management, Public Value and Co Creation in the Renewal of Public Agencies across Europe

This new €4.5m research project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research project will run from May 18 until October 2021. Northumbria University is the project leader in collaboration with 10 European universities.

The project will explore new approaches to involving the public in the governance of public services across Europe, including the use of digital technologies.

A key strand of the study will examine innovation and creativity in Europe’s cultural and heritage sector, including publicly funded museums and art  galleries. In particular, it will investigate how these organisations have responded to contemporary change to not only survive and, in many cases, thrive, despite the challenging climate.

Professor Shaw, an expert in urban governance and community engagement says: “The project emphasises that taking a strategic approach – in the most fundamental sense – to the renewal of organisation and management of European public administrations is a key requirement for improving citizen’s participation in public governance across Europe. The project aims to locate, explore and diffuse leading edge experiments in new and more participatory approaches to public administration, which are becoming evident across various countries in Europe, including the cultural sector which is a key part of the knowledge-based economy and society that is now developing. The project relies on a strong pan-European collaboration of academic and policy partners and is strongly connected to, and informed by, practice.”

A particular focus of this new research will be detailed questionnaires and face-to-face interviews to examine how the sector has been able to employ new approaches to public management and public engagement to be  resilient in the face of austerity and related changes in government strategies.

Project organisations include: Northumbria University (UK), King’s College London (UK), Roskilde University (Denmark), TIAS Nimbas Business School B.V. (Netherlands), Université d’Aix Marseille (France), Univerza V Ljubljana (Slovenia), Span d.o.o. (Croatia), Cardiff University (UK), Grad Rijeka-Gradskovijece (Croatia), The Open University (UK)

Northumbria’s project team consists of Prof Keith Shaw, Dr Andreja Pegan and Tracey Mellor, and is located in Lipman 305.

 

Proactively Living with Floods: Developing New Approaches to Flood Management in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta
Dr Oliver Hensengerth, in collaboration with Prof Dao Xuan Hoc, Water Resources University, Hanoi, Vietnam.
funded by The Royal Society, September 2015-August 2016

In the context of increasing risks and manifestations of climate change, the construction of large upstreams dams in Cambodia and Laos, and rapid socio-economic change, further empirical investigations of the potential for Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam are essential. In particular, further research is needed to clarify the steps necessary to effect a transition from a situation of reactive response to proactive risk reduction. A key strategy in this regard will be the identification and development of alternative narratives by which to live safely and harmoniously with flooding events. The project will bring into conversation established technical solutions and new academic thinking around participatory approaches to make communities resilient. Of particular concern is the reconciliation of competing interests between rural, urban and coastal areas, agricultural and industrial sectors, and different government bureaucracies across the Delta’s provinces.

 

Women and politics in Tanzania: a study of gender institutions and lived experiences
principal investigator: Dr Kirsten Haack
funded by British Academy & Leverhulme Trust Small Grant, 2014-15

This project analyses the lives and careers of Asha-Rose Migiro and Anna Tibaijuka, former UN executive heads and today Tanzanian politicians, and the context of their socialisation to understand 1) to what extent their careers reflect experiences that are either typical of Tanzanian women or of international elites, and 2) how they represent local and global gender norms (to “act for” women) at the UN and at home.