SFC Alliances for Research Challenges (ARCS)

Scottish Research Alliance for Energy, Homes and Livelihoods

Understanding Sustainability in Households

Years 1 and 2 will be organised around four Frontiers of Action: (1) ecologies of expertise for delivering sustainability, (2) gender+ and sustainability in households, (3) more-than-human relations, and (4) the digitalisation of everyday life. Communities, care and skills will function as cross-cutting themes. These Frontiers will be led by Wade (Edinburgh), Parry (Edinburgh) Brown (James Hutton Institute) and Reid (St Andrews) respectively. These frontiers will offer the foundation for a series of medium and large research proposals and establish a firm grounding for a UKRI research centre proposal in Year 2.

Year 1 activities are designed to build momentum for burgeoning research; they will be initiated through facilitated research mapping. Guided by our Frontiers of Action, we will begin mapping shared research priorities and gaps in the social sciences, arts and humanities across Scotland. This will provide an initial foundation for collaboration with different academic Theme members including ECRs; it will utilise online collaboration tools and be professionally facilitated. The mapping will be reported via the ARC website, and provide a structure for our online presence. Following this, a two-day residential workshop hosted in location geographically central to Scotland, with public transport links, will bring academic partners together to share research ideas and develop priority areas for research projects and a research centre. This workshop will be organised around the four Frontiers and cross-cutting themes, enabling refinement of focus. The residential workshop is important for enabling informal network-building activities and fostering a firm foundation for collaboration. A portion of the funds will be set aside to enable those with caring responsibilities and limited funds to attend. A dedicated ECR session will enable the pairing of ECRs with established academics within the emerging Frontiers, identify common research interests such as topics and methodological approaches and training needs that can be addressed in the x-ARC ECR workshops. The workshop will incorporate dedicated time for identifying policy, industry and community organisations to partner with, along with academics from STEM disciplines. The workshop will also introduce both the ECR enabler fund and frontier accelerator fund. The ECR enabler fund will provide up to four £2,500 to work with the Frontier Leads on a shared activity. The Frontier accelerator fund will assign £2,500 to each Frontier Lead to work with their partners on activities that build towards research proposals. Eligible activities will include, for example, organising writing retreats, short pilot activities, community-engagement activities. These will begin to demonstrate the need for further research across the Frontiers of Action. These events will bring together academic and non-academic organisations to consolidate research partnerships and funding coalitions. Communities will be paid for the use of their facilities and attendance; industry stakeholders will not receive financial renumeration; events will enable low-impact travel.

Year 2 will focus on consolidating the network and submitting research project proposals. Workshops and Frontier development from Year 1 will feed into two grant incubator workshops. This will include medium and large proposals to funders including, for example, UKRI, British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, and Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and a proposal for a UKRI research centre (£X million). These activities will be further facilitated through open flexible research funds for academic- and community-led activities. The latter enables undertaking community engagement, pilot research, policy engagement and capacity building. Simultaneously, an international visiting fellowship scheme will be launched, with a view to building international relations for collaborative proposal-writing.

Following a review of the Theme and overall ARC at the end of Year 2, Years 3 and 4 will take shape more fully. At this stage, the funding is intentionally being left open to allow for emergent ideas and funding opportunities to shape the direction of the Theme and its position within cross-ARC activities. It is envisioned that the flexible research fund will continue into Year 3 and partners will be encouraged to look across the ARC for potential collaboration opportunities. Whilst Year 4 will look to consolidate and showcase the research activities undertaken within the theme and pursue opportunities to ensure the continuance and longevity of the network.