Research and Development Focus
Urban Green Infrastructure & Nature-Based Solutions
- Monitoring and surveying UGI for ecosystem service value e.g. water attenuation, water quality, thermal performance, noise reduction, social cohesion, and biodiversity net gain.
- Biodiversity mapping, monitoring and enhancement strategies.
- Green roof surveys: advice to optimise the design, installation and maintenance of existing green roofs including substrates testing: physical and chemical testing of growing media
SRI Experts:
Beneficiary learning outcomes:
- Businesses supported with evidence demonstrating their product viability
- Consistency in manufacture
Product performance with benchmarks against existing products on the market.
Wildlife Conservation
- Spatial and assemblage analysis, mapping and monitoring of wildlife populations to assess diversity, rarity, typicalness and supporting habitat features.
- Surveying and monitoring habitats to track responses to management, climate change, habitat change and possible impairment of ecosystem services.
- Design input on how to enhance product design and site management to support biodiversity.
SRI Experts:
Beneficiary learning outcomes:
- Develop sophisticated data sets
- Analyse your products and/or habitats/species groups
- Determine where your innovations will be best suited.
Material Engineering, Waste and Circular Economy
- Development and testing of sustainable construction materials (aggregates, concrete, clay etc.) derived from industrial by-products and waste materials
- Designing out waste and maximising the reuse value of embodied materials in industrial processes
- Validate the feasibility of reconstituting low-value 'waste' back into valuable resource
- Green roof aggregate testing.
SRI Experts:
- Darryl Newport
Mike Medas
Beneficiary learning outcomes:- Product testing and scale-up feasibility
- Businesses support to understand and validate innovations for recycling of waste materials into a secondary product of value
Community Engagement and Assets
- Participatory planning and community engagement approaches for sustainable infrastructure
- Adaptive governance and implementation including the development of formal and informal institutions for the management and use of shared local green and blue assets
SRI Experts:
- Shaherah Jordan
Beneficiary learning outcomes:
- Gain insights on community engagement, governance and local authority networks for their urban green infrastructure and nature-based solutions