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Local-wise:

a community-based research program working in the HMSR (Hulme Moss Side & Rusholme) wards of inner-city Manchester.

funded by UOM sources including ESRC participatory research program and Humanities Strategic Investment Fund

 

Local-wise is a community-based research project working in the HMSR (Hulme Moss Side & Rusholme) wards of inner-city Manchester.

The project aims to (a) make practical contributions, (b) develop new ways of coordination between policy / service providers at the neighbourhood level.  The current priorities & key themes include:

  • young people, crime and security
  • active travel and urban design
  • ‘waste mismanagement’ and urban environment

The project has run over 3 years in 3 phases with various university funds:  we are now on the final interactive workshop on Dec 3rd.

For detail see – Local-wise – program & outline – v3a – 21-11-24

 

1)    CONTEXT

Local-wise was re-launched in 2023, with ‘participatory research’ funding, and a focus on the ‘waste mismanagement’ problem.  The general aim is to demonstrate tools for capacity building with policy makers and service providers at the neighbourhood level – a form of the ‘collective local intelligence’.  This uses the Pathways Toolkit as a general approach, with a Pathways Playbook as a practical device.

Local-wise takes a listening approach and builds on long term relationships with Manchester and the neighbourhood directorate, and the HMSR Team Around the Neighbourhood.  It follows closely the priorities of policy and community, of which the current key themes include:

  • young people, crime and security
  • active travel and urban design
  • waste mismanagement and urban environment

‘Waste mismanagement’ issues were also taken up by the UOM social responsibility unit in July 2023, but results were delayed in the policy / funding process. 

The Local-wise also includes the small pilot ‘Moss-Smart-Side’:  this applies the capacity building approach & Pathways Toolkit to the issue of accessibility / local quality in Moss Side.  This also includes for transport / urban design innovations from leading consultants Steer, Amey and Buro Happold.  Moss Smart Side also worked in parallel with the Geo-design Hub, a platform for urban design participation (managed by Nuno Pinto).

The diagram shows various linked projects at MUI, including the Place-wise ‘compendium’ of 5 smal; local pilot projects:

 

2)    GENERAL AIMS

The Local-wise aims to demonstrate & evaluate:

  • ‘Inter-service coordination’ for neighbourhood level services, with new methods & tools
  • Practical contributions to the local priority themes (youth, active travel, waste etc)
  • ‘Pathway toolkit’ for exploring complex problems & co-creating innovation solutions
  • General contributions to citizen empowerment & the ‘collective local intelligence’.
  •  

3) CONTEXT

There is a bigger picture with a wider / deeper agenda, with 2 main tracks:

  1. Inter-service coordination; between TAN members, a relatively practical management / policy focused agenda:
  • Coordination of existing systems
  • Forming new combinations
  • Feedback to central organizations
  1. Citizen empowerment: this is a deeper & wider agenda, where the Local-wise aims to make some pilot examples or demonstrations;  
  • Individual self-help (e.g. health, education users)
  • Self-organized community action (street cleanup, mutual aid)
  • Citizen governance systems (for new initiatives) (building on long history of experiments – ward coordination, neighbourhood forums, citizens assemblies etc

This all combines into the notion of ‘collective local intelligence’ – basically, the capacity for communication and cooperation, with –

  • Wider community of residents / policy / service providers, beyond the usual elites
  • Deeper layers of value, beyond narrow functions or economic gain
  • Further horizons of change, beyond short term problem-fixing

Background –Chapter 4 (4-2 Neighbourhoods & 4-7 Civic design https://tinyurl.com/mtspm26h  from Deeper-City: Collective-Intelligence-and-the-Pathways-from-Smart-to-Wise

4) Experimental platform

A pilot platform for ‘knowledge co-production’ was developed for the  local-wise-fly-tipping-issue – comment & feedback is welcome.

The content so far is based on research-policy discussions and interactive workshops. The format is a ‘causal mapping’ of a complex system, with layers for the material flow (upstream to downstream): along with social issues (red), economic issues (blue), policy issues (yellow), and the knowledge base (lilac).

Participants are invited to put in new tabs, comments & queries on existing tabs, blogs, slides, papers, links, or other media.  In the workshop room F2F discussion may work better, using post-it notes on a template, to be uploaded online later.  There are questions to be addressed for each case study, both ‘problem mapping’ (phase 1) and ‘pathway mapping’ (phase 2):

QUESTIONS FOR ‘PROBLEM MAPPING’:

  1. Which are the top priority / most controversial problems?
  2. What are the trends & possible futures?
  3. Can we improve the problem mapping, from causes to effects?
  4. What policies / projects / examples should be included?
  5. Where are useful sources of data / knowledge?
  6. Which are priority applications of this (community / policy / research / teaching)?

QUESTIONS FOR ‘PATHWAY MAPPING’:

  1. Which priority opportunities / stakeholder synergies?
  2. What kind of pathway / strategic road-map would work?
  3. How much resources are needed (human, economic, other)?
  4. Which other policies / projects / examples are relevant?
  5. Where are useful sources of knowledge / insight /ideas?
  6. Which are priority applications of this (community / policy / research / teaching)?

5) Background – local challenges / global significance

The Local-wise starts from collaboration with local stakeholders, via the MCC ‘Team Around the Neighbourhood’ (TAN) for Hulme /  Moss Side / Rusholme (i.e. the adjacent areas to the UOM main campus).  This TAN is one of the furthest advanced of any in the UK, for the integration of disparate services in a diverse and problematic area. We aim to address some very practical and topical ‘local grand challenges’ – bundles of problems, both practical and systemic, beyond simple analysis or policy solution. These are some of the headline issues…

  • young persons, crime and security; lack of social cohesion in a city of strangers: under-funded policing: underlying divisions of gender, race and ethnicity.
  • active travel & urban greening: safer streets, balance of cars / pedestrians / cyclists: green infrastructure & climate adaptation
  • Fly tipping & ‘waste mismanagement’ – a combination of material cultures, fragmented and transient communities;
  • Cost of living crisis: effects of austerity, loss of local livelihoods and community structures, uncoordinated public services, etc

For each of these, the Local-wise approach can be a powerful enabler of strategic thinking and action.  Using the visual thinking / cognitive mapping platform, we can look beyond the normal boundaries of policy departments or research fields:  

  • further – upstream causes & downstream effects of the problem on the table;
  • wider – extended community of stakeholders, with different systems and agendas;
  • deeper layers of value and meaning (social, technical, economic, environmental, policy, cultural etc)

Why do this? Overall we think there is great potential for ‘doing things better’ –

  • each of these ‘local grand challenges’ shows typical barriers, inertias, knowledge gaps, skills and resources gaps etc;
  • to move beyond the gaps, towards potential synergies and collaborative action (‘co-production’), we need better ways of mapping (just as a map helps to plan a journey): and better ways of ‘co-designing’ practical pathways in challenging situations;
  • this project is a small pilot and demonstration of a ‘knowledge co-production’ platform in development. This aims to help build bridges between academic & policy knowledge (a future phase will address ‘citizen and business knowledge’ more directly).

 

Local-wise phase 1

The first phase of the Local-wise focused on the Manchester-I platform – combination of real time GIS data layers including air polllution, traffic and noise:  combined with an interactive platform for stakeholder comments & ideas – https://manchester-i.com/home

 

Local-wise phase 2

The ‘Local-wise’ program #2 was funded by the ESRC participatory research program, with two main aims:

  • External – demonstrate a knowledge exchange & co-production platform, to link UOM and policy / service providers, locally and city-region wide;
  • Internal – promote the practice of ‘participatory research’, with the skills and resources needed, within MUI, UOM & partners.

These are provided via three main actions (reports in revision)

  1. Demonstration of knowledge co-production / participatory research, via short pilot project & platform, which points to further funding;
  2. Training: provide an outline of good practice in participatory co-production, for future research proposals and funding programs;
  3. Evaluation: outline assessments of an example project, with a framework which builds on the above, and validates the agenda for institutional learning.

The benefits and outcomes will include:

  • for policy-makers / service providers: mobilize & apply research knowledge to address ‘local grand challenges’;
  • for researchers / knowledge managers: explore & learn from the complexity of ‘local grand challenges’, with knowledge co-production & participatory research methods (also with benefits to teaching & learning, as above)
The University of Manchester