STEaPP intern Luke Gregory Jones reflects on 6 months working on the Choreographing the City research project

In my time with UCL STEaPP I have been fortunate to observe, produce and reflect upon some hugely exciting research. The project I have been a part of, Choreographing the City, brings forward the productive possibilities of collaborative action between choreographic thinking and doing, and engineering. It is clear, the problems facing our contemporary cities require a diverse and trans-disciplinary approach. Expertise need to be challenged and shared across distant and seemingly unconnected fields. Choreographing the city, taking this transdisciplinarity as its starting point, brought together choreographers and engineers to discuss how they might work together to choreograph a city more sympathetic to the unique movements and diverse nee shapes of its citizenry.

My role in the project can be broadly split into two aspects. The first has been to consider, study and analyse the primary research produced by Dr Ellie Cosgrave and Dr John Bingham-Hall as part of the previous research workshops. These 5 workshops, which took place in the Autumn of 2017, each invited a choreographer and an engineer to, firstly, explore and analyse a particular area of central London (including Kings Cross, Euston and Great Portland Street), and then secondly to be interviewed jointly to reflect on the parallel theories and practices of choreography and engineering.

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STEaPP Intern Alessandro Allegra takes stock two-thirds of the way into his internship working on research project Public policy processes and knowledge systems.

I have been working on a project with Dr Chris Tyler and Dr Adam Cooper to investigate public policy processes and knowledge systems. The first thing I had to do for the project was figure out what exactly we mean by a ‘policy process’. This was not just because of my ignorance, but because it turns out that, although there are no shortage of definitions and diagrams out there describing the policy process, it turns out that they often have very little resemblance with happens in the corridors of Whitehall.

By surveying the existing literature, analysing the paper trail behind some specific policy initiatives, and talking to people who have been involved in government policy in various roles, I have started building a more nuanced picture. Rather than a neat and orderly cycle of well-distinguished stages, the process seems to be more composed of phases that blend into each other, often with iterations and feedback loops, where the boundaries can only be drawn retrospectively through post-hoc rationalisation.

This more nuanced understanding of what happens at the coalface of policymaking is so far the greatest lesson that I have learned during my time at STEaPP, and has several implications for how we understand the role of scientific knowledge in it. The next step of the project will be bringing these insights together into a coherent model, and validate it though discussion with practitioners. This will then allow to ask questions about the use for evidence in policy from a different perspective, such as for example what pressures and constraints civil servants encounter in their daily policy work, what activities and cognitive processes they engage with, and how vulnerable the whole process is to individual cognitive biases we are inevitably victim of.

STEaPP Research Internships 2018

To find out about details of our internship programme for 2018, visit the internship webpages.

STEaPP intern Clementine Chazal reflects on 6 months working on research project Urban knowledge for socially urban resilient strategies in Cape Town:

I have been working with Enora Robin and Dr Rocio Carrero from STEaPP’s City Leadership Laboratory. The project looks at the production of knowledge in the aftermath of an urban crisis and whether or not this knowledge can be integrated and translated into resilient strategies at the local level. We chose Cape Town as our first case study looking at social unrest, violence towards foreign nationals and breakouts of xenophobia – these issues were identified as the main resilience challenges for the City of Cape Town by the 100resilientCities programme (Rockfeller Foundation).

Following a preliminary research period, our team travelled to Cape Town to undertake a week of fieldwork and conduct interviews with key informants. We met with a diverse range of professionals who enthusiastically/insightfully shared knowledge on urban violence and migration in Cape Town. It was a fantastic opportunity to embrace and understand the complexity of the South African context.

We aim to share the database we created on actors involved and existing knowledge on urban violence in Cape Town, as well as writing a policy brief, an academic paper and to present the findings of this project at the International Conference on African Urban Planning in Lisbon in September. The first findings of this project revealed the need to create bridges between the existing initiatives on data collection from academic institutions, civil society and public authorities; as well as the need to create a structure that can act as a potential catalyst for knowledge sharing between those different actors, and thus improve the building of holistic and integrated policy interventions. Issues of urban migration and subsequent arising tensions are not specific to Cape Town but are issues that many cities are facing today, as it was highlighted in the Global Forum on Urban Resilience and Adaptation (Bonn, 4-6 May 2017). Therefore, I believe that this project should be pursued in a comparative analysis with other cities of the Global South.

I gained a lot of skills from this project: I got to work on every aspect of the research, from preliminary research to mapping of actors and social network analysis, organising fieldwork to conducting, transcribing and analysing the interviews. It is inspiring to work in a dynamic environment like the City Leadership Laboratory and more generally UCL STEaPP. I am now participating in a collaborative project between Nature Sustainability and UCL STEaPP and I hope that I to be involved in further projects within the Lab.

I wish to continue working on (and in) Cape Town and more broadly on sub-Saharan African cities. This project fed my interests for the concepts of urban resilience and migration. I would love to continue work on those topics exploring issues of climate migration and the building of innovative sustainable strategies for African Cities.

Taxi station in Langa, Cape Town

Gugulethu, Cape Town

Townships, Cape Town

Kalkbay, Cape Town

V&A Waterfront, Cape Town

Photographs by Clementine Chazal: chazal.clementine@gmail.com

Follow Clementine on Twitter

STEaPP Research Internships 2018

To find out about details of our internship programme for 2018, visit the internship webpages.

Joanna Sawkins discusses her experiences as an intern at STEaPP working on the Shaping Informed Cities project and her thoughts on the role of internships today:

When you tell someone you are going to do an internship often they are worried for you. Low pay or no pay, part time, temporary, low skilled work, stuck in a corner somewhere, ‘doing your time’ until you can get a real job. Internships have a bad name, and in many cases rightly so. I came to STEaPP from working firstly in place marketing and then at a contemporary arts centre. Although I have been fairly lucky myself when it has come to internships, (to get a job in contemporary art I gained experience through weekend volunteering in place of interning) I have seen and heard many internship horror stories from friends and colleagues.

Rather than being a sneaky way to skirt labour laws, an internship should be an opportunity, for both parties. Interns should be employed on projects rather than in roles and should, throughout the internship, always be learning new skills and gaining new experiences. Because interns don’t necessarily need to have direct experience of doing what they are going to do, internships can help organisations attract different types of people to their teams, such as those from widening participation backgrounds. An internship should be an opportunity for someone to try out a new sector, gain some skills and access role models that could help them to make decisions about what they want their future to look like. This is the sort of opportunity I was looking for and I found it through an internship at STEaPP.

I joined the department as an Urban Science Intern working part-time for five months on a project with Dr Carla-Leanne Washbourne entitled Shaping Informed Cities. During my first few weeks I found the return to academia challenging. Initially, the project required a lot of what I now know as “desktop research”. Most days involved finding and collating things I was finding online, in databases and on old websites. Months later I was thankful of the level of depth I went into with the early research material but I do remember finding it difficult to focus and unnatural to sit at a desk all day. Once I realised that I was here because I have the capacity to look at material critically, I started keeping a journal to track how my ideas were evolving and created questions to guide my research. I also started going to talks and reading more widely and in different locations. After this things began to get a lot easier and more exciting.

As part of my internship I was required to undertake fieldwork in South Africa! This section of the research took place just over half way through my time and was a real game changer for my thinking on the project and also my thinking on my future. This fieldwork trip was the first time I experienced a blending of my academic interests with my professional skills. I spent a week giving presentations, conducting interviews and forming relationships – things my career has seen me do everyday but in completely different contexts. It was amazing to be able to do the things I am good at in a field I truly have a passion for. I also got to go to a new country and got to know Carla better.

My internship has been really well structured. Across the five months I have presented my research to other members of the department three times and produced two written outputs. Sometimes deadlines have been tight and I have had to do extra work at home. This sort of pressure has been good: I have been pushed but not pushed over the edge. I work elsewhere in the borough three to four days a week but the flexible and friendly nature of this internship made that manageable in the short term. Working so much would have been harder if I hadn’t felt so supported at STEaPP. The last five months have been a special and important time for me and could prove to be a turning point in my career. I am currently making an application to continue my research at PhD level. At STEaPP of course! As the first person in my family to go to university this is a future I could never have predicted and I look forward to what the next chapter brings.

STEaPP Research Internships 2018

To find out about details of our internship programme for 2018, visit the internship webpages.

Trupti Patel reviews six months as a STEaPP intern working on STEaPP’s Physics and Energy Social Research project:

I am coming to the end of my initial internship here at STEaPP on thermal comfort with Dr Adam Cooper. Fortunately however, through the process we have won a UCL Grand Challenges grant, so I will be continuing for an additional few months. I took the internship hoping to gain some experience within an interdisciplinary environment and to help me decide on next steps after my PhD on Quantum Sensors, which I am currently writing up.  At first, the intention was to read up on thermal comfort and look at physical measurement techniques used within the field. From this I was to help write a grant application and organise a workshop. After a period of reading the literature, I began a review and designed a future experiment. We applied for further funding through UCL Grand Challenges to conduct this experiment and won! I am currently writing a paper on the research I have conducted so far and am beginning to think about what needs to be done for the experiment.

I have enjoyed the philosophical view Adam, my advisor, has on the subject and all he has taught me; I have very engaging meetings with him in which we discuss our ideas. I had never before had the experience of writing a grant application and learnt a lot through the process. Coming from a physical science background, I have thoroughly enjoyed being exposed to ideas from social science and feel I have expanded my horizons. The work I have conducting in bringing the two strands of research in thermal comfort together –  both the social and the physical – could potentially have an impact within the field itself and has wider implications for building standards.

The project has helped me decide on my career goals, as I am currently applying for postdocs and fellowships in more interdisciplinary fields. I have been very impressed with STEaPP – the staff here are extremely friendly and supportive. There is a real community atmosphere and people are more than willing to help each other. The support staff are extremely professional and approachable – they really create such a warm atmosphere. I have made some great friends here who I am sure I will see again after finishing my internship.

STEaPP Research Internships 2018

To find out about details of our internship programme for 2018, visit the internship webpages.