CRESR is a thriving centre for postgraduate research. Supervision by leading academics is available across each of CRESR's three key areas of expertise - housing studies, social and economic regeneration studies, and labour market studies.
There are currently many PhD students at CRESR studying a diverse range of topics within CRESR's three areas of expertise, some of whom are supported/funded by external organisations. These are shown in the table below.
In addition to one-to-one meetings with supervisors, postgraduate students in CRESR benefit from participation in the monthly 'PhD forum' run by Ryan Powell. The purpose of the PhD forum is to generate discussion about social theory, research methodology and the practicalities of PhD study in a way that is directly focused on students topics of investigation. This supports the one-to-one supervisory relationship by providing research students with ideas that they can discuss in supervision sessions.
Additional support for PhD students at CRESR is provided by the recent establishment of a Graduate School within the Faculty of Development and Society. The Centre has a high a completion rate and a number of students have recently successfully completed their studies.
If you wish to discuss any aspect of studying with CRESR please contact the Centre's postgraduate tutor, Dr Paul Hickman, in the first instance on 0114 225 3073.
Summary profiles of the work being undertaken by our current students are provided in the table below.
| Postgraduate researcher |
Title of study |
Funded in collaboration with |
Main supervisor (2nd supervisor) |
| Dominic Aitken |
Building and maintaining trust between officers and residents in urban regeneration |
ESRC (1+3) |
Ian Cole (David Robinson) |
Dominic Aitken
dominic.j.aitken2@student.shu.ac.uk
The original theme for the ESRC funded PhD was the effect of the credit crunch on the Housing Market Renewal (HMR) Pathfinder initiative. This eventually led to the concept of trust and its importance in urban regeneration projects for maintaining the confidence of partners and especially in the relationship between officers and the community. It has been argued that trust can facilitate, solidify and enhance cooperation in many collaborative ventures. However, trust remains absent from much of the research into effective community participation in urban regeneration schemes. The central objective of the research is to ascertain which methods of trust-building are most relevant and effective for officers and residents in collaborative urban regeneration, allowing some relevant and useful policy recommendations to be made. The research may take a case-study approach, returning in part to the HMR programme. The political-economic context will create an interesting backdrop for the study. As huge public spending cuts slow down or terminate regeneration projects, maintaining residents' trust in the initiatives which survive the axe's fall will become vital to continued successful collaboration.
|
| Maimon Ali |
Housing quality in Malaysia: an assessment on current practices |
Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia |
Barry Goodchild (Paul Hickman) |
Maimon Ali, MSc BA
0114 225 3562 / maimon.ali@student.shu.ac.uk
Maimon is currently a full time PhD student at CRESR and funded by Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia. Her thesis entitled 'Housing Quality in Malaysia: An Assessment on Current Practice'. Her research objectives are
• to undertake an evaluation of Malaysian practice in assessing housing quality
• to examine the possibilities for development of quality assessment tools for Malaysia housing
• to provide an appraisal of controlling quality in new housing development in Malaysia
In line with that, she will see the method and theory which practices in the United Kingdom and other countries such as Singapore and Hong Kong and the applicability of the theory and methodology for housing quality into Malaysian context.
|
| Maxwell Ayamba |
Community cohesion, active citizenship and environmental engagement |
Part-time student |
Paul Hickman (Linda Davies from Imperial College) |
Maxwell Ayamba
m.ayamba@shu.ac.uk
Maxwell is an environmental journalist by profession, who also works in the voluntary environmental community sector promoting active participation of ethnic minorities in the environment. He has researched and published a number of papers exploring the participation of ethnic minorities in the environment in the UK. His research interest is concerned with how, British public policy increasingly regard active citizenship to involve the engagement of local people in communities of participation. As a means to revitalise democracy, create more responsive public services, and promote more cohesive, integrated and sustainable communities (see, for example, CLG (2006) and CLG (2008). However, not all persons in a given jurisdiction or territory are afforded full citizenship rights and are therefore equally empowered citizens. The study will explore this contested area through a focus on socio-environmental issues and minority ethnic engagement in associated voluntary community activity. This is a neglected area in discussion of engagement and participation, cohesion and citizenship. Yet, the environmental realm would appear to be ripe for promoting the kind of interaction and co-operation that public policy is so keen to promote among local residents in a bid to promote a shared sense of belonging and place.
The thesis will suggest practical ways that would identify mechanisms of engagement and operational strategies of ethnic minorities' participation in the Citizenship Agenda and the democratic process through the following key themes
• The extent to which government policies are articulated and made accessible to minority ethnic populations, leading to their participation in schemes, services and support programmes
• The presumptions inherent within Government policies and legislation regarding environmental awareness, knowledge and understanding and how these impact on attitudes and behaviours of minority ethnic groups, in terms of participation or non-participation in environmental issues
• The significance (and potential) of different forms of engagement in environmental issues in promoting community cohesion and integration between different ethnic groups, generations and communities, and their contribution to attitudinal change and citizenship
The conditions needing to be met in order for different ethnic groups to be actively empowered and to develop an enhanced sense of belonging, through participation in environmental initiatives.
|
| Jess Baxendale |
The use of evidence based decision-making in prioritising investment |
ESRC |
Peter Wells (Paul Lawless and Ian Wilson) |
Jess Baxendale
0114 225 3562
Jess has previously worked as the evaluation analyst at Yorkshire Forward, the Regional Development Agency which was charged with improving the Yorkshire and Humber economy.
Jess is undertaking an ESRC funded studentship at CRESR to examine the use of evidence based decision-making in prioritising investment for economic development interventions.
The study will focus on the most appropriate methodology for undertaking economic evaluation and the synthesis of evaluation findings in order to develop an evidence base of cumulative knowledge to guide policy decision-making and investment prioritisation.
The research will be guided by the principles of economic evaluation to inform decisions about the best use of limited resources and more specifically by Bayes Theorem to investigate the use of Bayesian meta-analysis. It will be explored if Bayesian meta-analysis can combine the existing evaluation evidence base with evidence from new evaluation studies through a systematic approach, borrowing strength from all studies. The idea is that this will enable the increasing body of evaluation evidence to be incorporated into future decision-making and into benchmarks for economic appraisal.
|
| Gary Birchall |
Patterns and policing of anti-social behaviour in Sheffield |
Part-time student |
John Flint (Deborah Platts-Fowler) |
Gary Birchall
0114 225 3562
I am a serving police constable now in my 28th year of service with South Yorkshire Police presently based in Sheffield.I graduated from the University of Manchester in 2003 with a Masters degree in criminal intelligence analysis. In 2007 I was awarded a Bramshill Fellowship by the National Policing Improvement Agency and also in 2007 I became a fellow of The Royal Geographical Society. In 2010 I was awarded the status of chartered geographer (GIS) again by The Royal Geographical Society.
My research interests are the spatial and temporal elements of crime and anti-social behaviour within the city of Sheffield. My provisional PhD title is 'The Policing Paradigm for crime and anti-social behaviour in Sheffield.' Having written up the findings from my data analysis I am in the process of examining how policing strategies could link into my statistical and geographical findings.
I have been involved in the development of geographical information systems for South Yorkshire Police and I have also trained in excess of 50 criminal intelligence analysts in the criminological use of GIS and other associated software.
|
| Richard Duszanskyj |
New migrant populations and social cohesion |
ESRC |
David Robinson (Kesia Reeve and Camilla Bassi) |
| Chris Elton |
The re-design of rural governance - new institutions for old |
ESRC CASE Studentship in collaboration with Humber and Wolds and Yorkshire Rural Community Councils |
Peter Wells (Tony Gore) |
Chris Elton
Over the past 20 years rural policy has had to adapt to the end of the post-war settlement, which prioritised agriculture as the primary function of rural areas and communities. The study focuses on successive institutional changes introduced to secure greater stability in the rural policy framework.
It provides an alternative to rural geographers' regulation theory approaches to explaining rural change, and analyses through a constructivist/discursive institutional framework the processes of institutional change, the role of agency and causality.
It demonstrates how the design and re-design of rural governance has encountered problems in providing an integrated approach to rural development and in engaging effectively with rural communities. It concludes that the present policy of mainstreaming is submerging rural within a place shaping agenda.
|
| Mike Foden |
Engagement in social, political and environmental action in the context of a supposedly individualised 'consumer society' |
ESRC |
Tony Gore (Richard White and Ryan Powell) |
Mike Foden
0114 225 3562 / m.foden@shu.ac.uk
This study will investigate how individuals in a consumer society - supposedly characterised by temporary, flexible identities; weak social bonds maintained for specific time-limited purposes; aesthetics, rather than ethics, as the principal guiding factor; and an economy reliant on waste - come to engage in action implying delayed gratification, self-sacrifice, following ethical principles and working collectively. More specifically it will consider alternative forms of exchange, which to some extent involve opting out of mainstream consumer cultures, focusing on Freecycle, an internet-based network of groups that 'match people who have things they want to get rid of with people who can use them'.
|
| Ellen Bennett |
The impact of public service delivery on voluntary and community organisations |
ESRC (1+3) |
Peter Wells (Tracey Chadwick Coule) |
| Lindsey McCarthy |
Re-negotiating gendered images of homeless women in the UK media
|
REF |
Kesia Reeve (Rionach Casey and Feona Attwood) |
Lindsey McCarthy
0114 225 3562
Homeless women are an important and growing subset among the homeless population, but have been subsumed by most literature on urban space and subsequently have rarely been the focus of research on homelessness. The proposed research, under the working title, Homeless Transgressions: Re-negotiating gendered images of homeless women in the UK media, attempts to address this gap by examining the cultural production of homelessness in the United Kingdom. Particular concern will be paid to the connection between discursive practices and lived experiences. Drawing from poststructuralist discourse analysis as well as visual methods, the research will deconstruct current discursive practices in the UK media, centred on the figure of the homeless woman.
|
| Tom Moore |
A review of Community Land Trusts in England and Wales: emerging lessons and policy implications. |
Faculty of Development and Society, Sheffield Hallam University |
John Flint (Director of Studies) and Peter Wells |
Tom Moore
Access to affordable housing has been a prominent theme in 21st century housing policy debates. Critics consistently bemoan the lack of affordable housing, provoked simultaneously by demand outstripping supply and a recent overheated private market, and the effect this has on low to middle income households unable to meet their housing need. These effects are particularly exacerbated in rural areas where concerns over the ability of local people to access housing have existed for some time (Shucksmith, 1981).
Community land trusts (CLTs) aim to offer a solution to these issues. They are non-profit organisations led on a voluntary basis seeking to develop perpetually affordable housing which is primarily targeted at 'local' people connected to the area. They acquire and hold land and assets in trust and build on previous models of communal land ownership and participation in housing management and governance. First legislated in England in 2008, the idea of a community land trust has gained political support and attracted interest in rural and urban areas. They are also central to current government reforms surrounding the 'Big Society' and increased citizen participation in the management of public services.
This thesis aims to explore the emergence and development of community land trusts in England and Wales. It explores the rationales for CLT development from the perspectives of activists and strategic stakeholders at local and national levels, and the implications these have on CLT activity across geographic regions.
It also explores the extent to which CLTs deliver a new form of community housing ownership, investigating the success factors and barriers that affect emerging trusts. It also explores the support roles performed by sub-regional 'umbrella' trusts and local strategic stakeholders. Finally, it also explores the extent to which the rhetoric of 'community empowerment' underpins the role and development of CLTs, exploring the way 'empowerment' is framed from a variety of stakeholder perspectives and the implications this may have for future policy.
|
| Gordon Parker |
Learning to work: the intermediate labour market response to social exclusion |
ESRC |
Tony Gore |
| Sioned Pearce |
Territorial re-scaling and new forms of governance |
ESRC |
Peter Wells (Rionach Casey and Tony Gore) |
Sioned Pearce
0114 225 3562 / s.pearce@shu.ac.uk
My PhD is entitled 'Multi-level governance and devolution - the case of Communities First in Wales' is a study of an area-based regeneration programme running under the Welsh Assembly Government since 2001. It aims to examine the temporal, geographical and social-economic aspects of different policy levels centring on community partnerships and using a case study approach to qualitative research.
The research is located in literature on partnerships generally and specifically in the UK under New Labour since 1997, on multi-level governance in a European context and on devolution in Wales following the 1999 referendum that resulted in the National Assembly for Wales.
The aim of the research is to add to and fill a gap in the policy-based research around Communities First by taking a closer look at the complex action and conduct of different sectors in partnership.
The three themed headings framing the research questions are
• how have existing non-governmental community development programmes and activities pre-dating Communities First have been assimilated into the programme since 2001?
• what are the formal and informal interactions characterising the relationship between different sectors in partnership through Communities First?
• in what way have structural changes to partnerships affected the relationship examined in the second theme and vice versa?
The theoretical framework for analysis takes a strategic-relational approach (SRA) as a way of framing the research in the context of state-theory and in the long-standing debate around structure and agency.
|
| Jenny Preece |
Drivers of residential mobility (and immobility)
in deprived neighbourhoods |
REF |
Paul Hickman (Richard Crisp and David Robinson) |
Jenny Preece
There is an extensive literature around residential
mobility stretching back decades. Many of the pivotal
theories of residential mobility were cast in the
particular mould of urban America and with a mono-cultural
conception of the development of a 'typical' household
through the life course.
A number of researchers have sought to find and explain patterns of residential mobility
using a variety of quantitative approaches, from economic modelling to longitudinal
research designs utilising large scale surveys. Acknowledging the complexity of the
mobility decision, many academics in this field have moved away from trying to develop
an all-encompassing theory of residential mobility in favour of presenting and ranking
of the factors that lead some people to move and some to remain.
Jenny's research will seek to add to the existing literature by taking a qualitative
approach to understanding residential mobility in (and out) of deprived communities.
One of the main aims of the research is to access a number of individuals who either
have moved or plan to move from the case study areas. In examining the factors that
affect mobility, Jenny is particularly interested in the role of the labour market.
The idea that individuals should 'get on their bike' and potentially re-locate to
areas with (real or perceived) job opportunities has recently come to the fore of
discourses around fairness and what it means to 'play by the rules'.
Questions of interest include
• what are the key drivers of mobility in deprived communities?
• what are the barriers to moving?
• what variety exists in individuals' decision thresholds?
• do individual biographies/life histories shape mobility decisions and perceptions of place?
• how are decisions shaped by perceptions, e.g. of existing and 'other' neighbourhoods; of labour markets
• what may be the impact of reforms designed to encourage mobility by way of 'carrot' and 'stick'?
|
| Alessia Ruggiero |
Institutions, power and scale: exploring the politics of economic development in Northern England |
Hallam Studentship |
Peter Wells (Tony Gore, Karen Escott) |
Alessia Ruggiero, BA, MSc
0114 225 3562 / aruggier@hera.shu.ac.uk
My PhD is entitled 'Institutions, power and scale: exploring the politics of economic development in Northern England'. My main research question is 'What are the political processes underlying the transition from a model of economic governance centred on standard administrative regions to one centred on key urban centres as 'motors' of economic growth in the English regions?'
In order to move from a mere description to a meaningful understanding of the above changes, this research argues for the necessity to question the mechanisms behind the choice of spatial scale in and through which economic development ought to be pursued.
In particular, my research focuses on the interests, strategies and the identities of actors operating through, on the margins of, and outside the governance structures in the region.
The objectives of my PhD, accordingly include shedding light on
• the relationship between different political-economic interest groups and newly 'emerging' governance structures at the city/regional level
• the role of dissent and contestation within regional and city regional frames
• the means by which individual actors within those frames make their views and goals into the views and goals of a territory as a whole
• the consequences in terms of inclusion/exclusion; marginalisation/cooptation of 'oppositional' groups
|
| Tom Shore |
Spaces of informalization: the geography of behaviours and manners at music festivals |
ESRC |
Ryan Powell (Tony Gore) |
Tom Shore BA (Hons), MA
0114 225 3562 / thomas.m.shore2@student.shu.ac.uk
My PhD explores the spatial and cultural politics of manners and behaviours at music festivals. Under the working title of 'Spaces of Informalization: The Geography of Behaviours and Manners at Music Festivals' this ESRC-funded research project explores many areas of human geography, the sociology of Nobert Elias, as well as, insights from wider philosophical and theoretical debates in spatial theory. The research project will investigate the notion that music festivals are in essence 'de-controlled' spaces where looser more informal behavioural alternatives become permissible.
My other main research interests include social and cultural geographies, historical geographies of 'modernity', critical Marxist theory - especially Lefebvre, Debord, Benjamin et al, and local geographies - the urbanisation of Sheffield.
|
| Mark Stevens |
The role of whole family approaches in the control of conduct |
ESRC |
Judy Nixon (Director of Studies), Kesia Reeve and Sadie Parr |
Mark Stevens
I am in the first year of study for an ERSC funded PhD. The focus for the study is upon how the 'family with multiple problems' has been constituted, and what conceptions underpin its deployment in social policy.
The study proposes to examine how policy initiatives (specifically the Think Family and Family Pathfinder pilots) are employed to address the control of conduct and the wider issues of social inclusion. The research will explore the implementation of think family approaches at a local level to provide an insight into 'partnership working' and conceptions of governance, differing proffessional and 'client' resistances.
|
| Postgraduate researcher |
Title of study |
Funded in collaboration with |
Main supervisor (2nd supervisor) |
| Francesca Albenese |
Housing Association asset management strategies |
The Housing Corporation |
Ian Cole (Paul Hickman) |
| Janis Bright |
Governance and housing policy: a case study of isolated towns |
Faculty of Development and Society (Sheffield Hallam University) |
Paul Hickman (Stephen Hall, University of the West of England) |
| Vicky Cooper |
The relationship between social policy and homelessness |
ESRC |
John Flint (Chris Allen) |
| Will Eadson |
Governing climate change mitigation in the English regions |
ESRC |
Peter Wells (Tony Gore) |
| Patricia Hamm |
Experiences of Sure Start in deprived urban areas |
Tinsley Sure Start |
John Flint (Paul Hickman) |
| Martin McNally |
Understanding housing market analysis: the role of local stakeholder institution |
ESRC Case Studentship in collaboration with West Yorkshire Housing Partnership |
Ian Cole (Paul Hickman and David Robinson) |
| Sonia O'Toole |
BME households' housing market strategies |
The Housing Corporation |
David Robinson (Ian Cole) |
| Rachel Palmen |
Participatory budgeting in England and Brazil |
Neighbourhood Renewal Unit |
Paul Lawless (Sarah Pearson) |
| Angela Spinney |
Comparative responses to homelessness in England and Australia |
|
Sarah Blandy (Judy Nixon) |
| Christine Whittle |
Transport and urban social exclusion |
Objective 1 |
Ted Kitchen (Russ Haywood) |
