Author Archives: Matt Watson

The challenges of getting evidence and ideas from research into policy was the focus of a workshop at the Friends Meeting House in London today. Matt Watson presented on some of the basis of the Reshaping the Domestic Nexus project as a contribution to a rich afternoon’s discussion, which went well beyond the usual prescriptionsContinue reading “The evidence-policy gap | seminar contribution | London”

How can practice theory be used to effect social change? That was an underlying question for the New Practices for New Publics workshop today, with a focus on how far practice theory can usefully inform processes of policy making and governing to effect positive social change. Appropriately, the project team was well represented there, withContinue reading “Practice theory and social change”

Food of course presents us with a tangle of problems, that come down to the challenge of getting people sufficiently fed on a finite planet. Re-scaling food systems so production, manufacturing and consumption happens through more local relations is sure to be a field for useful change. But it’s a complex field, as demonstrated atContinue reading “Project plenary at the Local Nexus Network conference, Oxford University”

Matt Watson contributed to a panel at a research conference in Sheffield on 13th September, drawing together diverse perspectives on the chaotic and contested notion of urban integration. The panel was organised by Simon Marvin, Director of the Urban Institute, and pulled together researchers from across the Faculty of Social Sciences at Sheffield. Matt’s contributionContinue reading “Urban integration and the nexus”

‘Nexus Thinking’ was the theme for this year’s Royal Geographical Society Annual International Conference, signalling the salience of the nexus in research as well as policy debated. Chaired by Peter Jackson, a member of this project’s advisory board, this major conference drew together hundreds of Geographers. The project was represented by Ali Browne, who presented a paperContinue reading “The domestic nexus team contributes to ‘Nexus Thinking’ at the RGS Annual Conference”

A roundtable conference in the French town of Autun, organised by Olivier Coutard and Jochen Monstadt, was a great opportunity to push new thinking on urban infrastructures in relation to the nexus in cities. Matt Watson’s paper, co-authored with Elizabeth Shove, developed from work in the DEMAND centre to engage with the urban nexus agenda.Continue reading “The urban nexus: infrastructures, politics and spatialities”