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INNOVATIVE
PUBLIC-PRIVATE
CROSS-SECTOR
MULTI-STAKEHOLDER
PARTNERSHIPS
exploring novel forms of partnership for food, energy, water, and the environment
Government stopping use of PFI and PF2 contracts
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Challenges in food, energy, water, and environmental sectors, requiring joined-up thinking
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Let's reimagine what public-private, cross-sector, multi-stakeholder partnerships can be
ABOUT
This is the website for Dr Pete Barbrook-Johnson's UKRI Innovation Fellowship on understanding innovative public-private partnerships at the food-energy-water-environment Nexus. Pete is a Senior Research Fellow based at the University of Surrey, and hosted by CECAN and CRESS.
The fellowship is supporting the re-imagining and accelerated use of novel forms of public-private partnerships (including cross-sector and multi-stakeholder partnerships) in the economy and society. Pete will be spending three years (Jan 2018- Dec 2020) studying innovative partnership models, and developing, testing, and applying an innovative framework for the appraisal and evaluation of partnerships in food-energy-water-environment Nexus domains, with a particular focus on infrastructure projects. The fellowship is underpinned by a complexity-appropriate, Nexus-aware approach.
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PARTNERSHIPS
Public-private, cross-sector, multi-stakeholder partnerships are partnerships between government, businesses, and third sector organisations. You may be familiar with one common but controversial type of public-private partnership - private finance initiatives (note, in the October 2018 Budget the government announced it would set up no new private finance initiatives) - but partnerships can take many other forms. They are particularly common in health and education areas, but are increasingly important in areas related to the food-energy-water-environment Nexus. In Nexus domains there are exciting opportunities for innovative partnerships.
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INFRASTRUCTURE
Infrastructure is a cornerstone of the economy and society; investment in infrastructure is vital for their health. PPP for Nexus infrastructure might be setup to help build and run, for example, energy plants, waste management infrastructure, reservoirs or water treatment plants, or green infrastructure such as parks and forests. Partnerships of these types are a key delivery mechanism for many of the UK Government's Industrial Strategy goals. The Strategy repeatedly makes clear the importance of PPP in delivering innovation, sustainable development, and infrastructure.
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COMPLEXITY
Complexity science is an approach to understanding the world which embraces the fact that it is made up of many diverse components, which interact in adaptive and nonlinear ways within ‘complex systems’. Key characteristics of complex systems include: adaptation to changes, feedback loops, multiple scales, thresholds for change, areas of relative high and low stability, past states influencing possible future states, being highly dynamic, and being an open system, impossible to bound. These result in complex systems, both social and ecological, exhibiting tipping points, emergent new properties, and unpredictability.
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NEXUS
The food-energy-water-environment Nexus is an approach to understanding the tensions, interdependencies and trade-offs between the food system, energy production and security, water systems, and the environment. Taking a Nexus approach means acknowledging these areas are linked, and efforts to improve sustainability in one domain without consideration of the others is likely to fail or have unintended consequences. The Nexus also emphasises connecting the social sciences to the natural sciences, and connecting academic research with decision makers in policy, business, and civil society.
PROJECTS
01
Black Sluice and the South Lincolnshire Water Partnership
Pete is working with Anglian Water and other partners of the South Lincolnshire Water Partnership to support their innovative and ambitious partnership plans.
Read a scoping document on the governance options facing the partnership here.
02
PPP Review, and Appriasal and Evaluation Framework
Pete and CECAN will be publishing: (i) a comprehensive critical review of partnerships at the Nexus; (ii) an appraisal framework for Nexus partnerships; and (iii) an evaluation framework for Nexus partnerships.
See publications for more.
03
Evaluating large Renewable Heat Incentive applications
Pete is working with CAG consultants and BEIS, using complexity-appropriate methods to support their evaluation of large consortia applicants to the RHI.
Read more here.
04
UK Peatland Programme Evaluation
Pete is currently working with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature UK Peatland Programme, supporting an evaluation of the first ten years' of their activity, using participatory systems mapping.
Watch this space for updates.
PUBLICATIONS
Fellowship outputs
PUBLISHED here: report on the innovative partnerships I found with a focus on food-energy-water-environment in the UK.
Related documents
A Participatory Systems Map of the Energy Trilemma
APPRAISING PARTNERSHIPS
Coming soon-ish...I am working with methods and analysis experts in CECAN and beyond to explore all of the appraisal methods we can bring to bear on partnerships. I will be particularly focussing on when which methods are appropriate, and in what combination(s) they than can be used.
EVALUATING PARTNERSHIPS
Coming soon-ish...I am working with methods and analysis experts in CECAN and beyond to explore all of the evaluation methods we can bring to bear on partnerships. I will be particularly focussing on when which methods are appropriate, and in what combination(s) they than can be used.
Recent academic papers...
by Pete Barbrook-Johnson and others
Case-based methods and agent-based modelling (2019)
Using agent-based modelling to simulate social-ecological systems across scales (2019)
Computational Modelling of Public Policy: Reflections on Practice (2018)
Sociology and Non-Equilibrium Social Science (2017)
Uses of Agent-Based Modeling for Health Communication (2017)
PRESENTATIONS
Upcoming
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IC2S22019 in Amsterdam
Previous (click for slides)
2019
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Surrey Sociology Evidence Research Afternoon - what is policy evaluation and does it support evidence based policy?
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Methods@Manchester conference on Methods Innovation for 21st Century societal challenges - participatory systems mapping
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British Sociological Association 2019 conference in Glasgow - PPP at the Nexus
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Complexity and Policy Studies 2019 conference in Washington DC - reflections on using computational modelling in public policy and evaluation
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Invited talk at Frontier Economics - Complexity and Policy Analysis
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CECAN 1 day CPD course on Agent-based modelling
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Surrey Sociology MSc module and short course on Participatory Systems Mapping
2018
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CRESS Seminar Nov 2018 - Understanding nexus PPP
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Royal Geographical Society 2018 Conference - Innovative public partnerships
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CECAN Annual Event - Systems Mapping for public policy evaluation
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UK Evaluation Society London seminar - Systems Mapping for evaluation
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British Science Festival - "Post-Brexit Policy, what's the deal?"
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NCRM Research Methods Festival - Systems Mapping for policy analysis
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UK Evaluation Society conference - Public-private partnerships
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Dept. for Education - Evaluation Methods Training (methods)
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British Sociological Association 2018 annual conference - Systems Mapping
CONTACT
Interested in hearing more, or collaborating?
Get in touch:
p.barbrook-johnson@surrey.ac.uk
@bapeterj
BIO: Pete is a Senior Research Fellow based at the University of Surrey and hosted by CECAN and CRESS.
Alongside his interest in innovative Nexus partnerships, his research interests are in environmental policy, social science, and complexity science. He has used a range of research methods in his research including agent-based modelling of social and policy systems, participatory system mapping, and qualitative and quantitative social research methods.
He has conducted research with and for the likes of UK government departments/agencies such as Defra, BEIS, the Environment Agency, and the Health and Safety Executive; and businesses such as Anglian Water and Risk Solutions. Internationally, he has collaborated with, and/or produced research for, the eThekwini Municipality Government (Durban, South Africa), the Emilia-Romagna Regional Government (Italy), and CGIAR centres in Ethiopia.
Previously, Pete was one of CECAN's 'Knowledge Integrators', a Research Fellow at the Policy Studies Institute (PSI), and a PhD student and then Research Fellow at CRESS.
Pete studied Economics at the University of East Anglia, before completing his MSc in Environmental Technology (specialising in Environmental Economics and Policy) at Imperial College London in 2008.
As part of his fellowship, Pete is grateful for the mentorship of Ian Christie (University of Surrey), Henry Leveson-Gower (Defra), and Steve Moncaster (Anglian Water).
METHODS
The list of research, appraisal, and evaluation methods below gives a sense of the types of methods that will be utilised or recommended during the fellowship.
You may also be interested by the tools and approaches presented at SteerPlex.org.uk
Suited to evaluation
Suited to appraisal
Both
