Call for Participation

The research I mentioned in my recent post has led on to another collaborative workshop, and we're looking for participants, particularly practitioners:

Citizen-State Relations in a Time of Austerity: A Practitioner Workshop
The Royal Station Hotel, Newcastle, 24-25 April 2012

We would like to invite you to a practitioner workshop being organised as part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project titled Reframing Citizen Relationships with the Public Sector in a Time of Austerity: Community Empowerment in England and Scotland. The project aims to critically explore how the differing policy stances of the Scottish and UK public sectors are being rolled out in a time of austerity. It will identify and examine the mechanisms through which the role of the state in relation to community empowerment is being changed in light of the ‘Big Society’ and 'Localism' agenda in England and the Community Empowerment Bill in Scotland. The project involves a multidisciplinary team from four universities and IPPRNorth with Professor Joe Painter as the principal investigator based at Durham.

The one and a half day workshop aims to bring together participants from the four collaborating universities, IPPRNorth, third sector representatives and community practitioners. The workshop will disseminate and share the findings from our current research projects in relation to the different policy directions affecting citizen-state relationships in Scotland and England. Invited grassroots practitioners from Scotland and England will provide short case studies on how current community empowerment and co-production initiatives are being rolled out and give their insights on the academic evidence we present on the effects of these differing approaches in terms of quality of public services and community outcomes. Full project details are available on our website http://www.dur.ac.uk/geography/communityempowerment/

Workshop programme will be available soon. Registration for the event is now open. Participation is free for invited members and all travel and accommodation costs will be funded by the AHRC. We are looking for expressions of interest and request you to register your attendance at the workshop by visiting http://www.dur.ac.uk/geography/communityempowerment/workshop_registration/
For further information please email raksha.pande@durham.ac.uk.