As a Fellow of the RSA, I have been principally involved with the Connected Communities project working with the Head of Research Steve Broome and Senior Researcher, Jonathan Rowson.
Connected Communities is an action research programme that employs social network analysis as a means to understand, plan for and foster the kind of communities that residents want to live in. This is a multi-faceted programme of interrelated research projects that share the aim of better understanding the conditions under which a new civic collectivism, or social productivity, may emerge - one that is organic, spontaneous, and bottom-up.
The programme, which currently focuses primarily on New Cross Gate and to a lesser extent on Knowle West and
Peterborough, involves producing social and organisational network maps of the local areas concerned by surveying and
interviewing local people. Drawing on these responses, our maps and research are then used to inform bespoke community
development strategies that are directed towards regenerating neighbourhoods in inclusive, efficient, locally-owned and
embedded ways.