Planning Research Network Prize Papers 2004: Introduction

Abstract

Town Planning Review is very pleased to support the initiative of the Planning Research Network's Prize Paper awards by publishing the papers submitted by the 2004 award-winner and the runner-up. The Planning Research Network (PRN) is one of four major research networks established in 2003 by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to respond to the need for better evidence-based policy making through providing links to the research community beyond government. The networks cover the fields of planning, urban and neighbourhood studies, housing, and local and regional governance. Each network has an external co-ordinator who, with the ODPM, is responsible for bringing together key researchers in higher education and other research organisations and research sponsors. The networks achieve their objectives through organising particular links and a programme of meetings so as to enable policymakers and researchers to share ideas and learn from each other. They thus help to provide the means by which new research findings can inform policy making and increase the understanding of the context in which policies operate in practice. The Planning Research Network is co-ordinated by Professor Simin Davoudi, Director of the Centre for Urban Development and Environmental Management at Leeds Metropolitan University. Included among the PRN's main tasks of advising on planning policies and research priorities, encouraging investment in the development of knowledge and the sharing of information is that of raising research capacity. This latter task includes promoting the development of future planning research capacity by recognising the contributions and achievements of young researchers in the UK. The PRN Prize Paper is a welcome contribution to achieving this aim, which is perhaps better recognised in other disciplines than planning. It is hoped that the initiative will be widely supported and sustained in the planning policy making, research and practitioner communities. Submitted papers should be of direct relevance to spatial planning, be research-based and written by UK researchers who are at an early stage of their career (i.e. having less than two years of experience in conducting research in a UK research or consultancy institution). Submissions should be up-to-date and recently written and possibly based on an unpublished thesis, dissertation, working paper or research report. All UK universities with a planning and/or geography curriculum as well as major planning consultancies were invited to nominate a paper written by a young researcher or research student. …