OZONE

What are the city-regional issues emerging and challenges raised in the Mapping the Urban Knowledge Arena project? What are the options for responding to these issues? Where is there a clear opportunity for developing a collaborative response? What should be done? By whom? How? Why?

Welcome to the O-Zone, the Greater Manchester LIP’s flagship initiative to develop real-time responses to the challenges of sustainability in Greater Manchester. The O-Zone is interactive with the aim of contributing to the possibility of more effective governance, knowledge and policy for sustainability in Greater Manchester. Activities in the O-Zone are of two kinds following on from the common identification of issues and priorities emerging from the other projects on the Greater Manchester LIP:

  • Options: where there is sufficient agreement on what the problems are, but it is unclear how the problems should be addressed. Further work is required to move from problem-identification to response.
  • Opportunities: where there is sufficient agreement on what needs to be done and sufficient evidence base to pump-prime a response. In these cases, options have been considered and there is a clear opportunity for collaborative intervention.

In 2013 activities include: developing policy options to respond to governing challenges; launching and developing a digital portal for sustainability; strengthening the contribution of universities to education for sustainability in the city-region; and capacity-building for sustainable communities.

Publications

Wharton, A. and Perry, B. (2014). Transformative voluntary organisations: critical reflections on the practices of community hubs. Conference paper. The third sector, the state and the market: challenges and opportunities in an era of austerity, Sheffield Hallam University, UK, 28 October 2014.
Type: Conference paper (peer-reviewed)