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CAWR Newsletter
September 2022
Our monthly newsletters are an easy way to keep up-to-date with new developments at our research centre. From successful project bids to upcoming events, our newsletter informs you on how we are 'driving innovative transdisciplinary research on equitable, sustainable and resilient food and water systems.'
The views and opinions expressed in this newsletter are those of the contributors at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Coventry University.
Moya Kneafsey becomes CAWR Director as Michel Pimbert moves to Institute level role
After more than eight years at the helm, Professor Michel Pimbert has stepped down as Director of the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR). As of 1st September 2022, Professor Moya Kneafsey is the new Director of CAWR. We all warmly welcome Moya to her new role and offer her our sincere congratulations.
Michel has taken up the role of Director in the Research Institute for Sustainability, Equity and Resilience (RISER). As Institute Director, Michel will continue to facilitate and support CAWR’s journey in the next decade. He and Moya will work ‘in concert’ to ensure that CAWR remains an enabling and safe space for different ways of knowing and academic freedom. Michel will act more as a critical friend and resource person for the CAWR community. He will also ensure that the Centre’s interests are well represented in Coventry University, and that synergies are created between CAWR-RISER and other Institutes. The Institute Director’s role includes research and Michel does intend to remain an active scholar in CAWR and its global networks – focussing mainly on transformative agroecology, food sovereignty, and the governance of food systems.
As Director of CAWR, Moya will be responsible for leading the strategic development of the Centre, as well as overseeing the day to day management and budget control, working closely with the Centre’s Senior Management Team and Leadership Team. Moya will also remain active in research – continuing to pursue her long-standing interest in the role of short food supply chains and community-led initiatives in transforming food systems. Moya said: “I am delighted to be starting this new role in CAWR. Thanks to Michel’s inspirational leadership, CAWR has developed into a remarkable community of practice, where transformative and transdisciplinary research can flourish. I want to make sure that this community continues to thrive and grow, building on our reputation as a home for truly innovative research which challenges conventions and opens up new ways of thinking. It is a great honour and privilege for me to step into this role, and I am looking forward to working with our diverse and multi-talented staff and students as we together write a new chapter of CAWR’s incredible story.”
Plant Alert shortlisted for prestigious Research Project of the Year award
The citizen science project Plant Alert coordinated by Katharina Dehnen-Schmutz in collaboration with the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland has been shortlisted for the Research Project of the Year award at the prestigious Times Higher Education (THE) Awards.
Plant Alert encourages gardeners to submit records of ornamental plants spreading in their gardens. Data are used to inform risk assessments and policies for the prevention of plant invasions, a major contributor to global biodiversity decline.
Research Intern poster
Miji (centre) with her poster on peat-free growing media
On 26th August, CAWR intern Miji Vijayan presented a poster about her work with peat-free growing media. The event, hosted by Coventry University’s Doctoral College, formed part of the 2022 Summer Research Internship scheme. Miji has made a valuable contribution to glasshouse trials at Ryton Organic Gardens, building on the work of Organic-PLUS to phase out the use of peat in horticulture and inform further trials.
International collaboration on plastic waste
Syie Luing Wong addresses the conference in Leamington Spa
Two CAWR staff members are involved in an international collaboration on the topic of plastic waste. CAWR's Anna Bogush and Sam Towers are working with the University of Warwick (UK), and University and Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Spain) on this topic. An early output of the work was a presentation this month by postdoctoral researcher Syie Luing Wong, on "Plastic Pyrolysis via Induction heating - A New Strategy to Plastic Waste Valorization" at the 2nd International Conference on Unconventional Catalysis, Reactors & Applications held in Leamington Spa.
PhD student's conference presentation and interactive community workshop
Ryan's presentation at the dùthchas workshop in Lewis
On August 31st, CAWR PhD student Ryan Dziadowiec presented a paper on ‘The Land Question, the Language Question, and the Anthropocene: Solutions from a Gaelic Perspective’ at a conference on the Isle of Lewis.
The event was organised by Soillse, a research collaboration between four major Scottish universities which intends to root Gaelic language policy in the vernacular speaker community. Ryan’s paper emphasised the need for land reform and argued that harnessing Gaelic community and ecological knowledge is necessary to tackle the climate crisis and the decline of Gaelic in its native speaker communities.
A week later, Ryan returned to Lewis to host an interactive, participatory workshop on dùthchas on the community-owned Galson Estate. The talk given as part of the workshop can be viewed here.
Growing companionship between refugees
Phil Bates (wearing hat) embraces one of the participants in the growing initiative
Phil Bates, an MSc student at CAWR, has initiated a small urban agriculture project at a local UK refugee transition site. The project involves seven local volunteers who Phil met whilst working as a volunteer at the Locke House Covid19 vaccination centre in Rugby.
So far the project has involved twenty adult refugees and a number of children from different cultures. The vegetables grown on site are harvested and taken to be used by the site kitchen. The project has been supported by various donations from individuals, businesses, the Local Authority and the Heritage Seed Library. The value of the project has been recognised more recently by a funding allocation from the site management.
CAWR delegate attends National Forum for Technician Development
CAWR’s Head Laboratory Technician, Richard Collins, attended the annual forum of the National Technician Development Centre (NTDC) in Sheffield earlier this month.
Richard, who represents the research community on the University’s Technician Commitment Committee, participated at the forum on 8th September as part of the university’s sign up to the UK-wide Science Council led Technician Commitment (Hello | Technicians).
Richard was joined on the forum by a member of the People Team to discuss topics such as utilising NTDC development funds, devising training courses for technical staff and inspirational successes for saving energy and recycling as part of the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework, which the University is signing up to.
It was an opportunity to network and for Coventry to begin its journey of sustainable and technical career development across Faculties and Centres.
COACH Project holds International Knowledge Exchange in France
The COACH project held its International Knowledge Exchange in France last week. The event brought together seventy farmers, procurement officers, activists and researchers from 11 countries working on building more collaborative short food supply chains.
Activities included skill-shares on dynamic procurement, costs and benefits in short food supply chains, alternative grain networks, impact and communication and writing policy briefs. In the second half of this three year project, we will conduct multi-actor dialogues, training and policy engagement to promote innovative approaches to short food supply chains. More details and short video of the event to follow.
Attendees to the COACH knowledge exchange
Improving plastic use in agriculture
CAWR and Częstochowa colleagues in discussion at the CUT compost laboratories
Researchers from the Organic-PLUS project participated in a meeting for the SOIL workpackage with Częstochowa University of Technology (CUT) in Poland. Ulrich Schmutz, Francis Rayns and Judith Conroy along with researchers from CUT gave a range of presentations and met with industry partners to discuss the future of biodegradable plastics in organic agriculture, in order to reduce fossil-derived plastics.
Participatory Action Research Workshop takes place at CAWR
Some of the Workshop participants along with faciltators Timmi Tillmann (far left) and Maruja Salas (far right)
A Seminar Workshop about Participatory Action Research and Intercultural Dialogue was held by Maruja Salas and Timmi Tillmann at CAWR from 20-22 September.
Participants explored the intercultural dimensions of the encounter between ‘researchers’ and local communities over three days at Ryton Gardens. PAR creates opportunities for local people to analyse their history and situations and propose a vision of the future as part of their cultural values for the design of their life in community. The workshop included practice of tools to understand concepts of space, time and wisdom of local people as part of a paradigm shift from subject-object relation to a horizontal partnership between subjects of knowledge.
Attendees used interactive participatory methods during this seminar workshop – there were no lectures, but instead there were short inputs, use of VIPP tools, PAR methods, group work, experiential learning and collective generation of ideas applied to the future engagement of the participants. The workshop proceeded on the understanding that researcher action contributes to transformative action of the people involved, including the researcher.
On the last day the workshop looked into the consequences of applying PAR with an intercultural perception to individual research proposals and praxis.
Group discussions during the workshop
Organic Matters in Birmingham
Attendees to a CAWR-led workshop on peat phase-out which took place at the 2021 Organic Matters event
The third Organic Matters conference organised by the Organic Growers Alliance will take place on 18th and 19th October at the Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham. CAWR researchers will be presenting their work in the sessions, ‘Sustaining our soils: getting the balance right. Can we and should we achieve closed systems?’ and ‘Understanding the organic consumer’. More details and registration can be found here.
CAWR research into waste derived biochar
Anna Bogush and colleagues during the beamline session
CAWR researcher Dr Anna Bogush is collaborating on the development of waste derived biochar. As part of that work, Dr Bogush and her colleagues, Dr Ondřej Mašek (School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh), and Mrs Xutong Wang (PhD student, UK Biochar Research Centre, University of Edinburgh) had a beamline session on 14th and 15th September) on the project "P speciation in sewage sludge biochar by electrokinetic pretreatment for use as optimised P fertiliser". This work has been supported by the Diamond Light Source (UK’s national synchrotron).
This is an ongoing collaboration between CAWR and University of Edinburgh and further details of the project's previous research can be found in the published paper Unlocking the Fertilizer Potential of Waste-Derived Biochar.
CAWR attends ‘Olympics of horticultural science’ in Angers, France
Attendeees at the Young Mind Award at the Agroecology Symposium of ISHS
The quadrennial International Horticultural Science Congress - dubbed the ‘Olympics of horticultural science’ - was held at Angers, France in August this year.
Some 2,300 scientists and stakeholders from 90 countries attended. Compared to the previous iteration in Istanbul in 2018, the event had a much expanded agroecology symposium organised by the International Society for Horticultural Science Commission on ‘Agroecology and Organic Farming Systems’. Several partners of the CAWR led Organic-PLUS project presented results, chaired sessions, reviewed papers and awards. The next ‘hort-science olympics’ will be at Kyoto 2026, and Milano 2030.
CAWR researcher Anna Bogush is among an editorial team making a call for papers in the new research topic “Education Challenges for Circular Economy”. The topic will be discussed in the 'Circular Economy' section within the journal 'Frontiers in Sustainability'. The deadline for submissions is 25th November.
The editors welcome submissions to the research, systematic reviews, educational policy and practice, lessons from the classroom, good practices in teaching and learning, innovative educational methods, and education case studies about Circular Economy and say the research topic will be a perfect outlet for educational research related to circular economy and sustainability.
Dr. Bogush is joined on the editorial team by Dr. Kiriaki M. Keramitsoglou (Democritus University of Thrace, Greece) and Dr Evi Viza (School of Computing, Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of the West of Scotland, UK)
Transdisciplinary discussion of slavery legacies in Scotland and Barbados
On 20th September CAWR researcher Iain MacKinnon and the acclaimed Barbadian artist Annalee Davis held a public conversation discussing Annalee's work in response to slavery related links between Scotland and Barbados.
Annalee was commissioned by the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) as part of their Facing Our Past project and her work is currently being shown on the NTS owned Balmacara Estate in Lochalsh near the Isle of Skye.
Lord Seaforth, a previous owner of Balmacara Estate, was a slaveowner and was governor of Barbados between 1800 and 1806. This was one of a number of connections between the Lochalsh area and Britain's Atlantic enslavement economy that was disclosed in a 2020 research report on the issue by Iain and his colleague Andrew MacKillop and funded by the Economic History Society.
Celebrating food growing in Coventry
Christine Eade, Manager of The Pod congratulating the horticultural team
On 2nd September, The Pod Café in Coventry held a celebration of the recent achievements of Food Union in the city. Coventry is the only council in the country to employ food growers and during the City of Culture, they have been able to establish a number of new growing spaces. Tsveti Bandakova and Judith Conroy of CAWR attended the event as part of the AE4EU project, which is aiming to improve connectivity between agroecological projects in Coventry.
Events
Catch up on our events and seminars by visiting our YouTube channel
Studentships
New PhD Projects on Monitoring and Impacts of Emerging Contaminants
Two Cotutelle PhD positions will begin on January 23rd 2023 which have been developed by Ivan Kourtchev in cooperation with Deakin University. One position will be at Coventry and the other at Deakin.
The Coventry based position seeks to understand the impact of e-waste recycling on environmental pollution from emerging contaminants.
The Deakin based position concerns the discovery and monitoring of emerging contaminants in run-off from modern urban built infrastructure made from recycled materials in local aquatic environments such as fresh water, estuarine and ground water. The closing date for applications for both projects is 20th October 2022.
Publications
Wright, J. (2022) A revitalisation of European farming and the promise of the biodynamic worldview. Chem. Biol. Technol. Agric. 9:64
Vandermaelen, H., Dehaene, M., Tornaghi, C. Vanempten, E., Verhoeve, A. (2022). Public land for urban food policy? A critical data-analysis of public land transactions in the Ghent city region (Belgium). European Planning Studies. Paper published open access online.
Mahdad, F., Riyahi Bakhtiari, A., Moeinaddini, M., Charlesworth, S. and Emrani, N. (2022) Concentration Levels, Spatial Distribution and Source Identifcation of PAHs, n-Alkanes, Hopanes and Steranes in Deposited Dust of Mashhad, Iran, and Potential Health Risk Assessment. Environmental Processes, 9, 3. DOI: 10.1007/s40710-022-00591-x
Kinlock, N.L., Dehnen‐Schmutz, K., Essl, F., Pergl, J., Pyšek, P., Kreft, H., Weigelt, P., Yang, Q. and van Kleunen, M. (2022). Introduction history mediates naturalization and invasiveness of cultivated plants. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 31(6), pp.1104-1119.
Quispe J.I.B., Campos L., Masek O., Bogush A. (2022). Use of biochar-based column filtration systems for greywater treatment: a systematic review. Journal of Water Process Engineering, 48, 102908.
Du T., Bogush A., Mašek O., Purton S., Campos L. (2022). Algae, biochar and bacteria for acid mine drainage (AMD) remediation: a review. Chemosphere, 304, 135284.
Valdés-Correcher, E., Popova, A., Galmán, A., … Green, S. et al. (2022). Herbivory on the pedunculate oak along an urbanization gradient in Europe: Effects of impervious surface, local tree cover, and insect feeding guild. Ecology and Evolution, 12, e8709.
Kourtchev I, Hellebust S, Heffernan E, Wenger J, Towers S, Diapouli E, Eleftheriadis K. (2022). A new on-line SPE LC-HRMS method for the analysis of Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in PM2.5 and its application for screening atmospheric particulates from Dublin and Enniscorthy, Ireland. Sci Total Environ. 2022 Apr 26; 835:155496. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.155496.
Burnett, E. (2022). Nurturing Clever Cities: The Intersection Between Urban Agriculture and Smart Technologies. In N. Minaei (Ed.), Smart Cities: Critical Debates on Big Data, Urban Development and Social Environmental Sustainability. CRC Press.
Dehnen-Schmutz, K., & Novoa, A. (2022). Advances in the management of invasive plants. In D. Clements, M. Upadhyaya, S. Joshi, & A. Shrestha (Eds.), Global Plant Invasions (pp. 317-330). Springer Nature Switzerland AG. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89684-3
