Tag Archives: Bristol

Creative Industry Paradoxes: New business models and spaces of change

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This blog was written by Malu Villela Garcia & Alice Willatt, researchers at the University of Bristol working on an IEI Bristol+Bath Creative R&D project.

The creative industries are not short of paradoxes. A culture of flexibility, self-management and creativity exists alongside precarious working conditions, excessive working hours, and a lack of inclusion and diversity. In the past months we’ve spoken with ten representatives from alternative organisations in the Bristol and Bath region to explore whether their business models are more effectively tackling the challenges faced by the industry. Here we discuss our main findings and propose some solutions.

‘Alternative’ business models

What do we mean by ‘alternative’ business models? These are businesses which put social and environmental goals alongside or before profit through democratic ownership and governance structures. They are referred to as ‘alternative’ because of how they seek to distinguish themselves from traditional shareholder-led, profit-driven, mainstream types of business. But the extent to which they manage to move away from this traditional model lies in a spectrum. Towards the more democratic and socially-oriented end, we see cooperative and employee-owned models, whereas towards the more commercial end we can find social enterprises and mission-led businesses (such as B Corps). Continue reading →

How scientists and policymakers collaborate towards sustainable Bristol

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This blog post was written by Dr Ola Michalec, a social scientist based at the University of Bristol, researching regulation in the domain of digital innovations for sustainable energy. Ola also serves as a member of the Bristol Advisory Committee for Climate Change and is a member of the Cabot Institute for the Environment.

In the world facing increasingly complex and interdisciplinary challenges, our job descriptions expand to account for new collaborations, duties, and types of knowledge to engage with. Civil servants are now expected to ground their policies in evidence, while scientists are required to translate their findings so that they’re useful to the citizens, industry practitioners or politicians.

Climate action is no different. It comes to life at the curious intersection of activism, political will, market incentives, democratic mandate and, of course, scientific knowledge. As a university researcher, I am on a mission to ensure academic knowledge serves Bristol’s transition to the sustainable city.

An effective collaboration across the worlds of science and policy requires some professional unlearning. Convoluted and jargon-filled academic writing style is not going to cut it if we’re serious about influencing ‘the real world’ (sorry). Similarly, our traditional output formats are simply too long to be accessible for policymakers. I also firmly believe that we ought to advance public debates, rather than solely our respective disciplinary conversations; for that matter we need to invite a broader set of discussants to the table.

Continue reading →

From Meatless Meat to Trustless Trust – can Blockchain change the way that we work together to create Knowledge in Smart Cities?

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By Stephen Hilton

Smart Cities apply technology, connectivity and data to the urban experience, but they could easily become Fake Cities. Their factories still produce things – but they are staffed by robots. Their cars still take you where you want to go – but they are driven by autonomous systems. You can hold their digital products in your hands – but only via a smart phone.

In the worst case, Smart Cities trade down authentic human experiences for something artificial, virtual and ersatz. But can the Smart City ever trade-up and improve on the original? Continue reading →

Help us put the Bristol dialect on the map!

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By Katiuska Ferrer Portillo


An intuitive description of the term Bristolian would define it as, the linguistic variety of English spoken in the Bristol area. However, the homogeneity and scope of this dialect’s strongholds within the city, if any, are a far more complex and understudied matter, which constitutes the central focus of my PhD research at the School of Modern Languages, and will reflect critically on what Bristolian really is, both in the way it is perceived, in its use across the city, and perhaps even further afield. Continue reading →

The many Brexits of Bristol

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Bristol strongly supported Remain but not all of its component parts did. Ward-level data reveals who voted for what, why, and thus how we might move forward as a community.

Figure 1 How Bristol voted in the EU referendum, ward by ward, with a high Remain vote in red and a low Remain vote in yellow. The original interactive map can be found on Bristol247.com who kindly gave us permission to use this image.

At odds with much of England, the City of Bristol voted overwhelmingly for Remain in the EU referendum, with 62% as opposed to 38% for Leave. Hundreds marched through the centre of Bristol to show their dismay the day after the referendum result. At the same time, recently available ward level data indicates the outer areas of Bristol including Bishopsworth, Hartcliffe and Hengrove were majority Leave. Just as a picture of a deeply divided country emerged on 24 June 2016, can we understand Bristol as a microcosm of modern Britain? And what exactly does it mean to vote Leave in a city which was enthusiastically Remain?

On 4 April 2017, the University of Bristol hosted a workshop on local communities as part of the wider initiative ‘#BristolBrexit – A City Responds to Brexit’. Working closely with local residents, city officials, stakeholders, practitioners and charities in Bristol, the workshop sought to include a balance of participants between central Bristol and the outer estates. The workshop participants identified the challenges we face post-Brexit with a particular focus on Bristol, including the racism and prejudice faced by minority communities, ensuring the rights of EU citizens in the UK, and the general sense of insecurity and uncertainty brought on by the Referendum result. Built into the design of the workshop, the conversation then turned to ‘who is missing?’. Large segments of our local communities, including young people, abstainers, and Brexiteers are still missing from the Bristol-Brexit discussion. Continue reading →

Brexit, Bristol and business

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Business was never unified on its stance towards Brexit, and very few assessments have studied how it will affect local economies.  Might Bristol be the place to start?

Bristol city centre at night. Luke Andrew Scowen/Flickr. (CC 2.0 by)

Glenn Morgan is Professor of Management at the University of Bristol

In the run-up to the Brexit referendum, there was a common assumption that business was strongly in the Remain camp. This suited the purposes of those determined to paint the issue as one of the elites versus the people. It was never an accurate portrayal of the situation. Instead, businesses tended to line up along the narrow lines of their commercial interests or to remain on the sidelines (as was the case with large retailers such as Tesco and Sainsburys).

The City of London, which has gained from being inside the EU, predominantly backed Remain though some of the more activist hedge funds openly supported Leave. The car industry, predominantly owned from outside the UK but deeply integrated with the EU in terms of markets and supply chains, supported Remain. Other large manufacturers, most obviously Dyson – for whom the EU was only a small part of their overall market and whose supply chain stretched into Asia rather than the EU – were more critical of Remain. They were skeptical of ‘Project Fear’ and the idea that Brexit would cut off EU markets to any significant degree. They also saw advantages in getting out from under what had become portrayed as ‘gold-plated’ EU regulation. Continue reading →

Making sense of Brexit: foreigners in defence of foreigners’ rights

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There are a reported three million EU citizens and more than five million non-EU citizenships in Britain. Why aren’t they organising ahead of the election?

People on a march with Brexit signs

Stop Brexit, National march to Parliament. London, UK. 25 March 2017. Ik Aldama/DPA/PA Images. All rights reserved.

The triggering of article 50 on 29 March and the call for snap elections on 18 April 2017 represent the political consolidation of a conservative turn in the national agenda. Both issues also represent the political legitimation of a ‘hard Brexit’ and the correlative defeat of democratic and progressive forces. In almost a year since the referendum, political parties and organised sectors of civil society have been unable to articulate a successful opposition to the conservative turn and the political alignment of the country under the still fragile power of the current government.

In particular for foreigners (EU and non-EU immigrants), this alignment implies the radicalisation of an explicit agenda of reduction and re-evaluation of rights that leaves us without any significant representation in the British side of the negotiations. If the June election represents a new political opportunity, then the challenge is to organise our communities. In this article I would like to suggest some ways a social movement of foreigners might be able to defend the civil rights of immigrants and counterbalance the conservative turn during the Brexit negotiations. Continue reading →

#BristolBrexit: a city responds to Brexit

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Stokes Croft, Bristol. Jim Killock/Flickr. (CC 2.0 by-nc-nd)

Dr Jon Fox, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies

Jon Fox is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Sociology, Politics, and International Studies and the Assistant Director of the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol.  His research focusses on racism in relation to East European nationals living and working in the UK. He tweets @jonefox23.

Uncertainty is plaguing the transition to a post-Brexit Britain. Cities can, and must, address it head on in ways that work best for them.

The plot thickens. When Theresa May called a snap general election for 8 June she introduced the latest twist in the sordid Brexit tale that has been unravelling over the past year. The emerging plotline is peopled by a colourful cast of heroes and villains (though who fills which role is a matter of personal taste), teeming with intrigue and innuendo, and vacillating daily (or hourly) between tragedy and comedy.

We can ask how we got here, or prophesise about what the future holds, or pound the streets with our campaign of choice. We can also wring our hands, pray to our gods, and retreat into a life of Brexit-free asceticism. Or we can do something about the uncertainty that Brexit has produced. All these plot twists, the relentless manoeuvrings, and the onslaught of contradicting predictions have produced for many a paralysing uncertainty. Post-Brexit Britain has become a world of ‘what ifs’, and until documents are signed in Brussels it will remain as such. It’s not Brexit we need to deal with, it’s the uncertainty Brexit has created. Continue reading →

Why cities are crucibles for sustainable development efforts (but so hard to get right)

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Figure 1. Rural and urban population trends, 1950-2050,  Adapted from Fox, S. & Goodfellow, T. (2016) Cities and Development, Second Edition. Routledge.

Dr Sean Fox, Lecturer in Urban Geography and Global Development, University of Bristol

Sustainable Development Goal 11 outlines a global ambition to ‘make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’. It is arguably one of the most important of the 17 recently agreed Goals, but we’re unlikely to reach it in most parts of the world by 2030.

The importance of Goal 11 stems from global demographic trends. As Figure 1 illustrates, over 50% of the world’s population already lives in towns and cities, and that percentage is set to rise to 66% by 2050. In fact, nearly all projected population growth between now and 2050 is expected to be absorbed in towns and cities, and the vast majority of this growth will happen in Africa and Asia (see Figure 2).

These trends mean that when it comes to eliminating poverty and hunger, improving health and education services, ensuring universal access to clean water and adequate sanitation, promoting economic growth with decent employment opportunities, and creating ‘responsible consumption and production patterns’ (and achieving many other goals) urban centres are on the front line by default. Continue reading →