COastal Communities And Seas Together for Resilience Network Plus (COAST-R)

The COAST-R vision is to build a new transdisciplinary, cross-sector and inclusive Community of Practice, which enhances capacity and capability in research, innovation and practice on place-based and whole-systems approaches for better understanding coastal change and enhancing the resilient management of UK coastal seas and communities. Our existing collective spans five coastal universities and over 20 marine, coastal and governmental partners operating at the national and regional scales, plus civic partners and industry networks. Over 4.5 years, COAST-R will grow, upskill and nurture this emerging network via co-devised and collaborative activities that are ambitious in scale and diversity. Our five key objectives are: 1. Establish a transdisciplinary and cross-sector Community of Practice to share knowledge and best practice and unlock better-informed and improved resilience actions; 2. Co-design researcher, community and practitioner training and guidance to improve partnership working and nurture the next generation of resilience champions; 3. Use a needs-led approach to identify and respond to priority needs using the Flexible Fund to deliver small projects and secondments; 4. Collate key insights, case studies and resources for policymakers and practitioners through a web platform, policy briefs and foresight documents; and 5. Build ongoing practitioner and community-led evaluation and reflection to shape future learning, legacy and funding opportunities. The novelty of programme lies in our transdisciplinary team, innovative needs-led approach, and long-standing experience working on questions about place, scale and the exchange of knowledge across distinctive social, economic and environmental contexts. Crucially, all our activities are co-created with community stakeholders, policymakers, and UK coastal and marine management sectors, responding to their needs, existing knowledge assets and lived experiences to deliver robust policy impacts and toolkits with application to communities and places worldwide. Alongside co-designed events, workshops, secondments and training, our co-created outputs will include: Digital Engagement Platform; toolkits and cases studies; two foresight documents; two solution-focused reports; high-impact scholarly articles; and evaluation reports.

Project website

https://www.ukcoastalresilience.org/