Vertically Integrated Projects

The Vertically Integrated Project (VIP) concept is an innovative student education programme which is currently being explored at Bath.

VIPs are an attempt to create sustainable, research engaged communities of staff and students - both undergraduate and postgraduate - who work collaboratively on live projects. Students come from a range disciplines or fields and from across year groups, enabling more experienced students to support other student team members, and allowing everyone involved to work closely with researchers or senior staff. The VIP concept was created by Professor Ed Coyle at Georgia Tech, but has since extended to around 70 HE institutions all over the world.

VIP projects - new for 2020/21 (Semester 2)

Changing behaviour to address the climate crisis

This VIP project will explore the role of behaviour change within the context of the University’s Climate Action Framework, agreed earlier this year. Set out within the eleven Climate Action Framework principles are a commitment to carbon neutrality in company vehicle emissions, heating, and electricity by 2030 and halving emissions from purchased goods and services, waste, and employee commuting by the same date.

This VIP project will focus on how we get to net zero by 2030 in our University operations, including staff and students’ travel, energy use and shopping on campus. We will also look at technical issues relating to energy use and a transition to electrical heating and cooling systems, but still linked to behaviour change. For example, how would people respond to different potential solutions?

Academic Directors:

Prof Lorraine Whitmarsh (Director - Centre for Climate Change & Social Transformations (CAST) and Dept of Psychology)

Prof Pete Walker (Dept of Architecture and Civil Engineering)

Decarbonising heating

Heating forms a large part of our energy use and GHG emissions (cooling will feature increasingly). Changing how we heat buildings is challenging as existing infrastructure and convenience makes the incumbent technology and difficult to change. In Bath we have the additional issues associated with historic buildings and the need to preserve these, whilst providing liveable home standards. Critical issues and reason for change in the Bath and North East Somerset area include:

65,000 homes need to be retrofitted by 2030
66% of the area’s GHG emissions are related to buildings (much of this in heating) (https://www.bathnes.gov.uk/sites/default/files/siteimages/climate_and_nature_emergency_action_plan.pdf)·

One of the priorities for the local authority is energy efficiency improvement of the majority of existing buildings (domestic and non-domestic) and zero carbon new build. The University and the Local Authority are looking to work more closely together to solve some of the biggest GHG issues facing the area. Changing the way we heat our buildings cannot be solved by one discipline alone. We need to understand the building physics, the economics, the embodied and lifetime greenhouse gas emissions, user behaviour and how to finance change. We can only do that if we have interdisciplinary teams working on this. This VIP will pull together students and staff across campus to work to identify the key challenges and how to solve them.

Academic Director: Prof Marcelle McManus (Professor of Energy and Environmental Engineering, Co-Director, Centre for Sustainable and Circular Technologies, Department of Mechanical Engineering)

Community consultation for sustainability

This VIP project will examine and critique the environmental impact of a major naval facility and dockyard within the UK. The team will work with major agencies to create and evaluate interventions that enhance the ways in which the facility engages with its locale, region and the wider world.

Academic Director: Brian Rutter (Department of Mechanical Engineering)

VIP projects - new for 2020/21 (Semester 1)

Co-Creation (of Inclusive Urban Practices)

This VIP is linked to an externally funded project, https://www.co-creation-network.org/ which is currently seeking to engage with local communities in Bath in two essential ways. Our first stream seeks to conduct a poetry and visual art-based project at a school located in a disadvantaged area of Bath to replicate an experiment we conducted in Mexico City in 2019 as part of a comparative study. The second stream seeks to develop new research and community engagement activities about Bath’s and Bristol’s slavery legacy to establish new ways of engaging with history and memory through visual art, performance and walking-with practice. External collaborators of this stream include Bath-based museums and Bath Spa-based artist-researcher Dr Richard White who has been developing a zoom-walk on this topic. Possible outputs in 20-21 could include art workshops, an academic paper and/or an edited book about Bath’s slavery legacy and/or a short film. To find out more about the Co-Creation method and the Cohesive Cities project:

https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098020927964

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_ZdpooKTMk&t=17s and read our blog: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/co-creation-in-theory-and-practice

Academic Director: Dr Christina Horvath, with Dr Andres Sandoval, Dr Irene Macias, in collaboration with PhD candidates Ben van Praag, Eliana Osorio Saez and Vandana Singh

This VIP is looking for participants who have or are keen on developing one or more of the following skills:

Art skills (visual art, performance art, poetry, spoken word, slam)
Communication and journalism
Experience in book editing, design and photoshop
Experience in working and liaising with institutions
Multilingual speakers (Spanish /Portuguese/ French)
Filming and film making

Food (in)security and wastage on campus

The Bath and North East Somerset Council are developing an action strategy on Food Poverty (people’s ability to access and afford nutritious and adequate food) as well as a Climate Emergency strategy (which likewise concerns food; e.g., in terms of consumption and wastage). In the initial year, this VIP project involves research focussed on the issues and what we can change at the University of Bath. For instance, are there sections of our community experiencing food poverty? Is there wastage of food on campus? What are the solutions to these problems? We will use the community-based participatory research (CBPR) model which means you will learn how to work with partners (e.g., B&NES council; charities; University decision-makers; staff and students) in the development, design, conduct, analysis, and dissemination of the research. You will learn quantitative or qualitative research skills (e.g., ethnography, survey, interview design and analysis) depending on the research question, as well as skills in communicating research with different audiences.

Academic Director: Dr Leda Blackwood

Information for staff

If you are an academic member of staff who would like to discuss setting up a new VIP project, please contact Sue Watts or Jo Hatt at clt@bath.ac.uk for more information.

You may find it useful to watch our latest VIP Student Presentations (2nd February 2021) to find out more about the existing projects and their progress.

Our pilot VIP projects

Four projects began as part of a pilot programme in Semester 2, 2019/20 and continue to make good progress in 2020/21.

Community engagement

This VIP aims to create a better understanding of the social and economic inequalities that blight the City of Bath. The VIP team will work with local stakeholders, including Bath City Football Club, to explore interventions that can build communities, inspire learners, develop opportunities and engage students in volunteering and enterprise.

Academic Director: Dr Haydn Morgan, with Dr Lana Evans

Watch the team's presentation video

Sustainable transport

In this VIP, team members will work with staff, peers and local stakeholders to inform the debate and provide solutions for the transport challenges that affect the environment, communities and organisations in the City of Bath. Issues addressed will include pollution, congestion, active commuting, parking and traffic safety.

Academic Director: Dr Ian Walker

Watch the team's presentation video

Read the team's draft report

E-Bike Tool LSOA Sorter

Student wellbeing

Concerns about student wellbeing and mental health continue to dominate national debate. This VIP addresses the issues at the local level, evaluating interventions and stimulating debate over how best to tackle these challenges in the future. Working with experts from the academic and professional realms, the VIP team will have an opportunity to make a difference to policy and practice at the University and beyond.

Academic Director: Professor Richard Joiner

Watch the team's presentation video

Technology for social care

This VIP aims to use expertise in robotics, electrical and electronic engineering in order to develop technologies and interventions that support and enhance the lives of those in social care settings. This VIP relies on disciplinary expertise from engineers, but also from social and management scientists who can investigate, analyse and relate the needs and experiences of different communities - from disabled people and families to those in care establishments. This VIP team will be involved in the design, testing and evaluation of cutting-edge technologies for social good.

Academic Director: Mr Brian Rutter

Watch the team's presentation video

Beyond Bath: the VIP experience

As part of EduFest 2019, we were fortunate to have Professor Stephen Marshall, University of Strathclyde, visit the University to talk about his institution's experience of VIPs. Read our blog about Stephen's visit to Bath.

Find out about the University of Strathclyde VIP experience.

Take a look at the presentation below from Professor Ed Coyle.