Core Team, Research Fellow

Dharm Kapletia

Dharm is a director of The Schumacher Institute. He has over 10 years’ experience in research and consultancy, contributing to innovation and business transformation programmes and projects, operating at the nexus of government, industry and academia. He has worked for government departments, academia, technology and consultancy firms. His work has focused on (I) how government and large enterprises acquire complex products and systems, and (II) how innovators commercialise research & development and bring new technologies into application. In this context, Dharm has a particular interest in strategy, systems thinking, business model innovation and technology entrepreneurship.

Dharm has an MSc (2004) with Distinction from the Science and Technology Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex. He also holds a PhD (2010) from the Engineering Department at the University of Cambridge (Wolfson College).

Dharm is particularly interested in how the climate emergency and sustainability challenges can be addressed through new technology development and accelerated pathways to adoption. In this context, he is keen to explore how, for example, decentralised forms of ‘advanced manufacturing’ will contribute to the circular economy. Exemplars in medical manufacturing are outlined in a white paper that Dharm was responsible for delivering as Senior Research Fellow at UWE Bristol – titled Redistributed Manufacturing in Healthcare: Creating New Value through Disruptive Innovation.

Dharm has also co-produced various academic papers and professional reports and enjoys operating as a ‘bridge’, providing translation and support between policy, managerial and technical disciplines.

Core Team

Dr Jenneth Parker

Jenneth has a BA Hons (Cardiff) and Msc (London School of Economics) in Philosophy and an interdisciplinary DPhil from the University of Sussex drawing on ethics, philosophy of science and social movement theory to discuss ecofeminist ethics for sustainability. She has recently worked with the University of Bristol QUEST Earth System Science climate change team on interdisciplinary synthesis and as a researcher on the EU funded CONVERGE project.

Jenneth is a former Co-Director of the international Education for Sustainability distance learning Masters programme set up by NGOs after the first Earth Summit in 1992 at London South Bank University, and has worked on the African Commonwealth Scholars programme. She is a Visiting Fellow at the Graduate School of Education, Bristol, working on interdisciplinary research and learning for sustainability. She has published on critical realist philosophy, and ethics of sustainable development in addition to many publications on education for sustainable development (ESD), most recently for UNESCO. She is currently working on the links between critical realist frameworks and systems theory with reference to examples of interdisciplinary research for sustainability.

Core Team, Research Fellow

Ed Langham

Ed is a director of The Schumacher Institute. He is a specialist in low carbon energy transitions, working with new and emerging energy market players to develop Decentralised Energy Resources to accelerate climate action. Australian by background, he is currently based in Bristol collaborating with the Schumacher Institute via his PhD in decentralised energy business model innovation for a post-growth economic transition. He is also a Research Principal at the Institute for Sustainable Futures,  University of Technology, Sydney working on energy strategy and planning, business model development, open data mapping tools and regulatory reform for the new energy landscape.

Distinguished Fellow

Hugh Atkinson

Hugh is a Director of the Institute and a Distinguished Fellow. He is academic background in political science. He has written, edited and contributed to a number of books on local democracy, sustainability, the politics of climate change and new economics. His current area of interest is new economics and football.  He is a supporter of Crystal Palace FC.

Hugh used to work in local government and was for 4 years an elected local councillor in the London Borough of Croydon.

Director

Ian Roderick

Ian is the director of The Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems.

His first degree was in Mathematics with Physic and then obtained an MSc in Operational Research and an MSc in Responsibility & Business Practice. He started his career at the Building Research Establishment before heading up strategic forecasting for a large American multinational company. He then co-founded a successful software company, which was sold in 2000. Since then he has pursued interests in applying systems sciences to problems in environmental and social justice. He was president of the UK Systems Society from 2005-2008 and is a member of the System Dynamics Society, the Operational Research Society and the Society of Professional Economists, also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

He is a co-founder of a charity called The Converging World that is building a wind farm and planting trees in India to support local welfare.

Core Team, Research Fellow

Kate Swatridge

Kate is an operational researcher and business modelling consultant, helping organisations when they are struggling to define a problem, the solution or have a big decision to make.  This work often involves developing data-driven tools and models, which enable clients to explore scenarios and test assumptions, and which ultimately inform tactical and strategic decisions. She is working on Permaculture education in East Africa.

Core Team, Research Fellow

Katie Dick

Katie is a director of the Schumacher Institute. She is passionate about environmental and social justice issues and is enjoying continuing her learning on systems thinking through the institute. Katie’s journey in systems thinking started with a Schumacher institute course run by Martin Sandbrook in 2014. This was part of what inspired her to spend a year at Schumacher College completing a Masters in Economics for Transition. She finds systems thinking to be a good complement to her earlier scientific training (a first degree in Biochemistry and Masters in Human Nutrition) and enjoys the challenges it presents. She has worked for the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) for 10+ years in various policy roles, including on international sustainable development, sustainable procurement, climate change adaptation and chemicals policy.

Fellow

Lycia Harper

Lycia is a complex systems practitioner, helping people understand and work with complex systems in practical, everyday ways.

She works on organisational culture and change, leadership development, community partnership, facilitation and coaching for organisations of all shapes and sizes from large corporates to tiny community organisations. Lycia has worked for 11 years in change consultancy after 16 years in marketing, brand and public relations.

Lycia has an MSc in Responsibility and Business Practice and a BSc in Physics. Her practice is based on complexity science and systemic constellations, an embodied facilitation technique.

Communications Manager

Marsha Doran

Marsha is the Communication Manager for The Schumacher Institute. She has lived in Bristol for almost three years having moved from Aberdeen.

She has a Bachelor of Science (with Honours) in Maths, and a Master of Science (Econ) in Investment and Financial Management. She has worked in analytical roles, largely in the Oil and Gas industry, but later returned to education to study Advertising and PR to undertake an element of creative learning.  From this she started a sustainable advertising company, by reducing the use of plastic disposable cups and using compostable cups as an advertising mechanism.  These were given to cafes and caterers for free, whilst planting trees with the Green Earth Appeal. She also has a passion for improving health and is working as a researcher with the University of Bristol on a 4-year HIV project to reduce the number of positive HIV cases in Bristol to zero by the year 2030.

Marsha is also involved in project management in the construction industry, and is a tennis player and coach, who is looking to establish a programme offering free coaching in Bristol to under privileged children of ethnic minorities, who would otherwise not be able to play tennis.

Research Director

Michael Clinton

Michael is a Research Director at the Schumacher Institute, a role shared with Dr Jenneth Parker. Michael attained his MSc from Cranfield Institute of Technology (now Cranfield University) in Aerospace Vehicle Design. He joined the Royal Aircraft Establishment and worked on Laser Radar systems for a number of years before switching to Operational Research. In this role, he supported the MOD procurement programme in a decision support role. As such he worked on many complex programmes that required consideration of a wide range of factors, across a range of technical, operational and geopolitical disciplines, in essence, applied systems thinking.

Michael remained with the organisation through its development and eventual privatisation and the formation of QinetiQ. The increased commercialisation of the business exposing him to many aspects of business and commercial project management. He also has a keen interest in economics and resource depletion which gives further depth to his systems thinking approach to problem-solving.

Core Team, Research Fellow

Rebecca Upton

Rebecca is a director of The Schumacher Institute. She is undertaking a PhD in association with the Global Sustainability Institute, Anglia Ruskin University and The Eden Project. She lives in Bristol, UK but travels between the Eden Project in Cornwall, UK and her University which is in Cambridge, UK.

Research Interests:

She has a Bachelor of Science (with Honours) in Business Analytics and a Master of Science in Environmental Psychology. Although her first degree was mathematically driven, she always worked towards a passion for psychology. This was further established upon completing a Master’s degree which included developing interests in the psychology of sustainable development, social change and influence and connection to nature. She completed her thesis on understanding recycling behaviours at festivals and creating a behavioural change plan. Her PhD research question is: “Exploring and evaluating the impact and value of sustainability education, using the Eden Project as a case study”

Alongside her studies, she has worked as a consultant in the construction and housing, travel, and accountancy industries – as well as being a community engagement officer for a social inclusion charity, supporting them to create, implement and expand a national project.

Core Team

Richard Hellen

Richard is an experienced energy sector analyst with over 25 years experience in both large scale central and small scale distributed power generation. He is a low carbon energy options and feasibility assessor covering both energy efficiency investment options and renewable energy technologies, following the well-known Energy Hierarchy approach.

He also has experience in the production of a comprehensive energy master plan for major developments can also be provided to guide the strategic decision making for such things as District Heating, harnessing heat from a range of sources including Energy from Waste plant and gas fuelled Combined Heat and Power.

Core Team

Tom Henfrey

Tom Henfrey completed a doctorate in Environmental Anthropology at the University of Kent in 2002, the first in this subject to be awarded at a British university. His doctoral thesis was based on two years’ fieldwork on indigenous resource use and associated knowledge systems in Guyana, which later fed into the development of the monograph ‘Edges, Frontiers and Fringes’, due to be published by Berghahn books. His subsequent academic career included several years as a lecturer in Anthropology at Durham University, and researcher in the university’s Energy Institute and the Centre for Social Justice and Community Action. He has also contributed guest lectures to programmes in Human Ecology at Kent University and Sustainable Living at York University.

His current work occupies the interface of research and grassroots sustainability action, particularly in permaculture, Transition, and community energy. He co-founded and co-coordinates the Transition Research Network, is an active member of the Permaculture Association’s Research Advisory Board, and is a worker-director at Northern Community Power, a Community Interest Company that works at the interface of renewable energy and community development.