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.

Fellow

Emma Collier

Emma is a voluntary sector advisor and fundraiser with a keen interest is getting projects off the ground and “fit for funding”.

Emma originally trained as a town planner-urban designer and the lessons learned then have never been wasted. After a brief stint in consultancy where she worked on a major transnational economic development project, she joined UWE in 1992 as part of the team that launched a new Urban Design MA programme. Her interest in the importance of community involvement in planning and design led her to the voluntary sector when she left academia after 5 years to take theory into practice. She joined a charity supporting communities in the numerous regeneration initiatives going on in Southwark at the time. It didn’t take long to realise that funding concerns – and ensuring projects and organisations are fundable – underpin so much of the voluntary sector. Since then, she has worked for many membership and infrastructure organisations, eventually becoming the second Chief Officer of CVS South Gloucestershire in 2006. She then turned from poacher to gamekeeper by joining Quartet Community Foundation to guide and evaluate the last three years of the Lottery-funded Fair Share Trust programme in North Somerset. Emma has now turned her full attention to fundraising and funding advice and has worked for numerous charities on their fundraising strategies and securing grants.

Emma now works as a freelance consultant – as Chora Consulting – offering skills and experience in developing projects, people and organisations. She has a perspective on the many aspects of the fundraising process from research and evidence of need, project development and funding application to grant assessment and project management to monitoring and evaluation. She specialises in supporting and developing small-medium voluntary organisations underpinned by a belief in sharing skills, capacity building, and developing an in-depth understanding of the organisation and cause. Bringing all her thoughts and ideas together is a concern for fairness, resilience and sustainability.

Emma has been a trustee of Children’s Scrapstore in Bristol for too many years, including periods as Chair and Treasurer, helping to steer the charity through its ups and downs.

Emma has an MA in Urban Design from Oxford Polytechnic, is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising, and an OCN-accredited Funding Advisor.

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.

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.

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.

Fellow

Mike Thomas

Michael is interested in how systems thinking can shift the world to a more sustainable and socially just way of living and being. He has a history of working in a range of sectors from community work to homelessness to his current role at Transition Network. He is interested in how systems thinking can be popularised and made accessible to people in communities to affect change. Infrastructure to support movements and build networks is also an interest and he is currently developing the CTRLshift network to bring together a range of organisations to explore how they can support each other’s work. He is also a keen musician and is involved in the volunteer-run Cube Cinema where he helps run it and puts on events.

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.