PERG Dissertation Prizes

The PERG dissertation prize is awarded annually for the best dissertations in the field of planning and environment studies.

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2021 Winners 

Kyle Chapman (University of Cambridge).

The dissertation titled Learning to Be Affected at the IDEAL Society Ecovillage: An Embodied Education for a Posthumanist Economic World was awarded as the 2020 Winner of the PERG Undergraduate Dissertation Prize.

The runner-ups for the 2021 PERG Undergraduate Dissertation Prize are

• Olivia Wass (Lancaster University): Using Geographical Information Systems to plan for an extra 1,000,000 trees by 2030: A case study of woodland creation in Lancaster, UK
• Anna-Louise Gibson (University of Edinburgh): Risk Assessment of Tsunami Hazard and Community Vulnerability: A Case Study of the Cascadia Subduction Zone and Elliott Bay, Seattle

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2020 Winners 

Cheyne Campbell (Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London).

The dissertation titled Taking Steps Towards Pedestrian Safety: A Case Study of Charlotte, North Carolina was awarded as the 2020 Winner of the PERG Postgraduate Dissertation Prize.

The runner-up for the 2020 PERG Postagraduate Dissertation Prize is Danielle Sinnet (University of Leeds): The changing health and deprivation in the East Midlands coalfields

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2019 Winners 

Greg Slater (Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London).

The dissertation titled Park Prioritisation Building a Composite Indicator of Green Infrastructure Demand in London was awarded as the 2019 Winner of the PERG Postgraduate Dissertation Prize.

Sam McConachie (Department of Geography, Loughborough University)

The dissertation titled Evaluating the vulnerability ‘hotspots’ for road network flooding a preliminary investigation at a district level in England was awarded the 2019 Winner of the PERG Undergraduate Dissertation Prize.

The runner-up for the PERG Postagraduate Dissertation Prize is

• Viviana Pupeza (University of Cambridge): Government Railways in Cape Town in the 1900s: A Resource for Resistance

The runners-up for the PERG UG Dissertation Prize were

• Arthur Griffiths (Department of Geography, University of Cambridge): Life on the Fringe_a critical assessment of a green belt initiative on the urban periphery of Medellín; and
• Liberty Good (School of Geography, University of Nottingham): The Sustainability of Landfilling Assessing the Impact of Future Climate Change on Landfill Sites in England

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2018 Winners

Rob Piggott (School of the Built Environment, Heriot-Watt University)

The dissertation titled Green Infrastructure and the Scottish Planning System was awarded the 2018 Winner of the PERG Postgraduate Dissertation Prize.

The joint runners-up for the PERG Postagraduate Dissertation Prize were

• Oscar Hartman Davies (School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford): The Aquarium and The Pest: Governing Futures on the Great Barrier Reef; and
• Rosa Dean (University College London): Protest as More-than-human Diplomatic Assemblage: Interrogating the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s Diplomatic Relations with the Public and the U.S. Government 

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2016 Winners

Adlana Zalbana (University of Sheffield)

The dissertation entitled, Energy balance in the adaptive reuse of historic urban industrial buildings, looks at historic industrial buildings that have been converted following best practice architecture, in order to reveal these complexities and solutions this process entails.

Adam Kindred (University of Reading)

The dissertation, ‘‘Culture for Whom?’ Residents’ reflections upon the use of public art and culture in Folkestone, examines the goals of cultural planning  projects in Folkestone, and considers the ways in which planners are engaging with local residents and the complex ways in which they engage with place.

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2011 Winner

James MacMillen (University of Southampton)

The dissertation entitled, ‘Best Practice’ and Sustainable Mobility: a critical realist account, is an inclusive account of the ‘best practice’ notion in UK (sustainable) transport policy, demonstrating excellent theoretical and methodological reflexivity. The dissertation is logically structured with clear research objectives systematically addressed in the substantive chapters. There is significant academic originality in the discussion of the results as they relate to policy learning, including the institutional embedding of best practice notions and the systemic neglect of ‘policy failure’. The dissertation can be accessed here

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2010 Winner

Khairunnisa Haji Ibrahim  (University of Leicester)

The dissertation entitled ‘Assessing proboscis monkey habitat along Sungai Brunei, Brunei Darussalam, using remote sensing and GIS’, used remote sensing to develop new assessment techniques for habitat destruction, showing both great skill in the execution of this task but also sensitivity to the limits and challenges of the technology.  Its exceptional achievement is to marry this technical ability to a sophisticated appreciation of how this kind of technical approach to conservation fits in more broadly with the social, economic and political challenges.

Commendations

James Palmer (University of Cambridge)

The dissertation entitled ‘Biofuels: Easy win or hard solution? A case study of agenda setting and policy rationalisation in UK energy and climate change policy’, provides a magisterial explication of what are quite confusing literatures concerning environmental policy making, to build an interesting theoretical case. It also gives a quite exceptionally detailed account of its methodology.

Richard A Howard (University of Cardiff)

The dissertation entitled, ‘Is an 80% reduction in emissions in the UK and Wales by 2050 compatible with economic growth’  is a very well written, timely and accessible analysis of economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions which raises significant issues concerning the achievement of government CO2 targets.