Coastal communities across the UK are working with researchers, policymakers, and marine managers to build a shared network that turns local knowledge into practical resilience actions. The problem is that coastal areas face mounting pressures from erosion, flooding, and economic change, yet the people who live and work there often have insights that official plans miss. This project creates a Community of Practice where scientists, local residents, and practitioners co-design training, guidance, and small funded projects that respond to what communities actually need. If it succeeds, the network will produce toolkits, policy briefs, and a digital platform that coastal towns and villages worldwide can use to strengthen their own resilience. The work also aims to nurture a new generation of “resilience champions” — people trained to bridge the gap between local experience and formal decision-making. The research is applied and place-based, not fundamental science; its value lies in making existing knowledge work better for the people who need it most.
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Establish a transdisciplinary and cross-sector Community of Practice to share knowledge and best practice and unlock better-informed and improved resilience actions; Co-design researcher, community and practitioner training and guidance to improve partnership working and nurture the next generation of resilience champions; Use a needs-led approach to identify and respond to priority needs using the Flexible Fund to deliver small projects and secondments; Collate key insights, case studies and resources for policymakers and practitioners through a web platform, policy briefs and foresight documents; and Build ongoing practitioner and community-led evaluation and reflection to shape future learning, legacy and funding opportunities. Our activities will be complemented by four projects funded under the main call. These will be integrated within the N+, where we will work to amplify their significance and reach by providing a network for knowledge exchange, support for new collaborative initiatives, and to share findings with local, national and international stakeholders. 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. In doing this, COAST-R will pioneer transdisciplinary, place-based and whole-systems approaches for better understanding coastal change, enhancing coastal and marine literacy, and building community resilience in precarious coastal places.
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