Creating value

How do we drive innovation and measure value creation in the context of Lebanon?

This research strand develops new models for assessing the value of successful community-driven projects in terms of job creation, health and well-being, and capacity for innovation. It will blend together an innovative range of data and empirical methods, developing data metrics to provide robust evidence for policy interventions directed towards improving the public realm in Lebanese cities so to improve productivity, capabilities and wellbeing for refugees and hosts. The programme works closely with Lebanese universities to develop new ways in which higher education institutions can generate value and improve human and social capital via community-based initiatives.

RESEARCH LEADS

Professor Jamie MacIntosh, UCL Institute for Security and Resilience Studies

Co-Investigator

As the Leadership Professorial Research Fellow in the Office of Vice-Provost Research (OVPR) UCL, Professor MacIntosh brings decades of policy, strategy, research and innovation experience at the highest levels of decision-taking to academia. The focus of his recent venture research is the value of learning in time. Melding basic science with realistic capability and policy options is a mainstay of his work. Professor MacIntosh is also the Director of the Institute for Strategy, Resilience and Security (ISRS) at UCL.

Professor Michelle Baddeley, University of South Australia and Institute for Global Prosperity, UCL

Co-Investigator

Professor Michelle Baddeley is Associate Dean - Research and Development, UTS Business School, University of Technology Sydney and Honorary Professor at UCL's Institute for Global Prosperity. Her research is in the fields of behavioural economics, neuroeconomics, development economics and macroeconomics on topics including financial decision-making, housing, infrastructure, labour economics, refugees and migration, energy and the environment, and cyber-security. She uses a diverse range of data and empirical tools – including in multi-disciplinary analyses of socio-psychological influences on economic decision-making. She regularly contributes to public policy initiatives and is keen to promote public understanding of economics via her writing and media appearances. Her latest book Copycats and Contrarians – Why We Follow Others, and When We Don't, is forthcoming with Yale University Press.

Professor Mike Batty, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL

Research Collaborator

Professor Mike Batty is the Bartlett Professor of Planning (Emeritus) at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis. His research work involves the development of computer models of cities and regions, visualisation and related spatial analytic methods. He is Editor of the journal Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, the leading journal for the publication of high-quality articles that present cutting-edge research in analytical methods for urban planning and design.

Dr Sarah Wise, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL

Research Collaborator

Dr Sarah Wise is an expert in computational social science and agent-based modelling, specialising in their application to spatial and urban systems. Her research interests lie in exploring and forecasting the development of systems involving people, infrastructure, and information using methodologies such as agent-based modelling, social network analysis, data mining, statistical analysis, and geographic information systems.

Ms. Dima Krayem, University of Cambridge