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This paper presents new research on the potential pathways for integrated adaptation that could make England's suburbs more resilient to future climate conditions. It focuses on the role of central government, local agencies and householders in making adaptations to the built and natural environment.

This paper uses evidence from three facilitated workshops run with built environment and policy professionals associated with climate change adaptation in three cities in England: Oxford, Bristol and Stockport. The workshop contributions are presented in relation to the potential role that central government, local agencies and residents could play in adapting suburbs.

Central government, local agencies and householders form an interconnected network of agents responsible for adaptive action in suburbs. Professional and institutional stakeholders expect central government to take a lead and ensure planning policies and building regulations support effective adaptation. However, those local authorities and agencies that are expected to offer leadership locally do not have the resources to make adaptation happen on the ground. Overall, the stakeholders in this research believe that effective adaptation in suburbs may only happen once householders and government have experienced worsening climatic conditions. This could be a very costly stance in the long term.

This paper provides empirical evidence on how stakeholders engaged in suburban adaptation are making changes now, and on how they envisage change in the future. It reveals clearly the challenges involved in integrating mitigation and adaptation actions and highlight the complexities around implementation on the ground.

To critically compare three future weather year (FWY) downscaling approaches, based on the 2009 UK Climate Projections, used for climate change impact and adaptation analysis in building simulation software.

The validity of these FWYs is assessed through dynamic building simulation modelling to project future overheating risk in typical English homes in 2050s and 2080s.

The modelling results show that the variation in overheating projections is far too significant to consider the tested FWY data sets equally suitable for the task.

It is recommended that future research should consider harmonisation of the downscaling approaches so as to generate a unified data set of FWYs to be used for a given location and climate projection. If FWY are to be used in practice, live projects will need viable and reliable FWY on which to base their adaptation decisions. The difference between the data sets tested could potentially lead to different adaptation priorities specifically with regard to time series and adaptation phasing through the life of a building.

The paper investigates the different results derived from FWY application to building simulation. The outcome and implications are important considerations for research and practice involved in FWY data use in building simulation intended for climate change adaptation modelling.

Purpose – This chapter reflects upon my experiences as a PhD researcher examining the portrayal of multiculturalism in contemporary Welsh- and English-language fiction about Wales. It discusses my emotions regarding my identities as a second-language Welsh speaker and as an early career researcher, and how they affected my participation in this field.

Methodology/Approach – The chapter draws on my PhD research, which examined how different cultural groups were portrayed in fiction as ‘others’ due to Wales’s complex linguistic and cultural position. This involved analysing contextual research about multiculturalism in Wales to explore discourses of belonging and alienation. This chapter reflects upon my emotional responses to the field as a Welsh speaker and new academic, and how this in turn affected my research.

Findings – Embracing my changing relationship with my Welsh-speaking identity, I reflect on how my research touched upon contradictory feelings I had about the Welsh language and Welshness. I discuss the effects my changing feelings over time about linguistic hybridity, and my growing confidence as a young academic, had on my engagement with different texts and writers. This is discussed in light of the relationships I was able to form with some creative authors and academics in Wales’s close-knit literary and scholarly society.

Originality/Value – This chapter argues that confronting their own emotional engagements with their research topics enables researchers to better understand why certain subjects are so contested. It can also prepare researchers to communicate their ideas effectively in the difficult debates that arise around such subjects.

This chapters adopts Rao, Stuart, and Kelleher (1999) concept of exclusionary power to understanding women's experiences of working at the Football Association (FA) which explores the ways in which power operates in multiple intersecting forms through positional power, agenda-setting power, hidden power, power of dialogue and power of conflict (Rao et al., 1999). Our research draws on interviews with women who currently or have previously worked at the English Football Association (FA). Through the framework of exclusionary power, we explore the way forms of power intersect to influence women's experiences of working within the organisation. Our research expands current knowledge of gender and gender relations in sport governance in the UK through vocalising the experiences of women working within the FA and theorising the ways in which women experience exclusionary power through intersecting, multiple and repeated everyday practices.

Guided by self-presentation theory and social role theory, this study examines the different strategies elite female athletes used in personal branding on social media before and after becoming mothers. Scholars have investigated the authenticity of female athletes’ frontstage versus backstage representation on social media for branding purposes, but this study further expands on existing literature to review how female athletes would present themselves in the same realm once entering motherhood.

Through a content analysis, researchers evaluated whether there was a shift in three elite female athletes’ (Serena Williams, Allyson Felix and Skylar Diggins Smith) Instagram posts and captions one year before their pregnancy and one year after motherhood. A total of 732 posts were examined and were organized into six main categories: athletic, professional, promotional, personal, motherhood and dual identity.

Results revealed there was a difference in the self-presentation strategies used by the three female athletes on their social media pages. Specifically, the researchers confirmed the presence of a combined role of athlete and mother.

The findings support existing literature on the importance and the challenges of “balancing” a third identity of blending being both a mother and elite athlete as one. Yet, the findings challenge the previous notion that women cannot continue to perform at an elite level and manage the expectations that society institutes of being a “good mother.”

This chapter presents an exploration of the phenomenon of speaking with, or perhaps better stated “through,” a device. Autobiographical works and other published accounts of perceptions of Speech-Generating Devices (SGDs) by persons who have used them are reviewed. The bulk of the chapter focuses on insights gathered from research into the lived experiences of young people who use SGDs. Emerging themes focus on what is “said” by a person who cannot speak, how SGDs announce one’s being in the word, the challenge of one’s words not being one’s own, and the constant sense of being out of time. Reflections on these themes provide insights for practice in the fields of speech language pathology, education, and rehabilitation engineering. The importance of further qualitative inquiry as a method to gather and listen to the voices and experiences of these often unheard individuals is stressed.

The early 1990s saw the emergence of automated self‐service issue units in the UK. Since then we have seen the introduction of second and third generation systems, the launch of self‐return facilities and their adoption for use in both public and academic libraries. This paper re‐examines the position of self‐issue and return towards the end of the decade and century based on the literature and research conducted by Loughborough University. It describes the main self‐issue/return systems available, lists the benefits and opportunities of implementing them and discusses considerations such as objectives, costs, security, location of equipment, functionality and design of systems, and the effect self‐issue/return has on users and staff.