Amy is a Research Fellow at Middlesex University's Centre for Enterprise, Environment and Development Research (CEEDR). As a researcher, Amy's work focuses on the role of civil society groups and local government in promoting innovative and sustainable development in the context of planning, placemaking and place-based identities, political systems and broader policy influence, organisational design and incentivising action on climate and biodiversity issues. Amy has also been leading biodiversity-related research in freight and logistics and planning and construction, leading to significant engagement with industry experts to co-develop and test metrics, measures and knowledge exchange on nature-positive business practices and research into investment drivers in these different sectors. She has a keen interest and expertise in the philosophical and practical implications of value-based approaches and how to integrate regenerative thinking and incentives into decision-making and value chains at different scales and sectors.
As a practitioner, she specialises in Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) and Communications, with extensive field-based experience in Southern Africa, Brazil and the UK. She has worked as a Neighbourhood Planning consultant, supporting several community groups and local governments in the UK to produce community-led development plans. She has established community-led organisations, including community energy and community-led housing groups, and advised social enterprises on measuring the impact of regenerative procurement.
Amy brings exceptional depth in understanding how national policy translates into local action whilst maintaining strong connections to policy and practice communities. She is a former British Academy Policy Innovation Fellow working with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) where she examined the question of value of the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise sector. She works as a Fellow at the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP). She is also a Local Policy Innovation Partnership (LPIP) Place Fellow researching ecological citizenship and regenerative innovation. Amy has been an active Fellow of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity, where she contributes to debates on a sustainable society, inclusive politics and regenerative systems thinking.
She is a steering group member for the DCMS-ODI voluntary data standards programme and is actively working with the British Academy to further interoperable digital value-based infrastructure to further enhance how the VCSE sector is valued, working directly with the Academy's Digital Societies and Measuring Social and Cultural Infrastructure programmes to support policy impact in this area.
She is author of "The Politics of Transition: Innovative Place-Making and Alternative Development Models under English Localism" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) which provides theoretical grounding combined with practical insights from her extensive neighbourhood planning consultancy work. She was also co-editor of "Rural Planning Futures". Her LPIP publication on devolution's impact on town and parish councils demonstrates her grasp of multi-level governance dynamics.
Her research portfolio demonstrates remarkable breadth across sectors critical to place-based development. As part of NERC's flagship Integrating Finance and Biodiversity Programme, she leads research on SME nature-positive finance in freight, logistics, planning and construction. Her collaboration with the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission on natural capital markets and recent work on mutual approaches to environmental governance offers innovative solutions for rural and urban place-making challenges.
Amy has supported multiple community groups and local governments in England to produce community-led development plans. Her field experience spans international development work in Southern Africa and Brazil, providing valuable comparative perspectives on place-based approaches across different contexts. Amy is an artist and a creative and is actively working towards bringing together creative methods and approaches to further deepen the insights and application of her research for real-world impact.
Follow her work: valuingcommunity.co.uk
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