Ryden has been shortlisted in the Planning Consultancy category at the 2016 Royal Town Planning Institute’s (RTPI) Awards for Research Excellence.
The firm is up against five other finalists from across the UK for the prestigious award and has been recognised for its ground-breaking Planning for Infrastructure research project.
The Scottish Government and Transport Scotland commissioned Ryden, with expert input from Brodies and WSP, to carry out the study to review existing and emerging practice in the delivery of infrastructure to enable development through the planning system in Scotland. Ryden’s findings are currently being used to inform the basis of the next wave of planning reform in the country.
The Awards for Research Excellence are run by the RTPI to recognise and promote high quality, impactful spatial planning research from RTPI accredited planning schools and planning consultancies around the world. There was tough competition to be named a finalist, with 87 entries to this year’s awards, a more than 40% increase on last year.
Dr Mark Robertson, partner at Ryden who led the project said: “We’re absolutely thrilled that our research has been shortlisted for an RTPI Award. This was a significant study, involving a nine-month Scotland-wide programme of primary research to help shape planning reform in Scotland and it’s great that our team is being recognised for the hard work that went into producing this innovative report.”
Dr Michael Harris, RTPI’s Head of Research, commented: “The RTPI Research Awards have gone from strength to strength. The growing body of high quality research work in planning is impressive but more importantly, it is a positive sign that more academic researchers want to reach out to practitioners and policymakers with insights and findings that can inform and influence their work. This is what the Awards celebrate and I am pleased that RTPI planning schools and planning consultancies have responded.”
The winners will be announced on 7 September during the 2016 UK-Ireland Planning Research Conference at Cardiff University.