Edinburgh Napier University

  Previous evidence-based reviews of neighbourhood renewal have suggested, ‘learning from what works’ provides the means to close the skills gap and raise the competencies of the core occupations responsible for the development of sustainable communities. Yet, the proposal for urban planners, property developers and designers to learn from the generics of what works in the development of sustainable communities and use this shifting knowledge-base as a platform for raising social competencies tends to raise as many questions as it answers. These, as yet unanswered, questions being:
•What exactly are the generic skills in question?

•What has been learnt about how they work in the development of sustainable communities?

•How does this shift the knowledge-base?

•How can this, in turn, be used as a platform to raise the social competencies required for the development of sustainable communities?

This research aims to answer these questions by putting learning very much at the centre of the actions taken to close the gap (between subject-specific and generic skills), shift the knowledge-base (from the former to the latter) and use this as a platform to raise the social competencies required for the development of sustainable communities.