George Pepler International Award

27-Oct-09

Entries are now closed for the GEORGE PEPLER INTERNATIONAL AWARD 2010.

We received an excellent number of entries this year and these are now being considered by the judges. The result will be announced at the end of May.

This biennial Award is awarded to young people under the age of 30 who wish to undertake a short period of study (say 3 - 4 weeks) on a particular aspect of spatial planning. It is open to candidates living in the UK who wish to visit another country and to overseas candidates wishing to spent some time in the UK.

Candidates have to provide a statement describing the nature of the study that they wish to undertake together with an itinerary. The Institute will nominate three judges and the successful candidate will be awarded a sum of £1,500 which will be paid in two instalments, two-thirds being paid before the visit and the balance after the visit and on submission of a report.

The award is not confined to members or students of the RTPI.

Please note however, it is not meant to provide finance for postgraduate studies or those working for a doctorate.

Details for applicants

The judges will need to know;

That the project has been properly thought through;
That the programme of work can be properly carried out in the time proposed and with the funding available;
That the itinerary is practicable and will allow the work to be carried out efficiently
That the itinerary is relevant to planning practice or research in this country or elsewhere.

Applications that are not specific or are very broad in scope are not likely to be successful. The way in which the application is presented is important both in terms of its content and its clarity. (Allowance will be made, as necessary, for candidates' lack of familiarity with the English language).

An entry form and details of the next award please contact awards@rtpi.org.uk

The 2008 award was won by Rachel Bland, Affordable Housing Officer at South Hams District Council, who was presented with her certificate at a General Assembly Meeting on 22nd April 2009.

Rachel visited the inner-city neighbourhood of West Broadway in Winnipeg, Canada in July 2008,to investigate the delivery of affordable housing through longer established Community Land Trusts.

In her report Rachel concludes that, although the West Broadway CLT was ultimately unsuccessful, its testimony and experience coupled with supporting research and evaluation still offers a useful insight for policy makers and CLT proponents. In particular the work around lease-to-own CLTs offers an additional dimension to ongoing debates and research around CLT in the UK.

A second smaller award was presented in 2008 to Hannah Keren Griffiths who is a postgraduate teaching assistant at UCL. Hannah visited Vietnam under the auspices of an internship with the Urban Environmental Planning Programme in Vietnam and assisted on the redevelopment of the undergraduate degree course in Urban Planning at HCMC's University of Architecture. She also used this opportunity to carry out personal research on climate change.

Congratulations to Rachel and Hannah.

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Previous award winners are:

2002 : Jane Healey for "Planning Performance : Lessons from Australia"

2004 : Tanya Davies for "Delivering Wind Power : the Spanish Experience"

2006 : Joint winners: Louise Duggan for "Evaluating successful Public Realm", (report here) and Carol Schulz for "Urban Design for Sustainability : Learning from Helsinki".( See here.)

Copies of previous reports can be obtained on temporary loan from the RTPI at awards@rtpi.org.uk

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