Benchmarking Analysis.
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DEGW also carries out bespoke research for clients who have particular issues they want to understand more fully. These shorter projects, typically 3-6 months, focus closely on current topical issues affect that client. Recently we have examined how County Councils might attract new and diverse forms of industry to their region, and how projects that extend across national boundaries and time zones use virtual communication to coordinate activities.

Some research looks to answer the ‘big questions’ of the times. The Sustainable Environments for the New Economy (SANE), for example, was an EC-funded, 5.5 million Euro study that explored the way the changing nature of work – i.e. increased worker mobility and increasing reliance on technology – impacted the sorts of spaces required and the move out of the office building into the wider distributed workplace.

DEGW is currently leading a major research project for the Department of Children, Schools and the Family looking at the impact of personalised learning on school design which will involve ten pilot projects across the UK and the development of tools and processes to support educational transformation processes within the £70 billion Building Schools for the Future programme. The Space for Personalised Learning study will be completed in 2010.

Other recent or current research projects underway include Effective Workplaces for Further and Higher Education (Scottish Funding Council), Leadership and Governance Implications of a Learning Landscape approach to higher education estate management (UK Funding Councils) and Changing Boundaries: change management to support educational transformation in primary and secondary schools (National College for School Leadership) and Remodelling schools: the opportunities and possibilities (National College for School Leadership).