January 2016

Welcome to the January 2016 BEPE Update 
Inclusive Cities Student Design Award
Entries are now open for the Royal Society for the Arts Student Design Awards, including for this year’s BEPE-inspired “Inclusive Cities” award.
As reported in our September 2015 update, the RSA have been running a student competition to promote innovation and creativity in student designers for over 90 years. 

This year’s BEPE inspired Inclusive Cities Award encourages students to produce innovative, effective and attractive designs for buildings, places or spaces that everyone can enjoy. The brief has been written to encourage students and graduates of all built environment disciplines to take part. Students can be studying engineering, surveying, planning, architecture, landscape architecture, facilities management or any related discipline that impacts on the built environment. 
As well as thinking creatively and innovatively about how to apply the principles of inclusive design to their concept, plan, strategy, or design, entrants are also encouraged to demonstrate how they have engaged with disabled people and other user groups in developing their project.
The award is being sponsored by the Office of Disability Issues, and BuroHappold Engineering are offering a two month paid internship where the winning student can learn more about the construction industry and how theory translates into practice. The final deadline for entries is 5pm on 10th March 2016, so spread the word and encourage any built environment student you may know to get involved. 

Inclusive design now included in draft Town and Country Planning Subject Benchmark Statement
The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), the independent body that oversees standards in higher education in the UK, is currently consulting on proposed changes to the Town and Country Planning Subject Benchmark Statement. 

Subject Benchmark Statements, or SBSs, form part of the UK Quality Code for Higher Education and set out what graduates in a particular subject might reasonably be expected to know, do and understand at the end of their programme of study. 

The case has successfully been made for inclusive design to be a more explicit part of the skill set planning graduates should have on completing their degrees and the consultation draft has been amended accordingly. The threshold standard - the minimum requirement that graduates of a bachelor’s degree with honours in planning must reach - now includes ‘the need to demonstrate an understanding of the principles and processes that deliver an inclusive environment’ (see paragraph 5.4).

Inclusive design is also referenced in paragraphs 1.7, 2.2, and 3.3. In addition, paragraph 4.4 mentions teaching strategies that include ‘community based projects that help broaden the student’s understanding of the social, attitudinal and physical barriers to inclusion’. You can view the changes here: QAA consultation on draft town and country planning SBS. Do please respond in support of the changes to explicitly include inclusive design skills. The closing date for responses is 12th February 2016.

This current review phase also includes the SBSs for landscape architecture and for construction, property and surveying – so do keep a look out on the QAA website for the opportunity to comment on these two drafts.

Breaking down Barriers at Reading University
Finally, some great progress has been made at Reading University with their Breaking down Barriers project. Breaking down Barriers is a cross-disciplinary initiative to promote inclusive design, bringing together the School of the Built Environment, the Henley Business School, and the School of Art and Communication Design.
I have just written a short blog for their website that explains why I think Reading’s approach is leading the way: Breaking down Barriers a message from Julie Fleck 

As always, if you’d like to lend support contact me at julie.fleck@dwp.gsi.gov.uk and don’t forget you can also keep up to date with all things legacy-related via @2012govuk.