REPAIR PGR Network

• Human Nature Relationships
• Experimental Learning
• Semiotics
• Wellbeing
• Action Research
• Activity Theory
• Nature Collection
• Digital Technologies
• Place-Response Learning

I am researching digital tool use in community wellbeing programmes for promoting nature connection at the Cynefin Green Health Hub. It is an exploratory mixed-methods ethnographic action research study, in which I collaborate with local communities accessing wellbeing support, and outdoor leaders facilitating courses that integrate in digital tools like wildlife cameras and specialist microphones. Through Activity Theory, I view digital tools not as isolated objects, but as cultural mediators, which is important for acknowledging that they influence our thinking, and are influenced by our thinking. This perspective exposes the potential that creative digital tool use has for nature-responsive programmes.

• Conservation
• Land Management
• Solar Parks
• Biodiversity
• Nature-based Solutions

Caitlin is a PhD researcher exploring how solar energy developments can support both climate action and biodiversity conservation. Her project, titled ‘Functional Biodiversity in Solar Energy Landscapes: Ecological Evidence to Support Nature-Positive Planning’, focuses on how solar parks shape species communities and ecological processes within anthropogenic landscapes. By exploring the effects of habitat heterogeneity, land management, and landscape context, she aims to understand how renewable energy infrastructure can contribute to reversing biodiversity decline. Her work links local ecological evidence with landscape-scale planning, providing practical guidance for the creation of solar parks that deliver clean energy and ecological resilience.

• Action Research
• Practice Led Research
• Embodied Inquiry
• Sensory Inquiry
• Place Based Research
• Coastal Landscapes
• AI Mediation
• Artistic Research

Jiachen’s doctoral research develops and tests a practice led, AI mediated method for coastal inquiry across Swansea Bay and the Gower. Through repeated walking, sensory observation, drawing, watercolour, photography and reflective writing, he examines how embodied encounters with coastal places generate situated and traceable knowledge. AI is used as a disclosed mediating tool to reorganise and reinterpret the researcher’s own materials, while human judgement remains central. The project aims to contribute a rigorous, repeatable method for artists and researchers working with place, embodiment and technological mediation, while attending to local histories, environmental conditions and everyday coastal life.

• Education
• Sustainability
• Mental Health
• Wellbeing

I am a psychologist and Director of the Clinical Psychology and Mental Health MSc at Swansea University. My research asks how the places we encounter every day—from indoor environments to gardens and green spaces—shape health and wellbeing, and how these relationships can be harnessed to improve care. Drawing on a background in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), I explore the potential of ecotherapy, social prescribing, and nature-based interventions, including my current research in nurse education. At the heart of my work is a commitment to closing the gap between research and practice, ensuring that evidence informs teaching and empowers the next generation of healthcare professionals.

• Values
• Social Influence
• Coaching Ethics
• Climate Change

Psychological and behavioural change is necessary in the face of the climate and ecological emergency (CEE). The psychological professions have a significant role to play. Coaches are uniquely positioned to influence responses through their work with leaders, decision-makers and people with resources. Professional coaching bodies have issued high-level statements, but engagement among coaches remains low and there is a polarisation of opinion due to the tradition of being led by the client’s agenda. My research explores how climate topics are discussed in coaching and explores the psychological and structural factors that enable or hinder these conversations.

• Education
• Disability
• Qualitative Research
• Policy
• Family School Partnerships

My research examines how a publicly funded special education school in Zhuhai, China navigates the implementation of inclusive education policies across its diverse student population, including students with visual impairments, autism, intellectual disabilities, and cerebral palsy. Using a qualitative case study design informed by Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, I investigate how the school allocates resources across disability types, how family-school partnerships vary by disability complexity, and what barriers and facilitators shape the translation of policy into classroom practice. This research aims to generate actionable insights for school leaders and policymakers working in similar urban contexts.

• Sustainability
• Computer-Supported Cooperative Work
• Tacit and Embodied Knowledge
• Participatory Design
• Collaborative Troubleshooting
• Human-Computer Interaction

I am a PhD researcher at Swansea University studying how people diagnose and repair electronic devices in community Repair Cafés. My research focuses on the tacit knowledge that repairers develop through experience and share through conversation, gesture, tool use and collaboration. Drawing on Human–Computer Interaction, design and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, I explore how digital and AI-supported tools can help capture and share repair knowledge without replacing human judgement. The research aims to support inclusive repair learning, strengthen local repair communities and reduce electronic waste through sustainable and circular practices.

• Embodiment
• Observation
• Cynefin
• Relationality
• Participation

My PhD research explores the cultural-ecological terrain of Cymru and how it can cultivate kincentric ways of knowing and being. Embedded in diverse modes of participation — from learning and landwork to arts, policy and governance — my fieldwork traces conditions that germinate a sense of ecosystems as an intelligent, dynamic web of relationships, of which humans are intrinsically part. As a permaculture facilitator, the work is positioned to 'pollinate' practical solutions: through inspirational and creative process, food and wildlife system design, and training Nature Guardians from local communities to the Senedd

• Sustainability
• Climate Discourse
• Environmental Communication
• Comparative Media Analysis
• Media Systems
• Political Communication
• Digital Journalism

My doctoral research examines how climate urgency is discursively constructed in UK and US news media. I focus on the terminological shift from neutral terms such as "climate change" to urgent formulations including "climate crisis" and "climate emergency". Comparing outlets across media types (mainstream and alternative) and political orientations, I analyse how different media actors frame and communicate urgency over time. By integrating climate communication research, alternative media studies, and political economy approaches, this study provides a comprehensive account of how media systems shape the construction of environmental urgency across two distinct media contexts.

• AI
• Leadership & Management
• Innovation
• Organisational Change
• AI Adoption
• Digital Transformation
• Educational Technology

My research interests focus on the adoption and impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in higher education, with particular attention to how AI is transforming teaching, learning, leadership, and institutional practices. As a DBA student at UWTSD, I am interested in exploring the opportunities and challenges associated with AI adoption, including organisational readiness, leadership, digital transformation, and responsible implementation. My research aims to examine how higher education institutions can effectively integrate AI technologies while supporting innovation, improving educational practices, and responding to the changing needs of students, educators, and institutions.