Research & Best Practice

There are lots of good ideas out there and it's likely that if you have an idea someone somewhere will have had a similar one.  We all know we can learn a lot from other people's experiences and from their successes and mistakes - but how to find out? 

There are so many brilliant projects out there but I don't have time to read all the journals or go to conferences. How can I keep up to date?

In the past we arranged Professional Network meetings to encourage the sharing of good practice but as budgets and staffing levels are reduced it is getting hard for many people to find the time or resources to attend such events.  The recent spate of cancelled conferences and regional meetings demonstrates this clearly - but if you're not able to meet people and find out what they are doing, how do you hear about new ideas?

You ask someone - not just anyone, but someone who is out there talking to the people who are making things happen and who knows who is doing good work, both within the UK and abroad. 

At Walk England we work closely with Walk21 where experts in all forms of walking from around the world work to share good practice. The Walk21 annual conference provides the perfect place to share ideas with people who you would never normally meet - resulting in long lasting cross-border research and all kinds of weird and wonderful initiatives. The Walk21 website is a good place to start looking for research papers. 

We carry out research to identify good practice and use our knowledge to help guide the development of projects to ensure they learn from others.  Over the years we've:

• Researched good practice in pedestrian mapping for the Department of Transport;
• Collated good practice in Rights of Way management for the IPROW Good Practice Guide website;
• Provided advice to several organisations on good practice in monitoring use;
• Evaluated Right of Way Improvement Plans and presented examples of good practice to help local authorities write their plans.