Diane Warburton

Biographical Information
"Diane works mainly on research and evaluation projects, as well as writing for a wide range of audiences including academic and professional journals and publications, Government departments and agencies, national and international NGOs, and the general public through work for BBC Radio 4 and Channel 4 television. She is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Brighton, and co-founder of Involve. She is also a member of InterAct, and an advisor to the Black Environment Network.

"Diane's main area of work is public and stakeholder participation and community engagement, especially in sustainable development programmes. She has recently focused on evaluation of engagement programmes, and is currently evaluating the Your Health, Your Care, Your Say initiative for the Department of Health, the Fair Share initiative for the National Lottery, the Community Renewables Initiative for the Countryside Agency, and a community sustainable consumption and production programme for WWF UK.

"In the past, she has evaluated the National Waste Dialogue for The Environment Council, the development programme of the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Sustainable Communities Programme for ENCAMS, and Rural Action for the Environment for the Countryside Agency.

"Other current and recent projects have been with the Environment Agency (on social policy, building trust in local communities, modernising consultation, and developing learning architectures), the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (good practice guidelines on community and land use issues), and research projects with Involve on participatory methods (published as People and Participation), and on the costs and benefits of participation.

"She was briefly seconded to the Home Office Civil Renewal Unit (2004-5), and was Senior Research Fellow at the University of Brighton on the ESRC Democracy and Participatio Programme (2000-2003), both part-time. She has previously worked for the Community Development Foundation (1976-81), Partnership Ltd (1989-94) and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (1989-94). Projects during that time included work on regional environmental networks; community information projects; work to enable St Helen Borough Council to become a 'community authority'; various projects for the Scottish Development Agency on community involvement in regeneration including in Motherwell, Glasgow and Edinburgh; research for the Scottish Development Department into community co-operative housing; and work to establish the first Groundwork trusts. She worked freelance from 1994, until forming Shared Practice in 2002."

Affiliations

 * Green Alliance: Individual Members