We are pleased to announce the final programme for the 2-day seminar: Diversity of workplaces and spaces in cities, taking place at the University of Southampton on 11 and 12 September 2017.

This seminar investigates how working spaces and places in cities are changing and what this means for urban systems in terms of infrastructure, urban design and planning. Key questions to be examined include:

• How diverse are the working spaces and places of workers in cities?
• How are working spaces transformed into workplaces?
• Where is formal/informal/precarious work undertaken; in what urban sites and places, and what spaces do these create?
• Are new hybrid places emerging in cities? How regulated/formalized are these?
• How do we have to rethink ‘the journey to work’, formal vs. informal work(spaces), private vs. public spaces and corporate vs. social spaces in cities?

This is the second of 3 events on ‘Reconceptualising urban landscapes of work’ funded by the Urban Studies Foundation. Further details are in the attached programme.

Registration is open via EVENTBRITE for the above seminar. Tickets are limited so early registration is suggested. Speakers do not need to register. The registration link is: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/urban-studies-seminar-diversity-of-workplaces-and-spaces-in-cities-tickets-34827297384

For further information, please contact Dr Darja Reuschke: D.Reuschke@soton.ac.uk or Dr Annabelle Wilkins: A.H.Wilkins@soton.ac.uk

On February 25th, Annabelle Wilkins presented her research on homeworking and coworking at a seminar hosted by the Research Group on Collaborative Spaces (RGCS). The presentation took place at Cass Business School, and the audience included practitioners and academics interested in collaborative spaces, organisational studies, management and economic geography.

During the seminar, Annabelle positioned coworking in relation to broader increases in homeworking and freelance work, as well as linking the research with literature on coworking, innovation and economic diversity in cities. She discussed some of her key findings on different models of home-based coworking, highlighting the social and economic motivations of the Cohome and Hoffice networks and the importance of the neighbourhood in developing coworking communities.

Discussions after the presentation provided helpful suggestions on how to theorise coworking in relation to freelance work – particularly in terms of space-time relationships, the ways in which workers navigate between different work spaces and communities (digitally and physically located) and how coworking might help people to manage transitions in their work and life.

The slides from the presentation are available here.

Darja Reuschke has a new paper on city economies and microbusiness growth, published in Urban Studies (online before print): http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098016680520

This paper assesses the influence of city location and running a business from home on microbusiness growth, based on empirical analysis of panel firm-level data over a four-year period. The analysis reveals that cities provide benefits to microbusinesses for turnover growth but not for employment growth – suggesting that the additional growth induced by cities for microbusinesses may be jobless growth. However, in the case of microbusinesses run from the owner’s home, cities facilitate growth into medium-sized businesses. The paper concludes that microbusinesses, including those run from business owners’ homes, are integral to the evolution and dynamics of urban economies and essential to understanding the nature of growth in cities.

Darja Reuschke was invited to present at the University of Edinburgh Sociology Seminar Series on 7th December 2016. Darja presented on The Home as Business: Macroeconomy and Microspaces. Follow this link to watch the presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynQG8XXqOBI&feature=youtu.be

On 7th November 2016, Markieta Domecka and Annabelle Wilkins attended the launch of the Centre for Inclusive and Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Innovation (CISEI). Based within Southampton Business School, CISEI undertakes research on socially inclusive and sustainable entrepreneurship and innovation. It engages with stakeholders from the business, social entrepreneurship and academic sectors in order to empower individuals and organisations to tackle critical equality, diversity and sustainability challenges.

Following a welcome from Professor Martin Broad and introduction from Professor Mine Karatas-Ozkan, the keynote speech was given by Professor Johanna Mair of Stanford University, who presented theoretical and empirical insights from her long-term research on innovation and scaling for impact from an organisational perspective.

Johanna’s presentation was followed by a panel discussion on a range of issues relating to sustainable and inclusive entrepreneurship. Professor Mustafa Ozbilgin presented on sustainability, equality and diversity at work from a comparative perspective. Dr Haya Al-Dajani presented longitudinal research on entrepreneurship among refugee women in Jordan, reflecting upon entrepreneurship as a source of emancipation and empowerment. Finally, Professor Jonatan Pinkse discussed the unintended consequences that can arise in pursuing the interdependent goals of sustainability and inclusivity, presenting business models that aim to recognise these tensions and develop strategies to manage them.

We look forward to collaborating with CISEI in the future and wish them every success in their research and engagement activities.

The Digital Workplace for Innovation and Participation project (DigiWIP) is looking for experts in business finance, open innovation, entrepreneurship and business policy to discuss existing and future web-based platforms for innovation and collaboration.

DigiWIP asks how existing digital platforms can be redesigned to enable new ways of working and collaboration between enterprises and individuals, encouraging innovation and participation building towards a new vision for ‘Factories of the Future’. The key objective is to find ways to capitalise on digital platforms driving societal and economic benefits.

We are an interdisciplinary research team from the University of Southampton Department of Geography and Environment, Southampton Business School and the IT Innovation Centre.

The expert discussion will take place on one of these dates:
Tues 24th Jan, Wed 25th Jan or Thurs 26th Jan.

Please contact Dr Markieta Domecka for further information.

On 30^th November Ana Basiri attended the Midlands Intelligent Mobility Conference at Loughborough University. This conference brought together industry, government and academic sectors to review the strategies, challenges and opportunities of making transport services in the UK more intelligent, adaptive, personalised, automated and environmentally friendly. The conference placed travellers and commuters at the heart of the transport system and discussed the challenges of user-centric mobility services.

Since many of our daily journeys are to or from work, the WORKANDHOME project studies how working from home can contribute to the reshaping of urban planning in the future. In this regard, Professor Margaret Bell (CBE) of Newcastle University gave an interesting talk on the impact of reducing the number of trips, particularly long journeys, on the emission of carbon dioxide and other pollutants. She explained that even the replacement of all cars with electric cars would not make it possible to hit the target that the UK has committed to by 2050, and the number of journeys needs to be reduced. From this perspective, it seems that working from home could be viewed not only as an alternative for business but also as a necessary approach for saving the environment.

As part of research into coworking and home-based businesses, Annabelle Wilkins recently participated in two coworking events in Winchester and London.

Winchester Jelly is a free event in which freelancers come together for social contact and to work alongside other  home-based workers in a friendly and supportive environment. It is held once a month at Winchester Racquets and Fitness centre, and according to the organisers, all members need to bring is ‘a computer, some work, and a willingness to chat’.

Annabelle also attended the launch of Freelance Friday at Huckletree Shoreditch, a coworking space in East London. Organised by Rebecca Collins and Caitin Liebenberg and hosted by Huckletree, Freelance Friday is a monthly coworking event where freelancers can meet, work and collaborate, with the added bonuses of yoga, coffee and snacks.

Both events revealed fascinating insights into how coworking can facilitate a sense of community and belonging among freelancers in different contexts and areas of the UK. We look forward to learning more about the future of coworking and freelance work over the coming weeks – please get in touch with the team if you are involved in coworking and would like to take part in the research.

Research by Darja Reuschke on the importance of housing for self-employment has been featured on the Understanding Society website. The research linked data from Understanding Society and the Household Panel Survey. It revealed how a person’s housing situation can affect their chances of entrepreneurism by tracking people over a 20-year period.

Read more about the key findings and policy recommendations: https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/2016/10/18/self-employment