Knowledge Exchange for Entrepreneurship in Permaculture (KEEP)

Meet the KEEP research team

Professor Audley Genus

YTL Professor of Innovation and Technology Management at Kingston University

Audley has research interests in the areas of innovation, community entrepreneurship and technology policy, and new approaches for stimulating 'green' innovation. His work has been funded by the EU and the UK research councils, amongst others. As well as being principal investigator on the KEEP project, Audley leads the project Institutional Entrepreneurship: Community Renewable Energy in England. He is currently editing his fourth book, which is called 'Sustainable Consumption, Design and Innovation', and is due to published by Springer in 2016. He is a member of the steering committee of SCORAI Europe, and has recently organised and chaired workshops on sustainable consumption and production at the Royal Society of Arts, London and on transition, transformation and social innovation, held at the Impact Hub, Vienna.

Dr. Chris Warburton-Brown

Research Director, the Permaculture Association (UK)

His role involves delivering the Association's research strategy, leading the Association's Research Team, supporting members with research, managing staff, writing articles, fund raising, creating web content, organising annual research trials.

The main projects he has delivered are outlined individually on the Permaculture Association website. They include: the Permaculture Research Digest; the Permaculture Soil and Biodiversity Tests project; the Permaculture Association research web pages; the International Permaculture Conference Speaker programme; Bradford University Peace Studies Interns Programme; the Permaculture International Research Network; and the online Permaculture Knowledge Base.

Dr Marfuga Iskandarova

Research Assistant, Small Business Research Centre, Kingston University

Marfuga has a range of experience and an interdisciplinary background in research and teaching. She holds a First Class Honours Degree in Jurisprudence from the Bashkir State University (1998), a LLM degree in Law and Sustainable Development from the University of Aberdeen (2007), a Candidate of Science degree in Environmental Law from Saratov State Academy of Law (2005) and a PhD from the University of Exeter (2013).

Marfuga's PhD project brought together her enduring interests in policy and regulation, energy and emerging technologies, and is primarily associated with Science and Technology Studies (STS), focusing on new renewable energy technologies. It offered an empirical input to the current debate on energy transitions and providing an insight into the process of path creation for emerging industries, such as wave energy industry.

Marfuga joined the Small Business Research Centre, Kingston University in March 2014, as a Research Assistant. In the SBRC she is involved in several projects related to community energy, responsible innovation, entrepreneurship and small business.

KEEP News and Events

Enterprise Gathering (September 2016)

The Permaculture Enterprise handbook will be launched at the UK's first permaculture enterprise gathering, a one-day event for those involved in permaculture enterprises, to be held in London. Delegates will consist of people from both new and well established enterprises. They will be able to share their knowledge and experiences, develop business models, identify synergies and new business opportunities, increase collaboration, discuss the lessons learned from this project, evaluate the Enterprise Handbook, learn from one another, and develop peer support relationships. Representatives from ISBE and allied initiatives will be invited to attend.

ISBE/Permaculture Association regional event (end of September 2016).

This was to be a repeat of the above event, but held in the north of England.