RTPI award winner Louise Brace

Brighton graduate wins RTPI Research Excellence Award 

We are incredibly proud to share that our MSc Town Planning (Chartered Apprenticeship) graduate Louise Brace has been awarded the RTPI Research Excellence Student Award at the 2024 Planning Research Conference.  

This award, which recognizes the outstanding research of planning students globally, is a testament to Louise’s dedication and the quality of her work. 

Her dissertation “The Role of Local Planning Authority Plan Making in Rural Renewable Energy Production,” explores a pressing issue combining topics around climate change, energy security, and local governance.  

Through her research, Louise developed a criteria-based policy evaluation framework that could considerably improve how Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) support renewable energy (RE) development in future.

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Wulan Koagouw receiving her award on stage

Brighton graduate receives top award for her impactful science research

University of Brighton graduate and leading ecotoxicologist, Wulan Koagouw, has won a Science and Sustainability Award for her pioneering research in Indonesia.

Wulan was honoured at the Study UK Alumni Awards in Indonesia for her research into environmental sustainability and water quality in her home region, Jakarta, which she started as part of her PhD in Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences at University of Brighton.

As an ecotoxicologist, Wulan’s research focuses on the harmful effects of toxic pollutants, such as man-made synthetic chemicals and their by-products, on the environment.

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Town planning graduates and lecturers group shot at graduation

Town Planning MSc and Chartered Apprenticeship graduates 2024

It was a proud moment for the MSc Town Planning and MSc Town Planning (Chartered Apprenticeship) course team when its students graduated in February this year.

We were delighted that so many could attend the Graduation Ceremony at the Brighton Centre. This year the majority of graduates were from the MSc Town Planning (Chartered Apprenticeship), a growing number since the route was first offered in September 2019, following its national Trailblazer status.

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Urban model with building and roads

Fellowship for Senior Lecturer


Andrew Coleman, Senior Lecturer on the MSc Town Planning and Chartered Apprenticeship Degree, has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute.

The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) is a leading membership organisation and a Chartered Institute responsible for maintaining professional standards and accrediting world class planning courses nationally and internationally. The organisation champions the power of planning in creating prosperous places and vibrant communities. Fellowship is one of the highest professional attainments available to a planner and Fellows must have made a major personal contribution to the planning profession for the benefit of the public.

Andrew Coleman headshot

Andrew Coleman’s research reflects a deep specialism in environmentalism and how to manage the risk of flooding through the planning system. He has contributed to government, government agency and research organisation projects and gained a wide range of experience, from working in private and public sectors, including in academia, as well as practising internationally, in Trinidad and Tobago. He is co-author of guidance on delivering better water management through the planning system and also a board member of the University of Brighton’s Centre for Earth Observation Science.

Speaking about the Fellowship Andrew Coleman said, “I am very honoured to be elected as Fellow of the RTPI. Ever since joining the RTPI, I have retained a profound belief that planning can deliver a better present and future for people and the environment.

“Pursuing this objective is becoming even more urgent given the climate and biodiversity crises facing the world. In my current teaching, research, RTPI and environmental activist roles, I am dedicated to equipping current and future planners with the tools to meet these challenges and my election as a Fellow demonstrates the importance that the RTPI places on addressing these issues.”

RTPI awards for research excellence logo

Graduate finalist in prestigious town planning awards

Congratulations to Town Planning graduate Laura Hemsley for reaching the finals of the prestigious Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Awards for Research Excellence (Student Award).

Now in their ninth year, the awards continue to recognise and promote high quality, impactful spatial planning research. Laura was nominated for her masters dissertation, ‘The Effectiveness of Strategic Planning Arrangements in Mineral Planning’.

We caught up with her to find out more about her dissertation, the support from her lecturers and what it meant to be nominated for the award.

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Group of people looking at greenery

Discussing solutions to current challenges at the Planning for Water conference

It’s not often these days that you hear people say ‘money is not the problem’, but that was one of the more surprising contributions at a recent Planning for Water  conference hosted by the Centre for Aquatic Environments and the Royal Town Planning Institute SE region at the University.

The 19th June conference brought together almost 70 town planners, engineers, developers, academics, charities, water companies and government officials to discuss solutions to some of the current challenges that water quality, water scarcity, climate change and the biodiversity crisis present to the building sector.

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Welcoming our first cohort of Global Fellows

The Global Fellowship Scheme provides prestigious awards to enable world-leading researchers and scholars from around the globe to spend between one and three months at the University of Brighton. During this time, they will be able to engage in productive research and build lasting collaborations.

Global Fellows will work in partnerships with University of Brighton colleagues on a joint grant application, produce a co-authored output or co-produced artefact, and share research skills and experience with researchers within our Centres of Research and Knowledge Exchange Excellence and postgraduate students.

We are looking forward to welcoming Professor Alexies Dagnino, University of Valparaiso, Chile in June, who will be collaborating with Dr Melanie Flint.

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Laura Hemsley headshot

Gain skills and expertise for your career on our Town Planning postgraduate degree

Laura Hemsley graduated with distinction from our Town Planning MSc and is now working as a Town Planner at Jacobs. We caught up with Laura and found out more about what drew her to postgraduate study on our Town Planning MSc and what she loved about the course.

What were you doing before your postgraduate studies at Brighton?

I had just graduated from the University of Leeds with a BSc Degree (1st Hons) in Geological Sciences.

What made you choose Town Planning at the University of Brighton?

It is RTPI and RICS Accredited – this significantly drew me to the course as it meant once I had finished the course, I could immediately apply for a Licentiate membership – which is for graduates who have completed a fully Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI)I accredited qualification. Becoming a Licentiate member of the RTPI is the first step towards becoming a Chartered Town Planner via the Licentiate Assessment of Professional Competence (L-APC).

The University of Brighton offered the option module of ‘Environmental Placement’ which was the best module choice on offer as it allowed students (i.e. me) to work within either a local planning authority or the private planning sector for three months (i.e. I worked within the private planning sector). This was extremely valuable as I was able to understand planning framework and legalisation policy, planning applications in a real-life examples, which gave me the expertise and skills for a future job in planning.

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Graduate Ashlie at work in a hospital

Graduate stories: Physician Associate in Emergency Medicine

My name is Ashlie and I’m a Physician Associate in Emergency Medicine at Epsom and St Helier Hospitals. I did Biological Sciences at University of Brighton, and I then completed my master’s degree in Physician Associate Studies at Brighton and Sussex Medical School in 2021. In between these two courses, I worked full time as a Healthcare Assistant, to save for my master’s course and to gain more experience in the field.

What do you do as a PA in hospital?
I love working in a hospital as there are lots of opportunities to undertake practical skills such as blood tests and suturing to name a couple of examples! Continue reading “Graduate stories: Physician Associate in Emergency Medicine”

Group of people about to get on a boat

Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority boat trip

MRes Ecology and Conservation student Sarah George, really enjoyed the day spent on the Sussex IFCA boat (Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority), as part of the Ecotoxicology module.

“The boat trip with the IFCA was a real education and I’m so grateful for this opportunity.  I have not previously experienced aquatic sampling and just being able to be part of the process and see how things were done was fantastic – even down to the clear sequential labelling of samples and being able to visualise how large a sample actually was (much smaller than I’d thought).

Simple things like rinsing the filter with clean water rather than seawater make so much more sense when you’re there as you can visualise how this would alter the sample you’d just collected.  Setting up and operating the sediment grab is something you can only really appreciate by doing it, the idea is simple but actually getting it to work needs hands on experience.   Again, being able to see how the sediment varied from site to site and even from one side of the boat to the other, told a really strong story.

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