The gap between research and practice is extensively discussed within academic scholarship, both within planning (Dias and Oliviera 2025, Eizenberg et al 2025), and more widely (Van de Ven and Johnson, 2006). The two communities are frequently highlighted as ‘others’, occupying separate or parallel worlds (Newman et al 2015, Goodman et al 2022).

At the same time, growing interest in co-production and engaged scholarship seeks to bridge this divide through collaborative forms of knowledge production. Yet there remains limited empirical evidence of how practitioners experience participation in live research projects and what value such engagement creates for practitioners.

This paper draws on the Urban Retrofit project, a three-year UK-based research collaboration involving universities and public, private and third-sector partners exploring retrofit as a pathway towards more sustainable urban development. Using qualitative interviews with local authority practitioners participating in project activities, including an international study tour and research symposium, the paper examines engagement in research as a form of reflective practice.

Findings suggest that the value of research engagement extends beyond the production of evidence or research outputs. Practitioners describe participation as creating space for reflection, providing reassurance through comparative learning, fostering mutual learning between researchers and practitioners, and building relationships that support ongoing knowledge exchange. The paper argues that research-practice collaboration should be understood not only as a mechanism for knowledge transfer, but also as a social process that shapes professional thinking and practice in real time.

Drawing from findings from the Just Neighbourhoods? research, the paper examines how one former mining neighbourhood in Doncaster utilised neighbourhood planning as a mechanism to negotiate experiences of everyday local injustice and shape future development. The relationship between participation, power and influence within community-led planning activity in a neighbourhood experiencing long-term deprivation and industrial decline is explored to reveal a neighbourhood far from disengaged. Residents mobilised around a strong sense of identity, heritage and concern for quality of life. They produced an ambitious neighbourhood plan centring on environmental restoration, heritage protection and the creation of a country park around the town’s historic mining headstocks. The process generated high levels of participation and contributed towards attracting wider regeneration investment through the Towns Fund. Yet, despite extensive local involvement and the formal status of neighbourhood planning, participants repeatedly described feeling that key decisions continued to be shaped elsewhere. Drawing on literatures of social justice, participation and relational power, the paper argues that the case exposes a persistent gap between participation and influence. While neighbourhood planning may create opportunities for communities to articulate locally grounded priorities, wider institutional constraints, political dynamics and development pressures continue to dominate realisation. The paper highlights how ‘participation’ or co-production in planning is insufficient to deliver more just neighbourhoods.

This study is based on the rehabilation and resettlement impact on Mumbai’s marginalised communities, with a special focus on Dalit (Scheduled Caste) and Muslim (Religious minorities). Various infrastructure projects are undertaken annually to support the city’s development and beautification. However, while performing these projects, the houses of marginalised communities were demolished. A displacement process occurred, and these displaced communities mainly resettled on the city’s periphery, 25- 30 km from their original homes. Various studies have examined the impact of slum rehabilitation and resettlement on communities. However, from the perspectives of gender and marginalised communities, this issue remains under-researched. This study draws on secondary literature and is based on a pilot study conducted from September 2024 to December 2024, followed by ethnographic fieldwork from January 2025 to June 2025.

During participant observation and interviews, it was observed that women, older people, and other marginalised communities in the resettlement colony, after displacement, face many challenges, including limited access to livelihood opportunities. Loneliness, nighttime security concerns, and the lack of a neighbourhood and socio-cultural environment create social sustainability issues.

In addition, due to a toxic, poorly built environment, congested, tight, packed building structures, and inadequate maintenance, many people suffer from various health-related problems such as asthma, skin diseases, tuberculosis, stress, suffocation, cancer, and more. Also, due to caste and religious identity, some conflicts arise in communities, including hierarchy and dominance by women of other castes that they have to face in their daily lives.

This study aims to guide policymakers and urban planners toward sustainable housing solutions by emphasising the participation of women and marginalised communities as key to community health, green infrastructure and a self-redevelopment housing model.

Social value is an increasingly prominent feature of the development process in England, yet the relationship between social value and planning obligations remains poorly understood and inconsistently practised. Despite the common objectives of planning and social value, their standards, practices and frameworks do not always align. For example, planning obligations have long been an important mechanism through which public goods are secured from development, often representing a significant source of social value.

However, a conceptual tension exists between mitigation (planning obligations required to address the negative impacts of development) and additionality (the genuine social benefits generated beyond core delivery requirements). Yet, there is not a clear and consistent methodology within social valuation processes to report the benefits which arise through this mechanism in social value terms. This creates a grey area where mitigation secured through planning obligations may be reported as additionality in social value assessments, creating inconsistency in reporting.

This paper presents and reflects upon emerging findings examining this tension. Drawing on document analysis, expert interviews with practitioners across England, and case study analysis of two large-scale mixed-use developments in London and the North West. The paper identifies current practices and practitioners' perceptions, and outlines progress towards a framework for attributing and reporting the social value secured through planning obligations, contributing to wider debates on planning's public value at a time of significant debate and potential reform to developer contributions in England.