I have been working for many years as an academic on national evaluations of neighbourhood and community participation programmes and conducting local and regional evaluations. I have been on the board of the SW Regional Empowerment Partnership for 3 years, and am an external examiner for the Community Development degree at the University of Wales, Newport. I am a Visting Fellow at the University of West of England, and as such, supervise PhD and MSc students. I have published widely on civil society, community participation and sustainable development. I am working with The Converging World, Oxfam and NCBI and am a member of the Bristol Green Capital Partnership.