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Greenspace Research

Lews Castle College, in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, has always delivered Further Education vocational courses for local island people. But in recent years it has raised its ambitions to offer university level services. This means looking beyond local horizons, and developing new research ideas and initiatives.

One of these initiatives is a project called Greenspace. The college is now home to a growing number of researchers and consultants working for the Greenspace Research team. The project is developing a variety of ideas about energy and energy economics, with a particular focus on the application of computer and Internet technology. It’s a good field to be working in, as interest in energy conservation and climate change is now worldwide.

One of the projects under development is the visualisation wall. It aims to provide a way to present scientific data in vivid detail on a large scale. If you combine 20 screens to produce a single display that means that a room full of people can view it easily and discuss it together. There is a growing interest in the Western Isles in local energy resources that are close at hand, particularly the power of the wind and the sea. The visualisation wall allows maps, other images, and data about resources to be brought together in a powerful presentation format.

But there are many other projects at various stages of development also underway. Malcolm Murray already has a degree in Computer Science from Glasgow University, but he has returned home to Stornoway to do his PhD with Greenspace. He is looking at tools for handling energy information in the built environment. He has also had the opportunity to get involved in projects with partners around Europe.

It’s a very talented team of people. They even make their own online videos to publicise and advertise their work. The Internet is central to the project. It enables the team to keep in touch with other researchers around the world, and also allows them to develop a worldwide market. The project is focussed on developing commercially viable ideas, and has already set up an independent company, Greenspace Live, to help bring their ideas to market.

In the meantime the college and university link attracts a growing team of established researchers and other research students. Their interests and specialisms vary, but they all connect to the overall goal – to come up with new ideas and techniques for dealing with the global environmental challenges of the 21st century.

Naturally, there is a particular interest in renewable energy. The college has its own small experimental solar and wind power generating capacity. The idea that a small island community could support advanced research of this kind would have been unthinkable until recently. But the times are changing fast, and the new conditions seem to mean that projects like Greenspace can make a positive contribution to a development agenda that reaches far beyond the shores of this one island.

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