Skip to content
University of Bradford logo
Site navigation Search

Dr. Ute Kelly

Associate Professor

Area
School of Social Sciences
Faculty of Mgmt, Law & Social Sciences
E-mail
U.Kelly@bradford.ac.uk
Phone
+441274236816
Dr. Ute Kelly

Biography

I am an Associate Professor in Peace Studies and based in the Department of Peace Studies and International Development.

From March 2022-April 2025, I was seconded to the role of Associate Dean for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at the Faculty of Health Studies. 

Over the years, I have been involved in teaching and research on a range of issues within a broad interdisciplinary field concerned with contested values and attempts to put them into practice. Much of my work has revolved around the question of how to encourage meaningful engagement - via dialogue, deliberation and/or creative practices - with difficult and potentially divisive issues. Currently, I am trying to encourage thoughtful conversations on our individual and collective responses to climate change, ecological crisis and the social justice issues they raise, on difference, otherness and inequalities within and beyond the University, and on how, in difficult times, we might cultivate and practice 'the moral imagination' in ourselves and others. 

Research

Currently, my research focuses on two main areas of activity: 


Against the backdrop of the converging ecological, economic and social challenges we now face, I am interested in exploring the communicative and collaborative dimensions of resilience, the relationships between people and the places in which they find themselves, and approaches to enhancing resilience at different levels and in a range of contexts. Currently, I am a co-investigator on a major UKRI-funded research project, Resilience of Anthropocene Coasts and Communities, which is exploring the question of what responsible and resilient management of historic landfill sites might look like in a context of coastal erosion on a number of UK sites. I am also involved in a smaller exploratory project - 'Re-imagining relationships with urban nature' - that will look at how people experience wasteland and explore how emotions, meanings and values bear on our ability to imagine future possibilities in such spaces. 

In the past, related work has included a grounded exploration of discourses of 'resilience', work on local food initiatives, and field research exploring community-based responses to the Boxing Day 2015 floods in the Calder Valley, West Yorkshire. From 2018 to 2021, I was involved in a three-year action research project commissioned by the Environment Agency for England and Natural Resources Wales that has explored how to engage communities at risk of increased flooding and coastal change in the UK in difficult conversations around longer-term adaptation challenges. Work on this project (with Rhys Kelly and Icarus) began with an extensive evidence review that identified a number of engagement challenges and potential approaches. Following this, our work with two pilot locations included designing a set of tools to assess and enhance the readiness of professionals, stakeholders and communities to engage in critical conversations around climate adaptation. All of this work has been disseminated among relevant communities of practice. This work also generated several spin-off projects, including a readiness assessment process for the government-funded Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme and a role play simulation for UK coastal contexts. It has been featured as an impact case study in the Environment Agency's Collection of FCERM research outcomes.

As part of my own reflective practice, I have also been engaged in research around questions of pedagogy. This includes several co-authored pieces (with Rhys Kelly) on the implications of climate change and ecological crisis for our field and experiments with opening up difficult conversations around these issues with our students. It also includes book chapters reflecting on recent teaching experiences, including creative and trauma-informed pedagogic practices  that I am hoping to develop further, both via my own teaching and through associated research and creative writing. In 2019, I worked with a group of Peace Studies alumni in a project exploring how we might encourage more honest explorations of challenging dynamics of privilege, difference and otherness within and beyond the University. 

Research projects

Connected Communities: understanding communities in their historical and cultural contexts and their role in sustaining and enhancing quality of life

Date
to
Role
Co-Investigator

The objective of the HEIF project is to understand existing cultural and community connections with Horton Park to foster conversations that consider current and future aspirations. Specifically, we will increase our knowledge of community views of the park as focal places, and themes related to culture, diversity, cohesion, inclusion, conflict, values and participation by: 1) Establishing the physical historical and cultural context of the park in relation to the City to contribute to community awareness and interest in learning, drawing from baseline surveys and 3D representation of the park as a planning resource. 2) Drawing upon inter-generational family memories and oral history to bridge conversations that allow older generations to bring their narratives about their enjoyment of these spaces within living memory; whilst allowing younger generations to respond to these and find 'common ground'.

Using Simulation Methods to Engage Coastal Communities in Conversations about Climate Adaptation

Role
Joint Principal Investigator

This project, run in partnership with the Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales and Icarus, aims to - co-develop a simulation exercise focused on adaptation choices and scenarios relevant to coastal communities facing increased risks of coastal erosion and flooding associated with climate change; - draw together expertise from the project partners to enable the development of scientifically and policy informed materials; - pilot/test the simulation exercise to generate learning and refinement of the materials, and to support the creation of a pack for use nationally; - disseminate learning through relevant publications and professional education activities.

Understanding and developing ‘readiness’ for climate change adaptation planning in contexts of uncertainty

Role
Joint Principal Investigator

This project supported the development and trialing of a readiness assessment tool appropriate for contexts that are facing difficult and potentially contentious climate adaptation challenges.

Working together to adapt to a changing climate: flood and coast

Date
to
Role
Joint Principal Investigator

Funded by the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales, this project explores a series of engagement challenges facing professionals and communities as they attempt to engage in the difficult work of climate adaptation. This work involves both an extensive review of existing research and practice and a phase of action research and reflection in two pilot locations in England, including the development and trialing of customised tools for practitioner and community engagement.

Resilience of Anthropocene Coasts and Communities (RACC)

Date
to
Role
Co-Investigator

This project explores potential responses to the legacy of historic landfills in UK sites that are facing coastal erosion and sea level rises. The project will seek to increase collaboration between a range of stakeholders to understand the different kinds of environmental and social challenges involved and in building more resilient coasts and communities. For more, see https://www.ukcoastalresilience.org/project/resilience-of-anthropocene-coasts-and-communities-racc. https://ukcoastalresilience.org/project/resilience-of-anthropocene-coasts-and-communities-racc

Reimaging relationships with urban nature

Date
to
Role
Co-Investigator

The project examines how people experience a piece of wasteland in Bradford as a place of multiple habitats and how this has a bearing on their own sense of habitat or place. It will explore how emotions, meanings and values bear on people’s ability to imagine future possibilities and act upon them to create value for individuals, communities and the environment.

Teaching

My teaching aims to encourage students to explore discourses and practices of peace, resilience, social justice and conflict engagement. This includes critical reflection on the assumptions, values and personal experiences that we bring to our study of these questions. My approach to teaching values reflective and creative practices, dialogue about questions that matter, careful engagement with a range of perspectives within and beyond the classroom, and the development of 'the moral imagination', and I try to create learning experiences that encourage these qualities and dispositions. 

Professional activities

Consultancy (4)

  • Making Space for Sand (Cornwall) - Development of a coastal simulation exercise to support community engagement with the difficult choices facing coastal communities in the UK (drawing on learning from a simulation pilot originally developed as part of the 'Working together to adapt to a changing climate' programme). (3 August 2023)
  • Coastwise (North Norfolk) - Design of a comprehensive community readiness assessment survey to support Coastwise's community engagement planning. (22 June 2023)
  • Defra/Environment Agency/Welsh Government/Natural Resources Wales - Development of Readiness Self-Assessment tools and guidance for partnerships involved in Flood and Coastal Risk Management programmes. (2 May 2022)
  • Environment Agency - Further development of guidance and resources on carrying out readiness assessment for project partnerships, feeding into the EA's 'Adaptation Pathways' project. (1 October 2021)

Outreach activities (13)

  • Art, Textiles and Independence: A Discussion. Contribution to panel discussion at Bradford Literature Festival, 27th May 2016. (1 January 0001)
  • Resilience - what does it mean? Presentation and discussion at PPC Thinkspace, Bradford, December 2015 (1 January 0001)
  • Mapping and locating local food initiatives. Presentation to Calder Valley Food Folk and Calderdale Food Network, 2017 (1 January 0001)
  • A challenging present and an uncertain future: How do we respond? Presentation and facilitation of discussion at Quaker Regional Gathering, Liverpool, November 2015 (1 January 0001)
  • UK flooding: Exploring community responses. Presentation and discussion at a special interest meeting as part of UK Quakers Yearly Meeting Gathering, August 2017. (1 January 0001)
  • Working towards inclusion ​ in our changemaking: Webinar for Changemakers 'Community Connect' programme (October 2023) (1 January 0001)
  • Webinar on engagement challenges, 'Working together to adapt to a changing climate: flood and coast' (March 2023) (1 January 0001)
  • Webinar on designing and running simulations for community engagement on climate adaptation (March 2023) (1 January 0001)
  • Readiness Assessment for Climate Change Adaptation, webinar for CASCADE Environmental (September 2021) (1 January 0001)
  • Presentation of key learning and publications from the project 'Working together to adapt to a changing climate: flood and coast', funded by the Environment Agency & Natural Resources Wales from 2018-2022. The audience included government agency staff, researchers,local authorities and community/stakeholder engagement professionals. (1 January 0001)
  • Using simulations to engage communities and other stakeholders in conversations about climate adaptation (September 2024) (1 January 0001)
  • Readiness Assessment for Climate Change Adaptation, webinar for 'Working together' Community of Practice (February 2021) (1 January 0001)
  • Peace Studies Postcards: 50 years of Peace Studies/PSID at Bradford - a celebration of our alumni community. https://peacestudiespostcards.wordpress.com/ (1 January 0001)

Professional associations (1)

  • Intercultural Development Inventory, Qualified Administrator

Publications

Book chapter (5)

Conference contribution (12)

  • Contribution to Panel: 'Research is not a game! (or is it?!) Using games to disseminate research to a wider audience'

    Ute Kelly (2024) https://unibradfordac.sharepoint.com/sites/rais-intranet/SitePages/Bradford-Impact-Festival.aspx.

  • (Re)wilding Peace Studies? Opening a conversation

    Ute Kelly & Rhys Kelly (2024) Peace Studies Golden Jubilee Conference, University of Bradford.

  • Listening to ourselves, each other and the world around us: Reflections on experiments with collaborative autoethnography

    Ute Kelly (2023) Making Diversity Interventions Count Annual Conference, University of Bradford, 2023.

  • Collaborative Autoethnography as Personalised Pedagogy

    Ute Kelly (2022) Personalised Pedagogies: University of Hull Learning and Teaching Conference.

  • Talking about the Boxing Day floods - what stories do we tell, and what difference does it make?

    Kelly, Ute (2018) All Things Resilience.

  • Broadening Community Food Innovation: A Framework for Citizens' Food Research

    Kelly, Ute (2018) Broadening Community Food Innovation: A Framework for Citizens' Food Research.

  • Locating urban gardening within critical foodscapes: Food utopias, places and webs of relationships in the Upper Calder Valley, West Yorkshire

    Kelly, Ute (2016) Critical Foodscapes: The future of urban gardening.

  • Where Now for Peace Education? An opportunity for dialogue

    Kelly, Ute and Kelly, Rhys (2015) Cambridge Peace and Education Research Seminar.

  • Peacescapes: Exploring Landscapes of Peace and Peacebuilding

    Kelly, Ute (2015) Peacescapes: Exploring Landscapes of Peace and Peacebuilding.

  • Political Action, Resilience and Solidarity

    Kelly, Ute and Kelly, Rhys (2014) Political Action, Resilience and Solidarity.

  • Workshop on the Radical Reductions Agenda and Implications for Peace Studies

    Rhys Kelly, Ute Kelly (2014) Workshop on the Radical Reductions Agenda and Implications for Peace Studies.

  • Reconstructing Peace Studies: Assessing New Knowledge and Outcomes

    Rhys Kelly, Ute Kelly (2014) Reconstructing Peace Studies: Assessing New Knowledge and Outcomes.

Other journal (9)

Other publication (14)

Peer reviewed journal (7)

Published report (8)