This podcast discusses a knowledge network started by researchers at SRUC which focuses on supporting rural women entrepreneurs who are leading low-carbon transitions in Arctic areas.

Alexa Green

Hello and welcome to another episode of the SRUC Podcast. Today, we're speaking with Dr Jayne Glass, Dr Bregje van Veelen and Dr Ana Vuin about a knowledge network that started as a part of a project with the Scottish Government Arctic Connections fund. My name is Alexa Green, and I am a research associate with the Rural Policy Centre at SRUC. I am also working alongside Ana on this project. This project brings together female researchers, policymakers, and community practitioners from across Scotland, Sweden, Norway and Canada to share knowledge about how best to support rural women during the transition to net zero in the Arctic region. Jayne is a researcher in the Natural Resources and Sustainable Development Department at Uppsala University. She previously worked as a researcher with the Rural Policy Centre, and her research focuses on land use, governance policy and decision making. She has specific interests in partnership working rural, community resilience and land reform. Bregje is an associate senior lecturer in the Centre for Sustainability Studies at Lund University. She researches how low carbon transition pathways emerge and evolve and how they can be implemented in a way that is democratic and fair. Ana is a research fellow with the Rural Policy Centre at Scotland's Rural College. Her research focuses on regional development, migration and policy. I am really grateful to speak with you all today. Jayne and Bregje, I'd love to know where you got this idea for this project, and particularly how did you recognise that there was a knowledge gap in this area, and did you have any particular personal connexion to the topic before you started?

Dr Jayne Glass

Dr Bregje van Veelen

Yeah, I think maybe just to sort of bring out that that dimension a bit more sort of why did we decide maybe to focus on women and the gender perspective, especially here. And I think for me, most of the research that I have done to date as a researcher both in Scotland and in Sweden focuses on energy transitions, both in terms of how places are impacted by the phase out of fossil fuels, but also how, especially rural communities, are developing alternatives, for example through local energy systems in the Scottish Highlands, for example. And I think in both of these aspects of my research, uh, what's come up quite a bit is how much we sort of centre both male jobs when it comes to the phase out of fossil fuels, you know, we very much think about oil workers, coal workers, engineers, these kinds of industries that are primarily or that are largely male dominated industries. And therefore, when we're thinking about it, just transition and what that might mean, we're often thinking about these kinds of jobs. But also, when looking at local energy initiatives, what became evident is that these are also often driven by male volunteers, either because they might have a technical or engineering background that's relevant or for other reasons, they often take on these more organising roles when it comes to energy projects in their community. But when I was doing field work in Canada, it really showed to me the sort of multiple ways in which women are impacted, but also the roles that they can play in in sort of social enterprise or alternative organisations. And I can talk a bit more about that later. But I think for me. That sort of brought to the fore this interest in well, you know, can we sort of unpack this a little bit more in terms of how rural communities are impacted, but also how they can play a leading role in a sort of transition to a net zero economy and what's? What does that look like when we look at these distinctions such as gender, for example?

Alexa Green

Thank you so much for that. Yeah, it's really nice to hear the story because it sounds like there's such a personal connexion there for you both. And it also seems like we're on the cutting edge, so to speak, with this kind of research, since it's a fairly new and niche field. So, I wanted to ask, did you envision that this topic would be so popular and that you would get so many women interested in participating in this knowledge network?

Dr Jayne Glass

Thanks, Alexa. I think we were both really delighted to have such a positive response when we asked people whether they would be interested in taking part if, if our bid was successful and we sort of started with our sort of personal contacts that we knew within some universities in Norway, in Sweden and Scotland and also, in Canada. And but then we sort of had this snowball effect, I guess if people then said, oh, we'd love to join, but actually have you thought of speaking to someone else and we managed to get that initial list up to around 20 or 30 female researchers, policy makers, practitioners and other professionals who were quite keen to hear more. And I think as you say, it's definitely an area of work that needs more investigation. So, there was definitely a sense of those who were keen to join that this sounded like something really interesting, relevant and timely, but didn't necessarily. The people who were keen to take part didn't necessarily have concrete examples of exactly things that they wanted to talk to us about, but they knew that this was a really strong direction of travel that they were keen to learn more about and talk to us about.

Dr Bregje van Veelen

I think just to offer sort of an additional explanation, I think as to why people might have been so interested in this is exactly as Jayne and you said as well is that it's a sort of under explored area, but that there are lots of people working sort of around the edges of this theme. So, we have people interested. In sort of rural development, we have people interested in sort of net zero transit. We have people who are interested in sort of gender dynamics and particular forms of development, and I think. What we perhaps managed to do within this network is bring all these different themes together into a sort of, if not quite. Peace if hope, but at least something with a core to it that's slightly new for everyone, and I think that plus the fact that it's such an international group and that you know enabling of sharing international experience is, I think what's got people really interested in this to learn more about. Well, what is actually happening in other places as well and what can we learn from that?

Alexa Green

Yeah. Thank you. And I think that that's great that you've touched on this aspect of the different themes that are emerging around this topic. As you said, there's so many areas of relevant research happening on the periphery which feed into this topic, so. So, I was wondering if there are any new or interesting themes which may have emerged from that first meeting with the knowledge network members.

Dr Jayne Glass

Yes, I think we had quite a strong focus from one of our presenters in the first meeting and Ailsa Clark from InspirAlba and she really told us a lot more about the Scottish social enterprise scene, I guess. And what's happening in Scotland right now with those types of organisations and I think it was really exciting to explore some of the examples of initiatives in Scotland that are developing new business opportunities with that sort of social and economic, sorry, sorry, social and environmental benefits at their core. And what Ailsa told us, and I think I knew this, but found it really good to hear this again was that more than 1/3 of Scotland's social enterprises are in Rural communities and 71% of those are led by women. So, it really was making it clear that that our work was going to be very, very relevant. But it was also, I think, exciting to explore this ongoing theme, which I think emerged some of from some of the previous work I mentioned. I've been involved with as well that often these types of businesses are quite small and very micro with a small turnover. But with that came maybe more of the unexpected theme here was the potential to learn from and explore the different styles of leadership that these organisations are under. If they're under female leadership and more sort of collective approaches to ownership and to management. And also, for example, she told us about some really interesting projects going on in Scotland at the moment and fine futures on the Isle of Bute, for example. Looking at running vehicles on biofuel and using waste oil from tourism businesses and local car club, thinking about local food produce and how that can be grown and distributed locally as well. And this is an example of a social enterprise run by a woman. So, some reflections on how that that organisation is run. In practise, so I think it was great for us at the time, you know what I'm working at Scotland's Rural College to be able to share some of these insights with that international network that that Bregje. Was talking about and it was a good chance to think about some of the qualities and opportunities that women can bring to the management of these types of organisations. But maybe pass over to you Bregje because you come at it at the time being based in Sweden as well. At the first meeting from a slightly different perspective.

Dr Bregje van Veelen

Yeah. Thanks. I think one of the things that stood out for me in that first meeting was the. The sort of limitation, perhaps, of the discussions that currently exist around a just transition and the need for good jobs as part of that transition. And I think what that meeting highlighted for me was really the need to better understand how. These jobs that are part of the green economy fit with people's lives, but also perhaps where people may need more support in their lives in order to take advantage of economic opportunities that the transition to net zero might bring. So, for example, I think it was in in this first meeting that one of our participants from the Scottish Highlands highlighted the barriers that she saw in terms of taking advantage of what are often considered to be sort of good jobs or stable full-time employment that's well-paid and. You know, she said, especially in rural areas, these can often be in sort of male dominated industries where there in the energy sector or in the forestry sector, for example, and you know that there can be a sort of cultural barrier there to women's entry and the sort of worry of not belonging within that industry or that work culture. But what you also highlighted were, you know, these other barriers that. Assessed to taking on such jobs, which are often, you know, perceived to be quite good jobs, for example, a lack of availability of affordable childcare. You know that means that women might not be able to take advantage for of economic opportunities that come up or the economic cost of running two cars in, you know, a rural area that is not served or well served by public transport. So, for me, what that first meeting highlighted was. You know to need a need to look further and sort of how we might address this. So first of all, what you know, what does a good job sort of look like or what should it look like? For example, should it include more flexible working opportunities so people can fit it around child? There, or we might ask this sort of opposite question of, you know, what opportunities are there for system change? So, for offering more affordable childcare in rural areas, for example, which allows people to more easily take advantage of jobs that might be created in their area. And I think this is a really interesting. Example of verbs where the sort of international aspect is really useful as well to get a sense of, well, how are these issues either apparent or being solved in different countries?

Alexa Green

So, coming back to that international perspective, I wanted to turn to Bregje because you spoke at that first meeting about some of the issues that come from Decarbonizing our energy grid, particularly looking at examples of towns with extractive legacies in a Canadian context. So, I was wondering if you could please recap that research for us a bit. And also, I'm curious as to whether you see a similar trend. Happening in rural, Scandinavian or Scottish context.

Dr Bregje van Veelen

Yeah. So first of all, to sort of briefly recap what I talked about during that first meet. Thing there's partly some insights from a research project that I'm currently working on that looks at, well the phase out of fossil fuels and what that means for communities in in different countries. So, I've been doing some, some case study work in Canada, but also in Scotland. And the work that I presented at this meeting was some of the findings from the research I did in Canada. Which focused on sort of how women are impacted as a result of the phase out of fossil fuels in rural Alberta, which is or particularly the part where I was very much a sort of you know coal dominated energy sector until quite recently until the provincial government. Decided to phase out the use of coal. So now dirty school communities sort of grappling with the question of what do we do next. And I think what that research in Alberta showed, but also some broader findings from Canada are that women are broadly impacted in sort of two keyways. First of all, there's directly impacted as workers, but they can also be indirectly impacted when industries change or disappear. And I think this direct impact of women also takes a couple of different forms. Lastly, especially in the coal industry in, in, in Canada, there are not as many women who work in these sectors, first of all, but also the jobs that do exist within these sectors are highly gendered. So, for example, in mining, very few women work on the extraction or the production site or end of the sort of supply chain or the sector, but they're much more likely to work in sort of administrative roles HR, Finance, for example. So, the jobs within these industries are and in particularly, for example, what happened in Alberta was when the decision was made to phase out the use of coal and the energy sector is that the provincial government set up a number of support programmes for workers affected, but these support programmes are more often aimed at those who work directly in sort of extraction or in a power plant, for example. So, there is a sense there that there's perhaps less support available for the types of roles that women hold within this industry. So that's one way in which women are impacted, but also more locally that means you know, if some of the men who are working in these industries lose their jobs, they will look for other work locally and are maybe more directly in competition with women who might also look for work locally. So, there's a couple of different ways in which women are impacted directly, but also indirectly. Of course, there's a huge impact when suddenly someone's, you know when your partner loses their job, for example, so. Often you know a lot of these households where often one spouse works in the coal industry. They're often one income households. So, when the partner there loses their job suddenly that means a complete loss of income, but also a loss of status or meaning in someone's life, potentially. So, there is a big impact on family dynamics there. So those are a number of the ways that I talked about that women are impacted by energy transitions in in Canada. And then your question, you know, how does that apply to other places, and I think we don't know enough yet about the extent to which this is also true for other places. I think you know, especially when we think about Sweden, it's often sort of, you know, pointed that as a country of sort of high levels of gender equality. And indeed, in the mining sector in Sweden, you do find. You know quite a number of women working in mines, for example, but I don't have the exact statistics there for you in terms of how that compares to other places, but one sort of interesting point potentially for a Swedish context is that. Most households in Sweden, you know when there are when there are two people, households or with more or more than two people, households are that usually all adults in the house or have or work or work often in full-time roles as well. So, there is perhaps less of a prevalence of 1 income household where there's a risk of the only person who's earning an income losing their jobs and that household being left without an income. But that still raises the question well. But what does happen if one spouse loses their job? For example. Because it means that the remaining spouse will have to become the sole provider for a family for the time being or it might make it also more difficult for the family to move somewhere else, for example to look for alternative employment, because that other partner, the other spouse, still has a job locally. So, the exact dynamics of this process might look a bit different in Sweden or in different countries depending on. The nature of household the makeup of households economically as well as socially, but I think this is one key area where we just don't know quite enough yet in terms of what this looks like in different places.

Alexa Green

Thank you Bregje for giving us a recap of that research and highlighting the potential Connections. I think you're right in saying that this is an area for further research and potentially a focus of this group. This knowledge network could be exploring those linkages and similarities, but Jayne, I just wanted to come back to you to see if you wanted to come in. On anything that Bregje has said. Considering your research and background.

Dr Jayne Glass

I think the only the only thing I would say is that we have in other work seen this this model of you know the rural household facing challenges when one person loses an income or if an income that is quite volatile or seasonal, then it is lost as well. The work I mentioned at the start that we've done recently on rural poverty and sort of the experiences that people have is that rural incomes are very volatile and often partners or will work you know, maybe one or two jobs. They can be seasonal. They can be on 0 hours contracts so that that family unit, that household unit can be quite disproportionately affected by a change in income in terms of the sustainability of that family income. So, in this context of net zero and low carbon transitions as well, thinking about how. Those shifts in the rural labour market will affect households is definitely something I think that that needs a bit more and more work and a bit more thinking about.

Alexa Green

That's great. Thank you so much, Jayne. So now I just want to come to Ana. So now that you're leading this project, where would you like to see it go?

Dr Ana Vuin

So, I would like to see it flourish and engage more women of different backgrounds into the network and process. We're already started, so we already have some new members. We're already doing that. And each one of the members brought in their skills, knowledge and experiences, which is an invaluable contribution for our network. As we know women are major contributor to rural dynamics and landscapes and they bring in and sustain a range of different social activities, whether they're paid or unpaid. So, and generally hold multiple, sometimes, even overlapping roles in these landscapes. So, considering their contribution and their multiple roles, I would like to see a more research geared towards exploration of their capacities of that potential in rural landscapes and especially as we're kind of heading towards Net zero initiatives and activities and we have net zero ambitions in Scotland I would like to see alternative economies being explored and I feel like women could be a great part of that. So, this network and this project could serve as a wonderful not just background, but the framework for building on that.

Alexa Green

Thanks so much, Ana. I'd like to close on a final question for all of our speakers, which is what are you hoping to see come out of this knowledge network?

Dr Jayne Glass

Yeah, I think as well going back to thinking about this, this funds that we applied to from Scottish Government, you know the Arctic Connections framework that the government's working with, I think it would be fantastic from this bit of work to take some inspiration and ideas from the examples that we're finding in the different countries and then sitting back and thinking about how those could be applied in the Scottish context, we know there's already a lot of innovation happening in in rural areas in Scotland, whether that's through social enterprise, through your community ownership, lots of different models in which women are very heavily involved. And so, I think just to see some additional learning and ideas flowing from our work into that already, vibrant scene would be very important.

Dr Bregje van Veelen

That's a very. Good question. I think first of all, I think one of the main, the real values for me in this network is this opportunity to connect to other women, whether they're researchers, practitioners, policymakers in different countries. So, I think that also gives the network a life beyond, you know, just the period for which it's funded in terms of I have a much better sense now if I have questions in the future about, you know, what does a particular situation look like in different countries, for example? People you know, like what you just asked me about in terms of, you know, how does this, you know, situation that you've observed in Canada? How does that play out in other places? I now feel like I have other people that I can go to with these questions in terms of learning or better understanding how these posts, how these processes are playing out in different places. But I think ultimately, you know this idea of applying what works in one place and simply transferring that to someone to somewhere else is often not as easy as we'd like it to be. The sort of transferring of lessons, but I think the network is a really useful place to start thinking about: So, what are the lessons that we have from different countries and then to use that as a starting point to think through? Well, but how can we apply those potentially to other places? So, it's really that international learning. I think that for me. Is one of the key values of the network and I hope that some of those lessons will be of practical use to both researchers and practitioners in some of the different countries that are represented in the network.

Dr Ana Vuin

So, I'm hoping to see in the future basically to take this into the field work, because that's my forte personally and also, I would like to see this transferred to Scottish soil because I feel there is a lot to work with in Scotland, not only with Scottish women Scottish Entrepreneurs, but also with Scottish rural communities. Considering the Scottish Government is very ambitious, it has very ambitious goals towards net zero and that's approaching pretty quickly. There is a need for this type of research and there is a need for exploration of different economies, alternative economies, different participants and stakeholders in these processes and justice, the exploration of how can we do it in the I wouldn't say necessarily the fastest, but the most feasible way, and I feel like women could be catalysts of that change or that shift. Unfortunately, women are usually overseen during these processes and as we can see from other from other examples, for example what Brekky mentioned previously. We can see that there are some direct and indirect impacts on women, but rarely they're acknowledged in literature or in practise, and additionally, on top of that, when we're talking about women in the Global North, we can see that there is far less research on them in comparison to female. Rural entrepreneurs in Global South, which has been explored through different venues like crowdsourcing support, engagement, their position in the society, the barriers that prevent them from participating in these processes. These barriers still exist for women in Global North, but I feel like they've been kind of on the research and there is still a lot of areas we can tap into because this is in a way, cutting-edge research because we're combining roof of e-mail entry. And worship and net zero initiatives, which are still kind of abstract topics. If we are thinking about, how do we define entrepreneurship nowadays in comparison to previous eras and how what does it mean in rural context? Because obviously the urban and rural entrepreneurial activities. Will not look the same, and if we look at different processes, barriers, stakeholders in rural context, we can see that they are very different from the urban context. So obviously creating strategies for entrepreneurs that should be applicable to rural and urban settings won't really work or be transferable as we would like them to see. Some of the examples from rural Sweden indicate that if the strategies are developed in rural contexts by rural population, they are fairly transferable to urban context. But not vice versa. And I think that that type of knowledge is something we can utilise for this type of research and this type of these types of projects.

Alexa Green

That's great. Thank you so much. Jayne, Bregje and Ana for joining us today. We're really excited to see what comes out of this knowledge network and on behalf of Ana and I, we're really looking forward to continuing this research and to sharing this podcast with our knowledge network. SRU's Rural Policy Centre is a knowledge hub for rural Scotland. We engage and collaborate with researchers, businesses and communities to share the latest knowledge with policymakers in Scotland. We hope you enjoyed listening.