A Closer Look at the Best Paper by a Young Professional

A Closer Look at the Best Paper by a Young Professional

Following the recent announcement of the Best Paper by a Young Professional award winner, we decided to take a closer look at Lauren James’s award-winning paper.

Lauren, who works as a Healthy Streets Officer at Sustrans, impressed the judges with her very thorough piece of research titled ‘Paving the road to accessibility: the need for inclusive transport policy to enable cycling accessibility for all, no matter of ability or disability. A case study of London’.

The judges described the paper as a well written, unique piece which adopted a case study methodology to assess the implementation of guidance from Local Transport, and what this might mean for disabled people. It shows how guidance and ambition are not always translated effectively into the real world. Lauren explores how cycling for disabled people can be affected by a range of issues including cycling training or access to bikes. Lauren concluded with useful recommendations that others can follow in their day-to-day work. All the judges liked the original piece of research, which will help provide an evidence base for more inclusive cycling design.

Lauren's paper is available to read here.

We also had fantastic entries from other young professionals working in the UK, and wanted to highly commend the paper from Lindsey Stack and Richard Adams. Lindsey and Richard, from Atkins, conducted primary research to explore the travel experiences of people who identify as LGBT+. Their paper, ‘Queer Mobility’ provided three clear recommendations, which along with the survey results, are well worth exploring further.

The Best Paper by a Young Professional award is open to practitioners aged under 28 years and aims to encourage young professionals to share their work and ideas with the wider profession.