Skip to content

Dr Helen Roby

Research Associate

You can email Dr Helen Roby directly; but for media enquiries please contact a member of The Open University's Media Relations team.

Staff profile

See below for Dr Helen Roby's:

Biography

Helen is a Research Associate and Business Development Manager for ISM-Open. She joined the Open University in October 2006 to undertake her PhD after completing her degree with the Open University. She continued to work as a Research Associate within Maths, Computing and Technology before joining ISM-Open in 2011.

Research interests

 

Current research interests

  • Behaviour change communication techniques and social marketing to encourage sustainable behaviour.
  • Altering personal consumption practices through behaviour change to reduce  the impact on the environment
  • The motivations and barriers for a business in making their practices more sustainable
  • The methods by which process innovations are firstly embedded into organisational practices and culture and then into individual behaviour.
  • The importance of corporate responsibility and regulatory frameworks to drive sustainable business practices.

Current research projects

Disruption – The Raw Material for Low Carbon Travel, RCUK Energy Programme, 3 year project September 2011 to September 2014. £1.3 million project, of which my part is £75k over the 3 years. The project looks at how travel practices are formed and directed by underlying societal factors, and that people’s travel behaviour is less fixed and routine than it is often considered to be. The project looks at the way people’s lives are frequently disrupted by a whole range of possible events, from family illnesses to volcanic ash clouds. The insights that these disruptions provide can help reveal the kinds of changes, to transport and other policy sectors such as health, education and business that are needed to inspire and facilitate a shift to lower carbon travel.

Sustainable Clothing in collaboration with Maths Computing and Technology, Open University Seed Funding £7k, 2011. The aim of the project is to explore the priorities to help make the production and consumption of clothing more sustainable and ethical. The work is an exploratory study that has involved interviewing a range of key informants in academia, consultancies and retailers to determine what progress has already been made, the barriers and priorities for the future. This work has helped to start forming a network of contacts in this field and the development of a British Academy Small Grants bid.

 

Project Falcon A £12m project funded by Ofgem in collaboration with Western Power Distribution, Bath Univeristy and Cranfield University. The project aims to develop tools to understand and manage the 11kv electricity supply network, so that it is better able to cope with the demands of de-centralised electricity production. Helen will be involved with the dissemination phase, working with the general public and Western Power Distributio, so that both parties are better able to understand each others requirements and perceptions.

 

Completed research projects

 

Smarter Business Travel, Transport for London £55k, 2010. The project funded by TfL and completed in conjunction with the Transport Research Laboratories (TRL), looked at business travel patterns in the London area and best practice by private sector organisations in sustainable business travel policies. The project looked at the wider organisational practices and cultures that affected travel policies and the increasing use of virtual meeting technologies to reduce the effect of meetings on the environment. This work also studied the marketing and change processes used by the businesses to implement and embed individual behaviour change and the attitude of business to the use of electric vehicles within their operations.

External contributions

In 2010 and 2011 Helen was a judge for BiTCs Sustainable Travel Awards. She has been invited to present at a number of practitioner workshops and seminars on sustainable travel practices within businesses and the alternative to travel.

Areas of expertise

  • personal sustainable travel within business
  • behaviour change
  • travel plans
  • alternatives to travel
  • sustainable and ethical clothing

Current projects

Publications

Journal papers
Roby, H  (2010)  'Workplace travel plans: past, present and future', Journal of Transport Geography, vol. 1, issue 18, pp. 23-30.
Conference papers
Roby, H  (2012)  'The benefits of retrofitting sustainable transport', Retrofit 2012, Salford, Manchester. Abstract
Potter, S, Roby, H, Cook, M, Langendahl, P-A  (2011)  'Transport and environmental innovation', Sustainable Innovation 11 'State of the Art in Sustainable Innovation and Design', Farnham, Surrey. Abstract
Roby, H  (2011)  'The implications of a change in business travel policy on the wider organisation and public policy', UTSG, Annual Conference, The Open University, Milton Keynes, The Open University, Milton Keynes. Abstract
Roby, H  (2010)  'Applying business studies methods to transport research', UTSG Annual Conference, Plymouth University, January.
Potter, S, Roby, H, Cook, M, Langendahl, P-A  (2010)  'Transport and environmental innovation', ‘State of the Art’ in Sustainable Innovation and Design, Farnham, UK. Abstract
Roby, H  (2009)  'The development of workplace travel plans', UTSG Annual Conference, UCL London, January.