Diana Valero

Research

With a strong focus on social justice, Diana works with people, communities and stakeholders to understand and address pressing societal challenges while supporting positive transformative change. Her research investigates social change and sustainable development, particularly in rural communities, in order to contribute to the development of a fairer society in the light of challenges such as climate chaos, water scarcity and increasing social inequalities. She focuses on understanding the drivers of cooperation, innovation, conflicts and inequalities in rural areas and their links with social cohesion and positive social change.

Her key research interests include:

• Resilience to water-related challenges (water insecurity, water scarcity, flooding)
• Social innovation
• Policy processes, institutional arrangements and public narratives
• Social justice and inequalities in the face of socio-environmental conflicts
• Serious games

Diana is experienced in qualitative and mixed research methods, with a strong focus on participatory methods and working creatively with stakeholders. She is experienced in implementing a variety of research tools, including: in-depth interviews and focus groups; participatory workshops; games-based research; research with social media groups, and narrative analysis and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA).

Ongoing research projects:

• JHI D2-1 Emerging Water Futures: Diana coordinates A4.1 and A4.2, which explore the resilience of private water supplies and rural communities’ vulnerability and risk perceptions to water scarcity and variable water quality.
• WISE4Forth Water Insecurity and Scarcity Engagement for Forth communities : Diana leads WP3 on the assessment of people’s perceptions of water insecurity at household level in the Forth area.
• JHI D5-3 Galvanising Change via Natural Capital: Diana contributes to WP2 exploring when and how natural capital concepts and data might influence policy planning and evaluation processes.
• The Horizon Europe RURACTIVE – Empowering rural communities to act for change. Along with the HUTTON team working on the project, Diana is particularly involved in the identification of community-led smart solutions in rural areas and the analysis of enablers and processes for rural innovation, with a focus on women-led innovation.
• Ecological Knowledge Games – EcoKnowGames (funded by the UKRI cross research council responsive mode pilot scheme). This project leverages the technology of video games to evaluate sustainable development solutions and share diverse views on human development. Diana leads WP3, exploring how in-game worlds can be used to test hypotheses about decision-making.

Diana is also one of the supervisors of the Hydro Nation Schola PhD project “Transforming to a water-resilient future: Place-based wastewater innovation pathways” that is being developed by Bridget Bennet at Glasgow Caledonian University.

Past research

Finished projects:

• 2021-2024: MDT Fellowship in Rural Water Security: As MDT Fellow, Diana’s work was focused on the understanding water security challenges in Scotland and the potential for community action and social innovation for overcoming them.
• 2023-2024: CREW project “Understanding the relationship between water scarcity and land use in private water supply catchments“. Diana worked in the review international protection and management practices of interest for Scotland.
• 2023: DigiEthics: Navigating Digital Ethics for Rural Research. Project funded by the Scotland Hub of the British Academy Early Career Research Network that explored, from an ethics point of view, how researchers and administrators of rural community Facebook groups can agree on the conditions to utilise such networks for better research.
• 2022-2023: Increasing wastewater stewardship (WASTEWATERSHIP). Diana led this research, funded by the Hydro Nation Chair R & I Programme, which explored what communities can do for wastewater governance in Scotland and how enhanced engagement could take place.
• 2021-2022: CREW project led by Rowan Ellis, exploring barriers to engaging with private sewerage users and how to overcome them in support of sustainable rural water services.

Before joining Hutton:

Prior to joining Hutton in 2021, Diana was a postdoc at the University of Stirling and at the Centre for Mountain Studies in the University of the Highlands and Islands. Diana earned her PhD from the University of Valencia in Spain.

Her PhD and pre-doctoral research investigated social exclusion in rural areas in Spain and the local policies that were in place to address it.

As a postdoc, she worked on international projects exploring different aspects of sustainable rural development such as social innovation (Horizon 2020 SIMRA- ‘Social Innovation in Marginalised Rural Areas’), ecotourism and stakeholder engagement (Northern Periphery and Arctic Programme SHAPE- ‘Sustainable Heritage Areas: Partnerships for Ecotourism’), production and provision of renewable energy (ESPON 2020 BRIDGES –‘Balanced Regional Development in Territories with Geographical Specificities’), and land management decisions in agriculture (Newton funded project ENDORSE ‘Enhancing Diversity to Overcome Resistance Evolution’).