Ian Merrell

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• Doctor of Philosophy
• Research Fellow at Scotland's Rural College

Drawing on 40 interviews with owner-managers and eight enterprise hub managers, this study critically assesses the workspace preferences, motivations, and experiences of enterprise hub tenants. This provides a means to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of four types of entrepreneurial workspaces (home-based, conventional rented office space, en...

What were we trying to find out? We developed a methodology to determine if there is a relationship between landownership and, firstly, land use decisions (a land use change, continuation on the same path, diversification etc.), and secondly, monetary flows into land, and whether either of these are affected by a recent sale (i.e. a sale triggers a...

Land prices in Scotland took at dramatic upward turn around 2019-21. This was partly due to the interest in natural capital markets, as the Scottish Government introduced ambitious plans for reaching Net Zero and significant financial incentives to pursue Nature Based Solutions to carbon sequestration.We were interested to find out whether the mean...

What were we trying to find out?Scotland has a suite of different policies relating to land use, reflecting the complexities of balancing different land-use aims, including food production and forestry, environmental protection, climate change mitigation and socio-economic benefits. This research explored the relative influence of different land-us...

What were we trying to find out?We are interested in the decision-making processes, behaviours and motivations of landowners or land managers, particularly around their future land use decisions and investment strategies into their land.What did we do?We interviewed landowners and land managers in four case study areas across Scotland (River catchm...

This is the third report in the Rural Land Market Insights Report series. It uses qualitative insights from a range of land agents operating across Scotland to report on recent and emerging trends occurring in all sectors of the land market. This year 17 agents were interviewed between November 2023 – February 2024, and were asked how the market p...

This is a literature review that focuses on land use change and considers behavioural and decision-making frameworks commonly applied in agriculture and other land-based activities. The result is an approach that uses the Scottish Government’s Individual Social Material (ISM) model, moment of change theory and policy nudges to showcase the various...

This is a literature review (a ‘rapid evidence assessment’ to be precise) of land investment strategies, particularly two land uses that are prominent within the investment strategies of private sector companies, institutional investors, and private wealthy individuals – renewable energy and forestry investments. Factors were extracted from the lit...

This is a research briefing that covers two key areas: how land is valued, and what land ownership diversification means to different stakeholders involved in land. A focus group with land valuers was conducted to discover that the means of valuing land is rapidly changing due to the sudden interest in natural capital payments (i.e. carbon credits)...

Coworking has been a largely urban phenomenon although new initiatives are emerging in rural areas. Rural coworking is partly a response to the growing need for ICT, which is unevenly provided across rural areas, and partly to the social needs of freelancers and home-workers. By combining technological and social functions, coworking spaces can pla...

Rural Enterprise Hubs (REHs) are mechanisms for bringing together rural businesses. The co-location of businesses drives innovation through knowledge exchange, where face-to-face contact still matters. They provide additional opportunities to network, acquire knowledge, form new collaborations, and create synergies between tenants. REHs can also ac...

This article in Regions ezine looks at the differences between urban and rural enterprise hubs and coworking spaces, with data drawn from my PhD thesis and recent publications

Until recently, rural areas have been largely disregarded in innovation policies, due to the lack of physical proximity between businesses required to create agglomeration benefits. Rural enterprise hubs – defined as physical infrastructure that provides workspaces to multiple tenant businesses, with additional services such as shared equipment, me...

Rural areas are steadily being marginalised in a global economy where ‘core/periphery’ models of development are dominant. To overcome this, rural areas have experimented with decentralised governance. However, this process is fraught with political, fiscal, and institutional difficulties. These often revolve around transparency and accountability...

Rural enterprise hubs are physical infrastructures designed to help rural businesses access tangible and intangible benefits. They generally operate within two main business models: ‘Honey Pots’ (i.e. targeting business-to-customer tenants) and ‘Hives’ (i.e. targeting business‐to‐business tenants). This paper focuses on the former type, Honey Pot h...

Once considered an urban phenomenon, rural enterprise hubs (REH) and rural coworking spaces (RCWS) are now increasing in popularity to support entrepreneurial rural communities. Whilst previous research has examined economic and community benefits, a focus on well-being benefits has been overlooked. Framed by self-determination theory, this empiric...

Flood risk and associated impacts are major societal and policy concerns following widespread flooding in December 2015, which cost the UK economy an estimated £5billion. Increasing advocacy for alternatives to conventional hard engineering solutions is accompanied by demands for evidence. This study provides a systematic review and meta‐analysis o...