Mags Currie

Senior Researcher
Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences
E: margaret.currie@hutton.ac.uk
T: +44 (0)344 928 5428 (*)

Mags is a senior researcher working in the Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences Department within the People and Places group. She joined the James Hutton Institute in January 2013.

She is a human geographer who has a BSc in Environmental Geography and a MSc in Rural and Regional Resources Planning (University of Aberdeen). Between 2001 to 2004 she worked as a research assistant at the University of Aberdeen helping to develop a tool to appraise policies for their accessibility impacts in rural areas and also considering the ways that health services are adapted to suit rural and urban circumstances. For her PhD, she considered the ability of policies which provided support to bus services to promote accessibility in rural areas of Scotland.

Between September 2007 to December 2012, Mags was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Rural Health at the University of the Highlands and Islands working on a number of different projects relating to links between health and wellbeing and natural environments, rural health service provision and configuration (particularly the place of new professional roles), how rural communities are changing and responding to these changes and the use of e-health to develop future solutions for rural communities.

Research

Mags contributes a geographical perspective to addressing place-based challenges and spatial injustices faced by rural communities and investigating innovative ways in which these challenges can be met to promote resilience, health and wellbeing to rural communities. From 2017 – 2022 she has led the Communities and Wellbeing Work Package of the Scottish Government’s 2016-2022 Strategic Research Programme, which included an interdisciplinary mixed-methods project on the Impacts of Covid-19 in rural areas of Scotland. She is also a co-investigator on the EUH2020 DESIRA (Digitalisation: Economic and Social Impacts in Rural Areas (2019-23) project. In investigating how processes of engagement, empowerment and reslience occur and change over time in different rural spaces and places Mags is driven by research involving interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary teams and working to exchange knowledge and create impact with policy makers, public bodies, the third sector and local (rural) communities.

PhD Supervision

Kirsten Gow (due to submit 2025)

Marcus Craigie (due to submit 2025)

Past research

  •  Co-investigator on National Islands Plan Survey for the Scottish Government (2020-2021).
  • Hutton lead and co-investiagtor for the EUH2020 RELOCAL project leading Work Package 8 on scenarios for spatial justice.
  • Co-led the Long-term impacts of flooding project funded by Centre of Expertise for Water (CREW).
  • Co-led the Community Engagement around Private Water Supplies Project funded by CREW
  • Theme 8: Understanding the linkages and interdependencies between rural and urban areas (RESAS Strategic Research Programme 2011-2016)
  • WP8.3.1 Models and resource flows between rural and urban areas (RESAS Strategic Research Programme 2011-2016)
  • WP8.3.3 Understanding how urban and rural greenspace shapes wellbeing (RESAS Strategic Research Programme 2011-2016)
  • DICE – “Developing an Interdisciplinary Culture of Excellence” – James Hutton Institute Seedcorn funding
  • TOPS – Technologies to Support Older People at home: maximising personal and social interaction (through University of Aberdeen’s RCUK dot.rural research hub)
  • Evaluation of Community Nurse Consultant Role (QNIS)

Supervision of completed PhD Studentships:

Dr Rachel Creaney (ESRC) 2021

Dr Rod Lovey (Transport Scotland) 2021

Dr Andrew Maclaren (Joint Studentship Scheme) 2018

Dr Gillian Dowds (UKRI) 2016

Dr Amy Nimegeer (KTP) 2013

Publications

Journals

Prior to appointment

Books / chapters

Technical / contract reports

Conference papers

  • Wilson, R.; Noble, C.; Currie, M. (2022) A new idyll Harnessing newfound appetite for rural migration during Covid19, Trans-Atlantic Rural Research Network (TARRN), 23-25 May 2022, Newcastle University
  • Currie, M.; Pinker, A.; McKee, A. (2021) Do community buyouts of private land(scapes) lead to spatial justice The case of Lewis, Scotland, Royal Geographical Society Annual Conference 2021.
  • Philip, L.; Currie, M.; Dowds, G. (2020) The long-term impacts of flooding: understanding individuals’ wellbeing and resilience in the years after floods happen., SNIFFER Scotland’s Flood Risk Management Conference, 20-31 January 2020. Conference Report, p11.
  • Currie, M.; Atterton, J. (2018) Place-based policy support for innovative service provision in Scotland: Lessons of use to our Nordic neighbours?, 5th Nordic Rural Research Conference, Vingsted, Denmark, 14-16 May 2018. Conference Book, Challenged Ruralities: Nordic Welfare States under Pressure, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, p59. Abstract.
  • Currie, M. (2018) ’Everyday’ and ‘Emergency’: Reflecting on transdisciplinary confusion when framing and understanding community resilience., 5th Nordic Rural Research Conference, Vingsted, Denmark, 14-16 May 2018. Conference Book, Challenged Ruralities: Nordic Welfare States under Pressure, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, p42. Abstract.
  • McKee, A.; Philip, L.; Currie, M.; Dowds, G. (2018) Assessing the impacts of flooding on people and communities:
    Learning from the experiences of the 2015/16 flooding in North-East Scotland.    , SNIFFER Flood Risk Management Conference, Strathclyde Technology and Innovation Centre, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 5-6 February 2018.
  • Macleod, C.J.A.; Irvine, K.N.; Currie, M.; Munoz-Rojas, J.; Morris, S.; Falloon, P.; Fox, T.A.; Matthews, R.; Birch, A.N.E.; Craig, T.; Goulding, K.; Shamal, S.A.M. (2015) Systems thinking in human-environment science: synthesis of research, policy and perspectives on using and improving existing collaborative working approaches across the water, energy, food and environment nexus., Center for Environmental Change and Human Resilience (CECHR) Symposium, University of Dundee, February 2015.
  • Dowds, G.; Philip, L.J.; Currie, M. (2015) Bringing the outside in: technology for increasing engagement with the outside world among rural housebound older adults., XXVI European Society for Rural Sociology Congress, ‘Places of possibility? Rural Societies in a Neoliberal World’, Aberdeen, 18-21 August 2015.
  • Currie, M.; Farmer, J.; Kenny, A.; Munoz, S-A. (2015) An exploration of the longer-term impacts of community participation in rural health services design and links to wellbeing., XXVI European Society for Rural Sociology Congress, ‘Places of possibility? Rural Societies in a Neoliberal World’, Aberdeen, 18-21 August 2015.
  • Currie, M.; Gilbert, A.; Farmer, J. (2015) Informing service change? What we can and cannot tell about health service provision in rural and urban areas using national datasets., Trans-Atlantic Rural Researcher Network Conference (TARRN), The Penn State University, USA, 17-21 May 2015.
  • Philip, L.; Roberts, A.; Currie, M.; Mort, A. (2013) Personal and social interaction amongst the older rural population with chronic pain., XXVth Congress of the European Society for Rural Sociology, Rural Resilience and Vulnerability: Rural resilience and vulnerability: The rural as locus of solidarity and conflict in times of crisis, Florence, Italy, 29 July – 1 August 2013. eProceedings, Laboratorio di studi rurali SISMONDI, Pisa, Italy, pp195-196.

Conference posters / abstracts

  • Hopkins, J.; Schurch, N.; Martinez Sanchez, G.; Currie, M.; Farinelli, V. (2023) Can we understand the ‘Wellbeing Economy’ by Measuring ‘Inclusive Growth’ Insights from a Granular Analysis within Scotland, UK, Presented at Regional Studies Association Annual Conference, 14-17 June 2023, Ljubljana, Slovenia and Online
  • McKee, A.; McMorran, R.; Currie, M.; Pinker, A.; Meador, E.; Markantoni, M. (2018) What does rural community resilience mean to you? Results from a Delphi survey of experts in Scotland., 5th Nordic Rural Research Conference, Vingsted, Denmark, 14-16 May 2018. Conference Book, Challenged Ruralities: Nordic Welfare States under Pressure, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, p41. Abstract.
  • Nijnik, M.; Miller, D.R.; Slee, B.; Barlagne, C.; Donaldson-Selby, G.; Harnmeijer, J.; Currie, M.; McKeen, M.; Hewitt, R. (2017) Social innovation in marginalized rural areas: An overview of the H2020 SIMRA project., CECHR Symposium, West Park Conference Centre, Dundee, 22 February 2017.
  • Currie, M.; Gilbert, A. (2013) Health services and disadvantage: access and attitudes to health service provision in rural and urban areas of Scotland and the effects of disadvantage., RESAS Theme 8 Vibrant Rural Communities Workshop, Birnam Arts Centre, Dunkeld, 20 November 2013. Poster.