Dr Claire Hardy

I am a social scientist researcher based at the James Hutton Institute. My interests are surrounding the use of qualitative methods to explore livestock keepers behaviour and barriers to change in relation to animal welfare, disease, biosecurity and best practice. Uptake of biosecurity measures, especially for island and remote-based farmers, is a challenge, and understanding barriers is important for managing impact on the wider agriculture communities. An aligned area of research is in peer-to-peer learning and knowledge exchange, particularly in relation to innovation uptake and impact.

I am currently focusing on developing digital and virtual tools as a method to explore behaviour and perception of people engaging with the environment. Gamification can be used as a research tool to understand farmer behaviour and triggering change. These tools can also be used to enhance engagement with stakeholders using visualisation of place and space. I have led the production of the Hutton DigiForest, DigiFarm and the DigiCroft simulated environments and a number of virtual reality tours for Scottish, UK and European projects.