Large scale, multi-organisational collaborations between researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds are increasingly recognised as important to investigate and tackle complex real-world problems. However differing expectations, epistemologies, and preferences across these teams pose challenges to following best practice for ensuring high-quality and rigorous qualitative research, while maintaining goodwill and team cohesion across team members. This article presents critical reflections from the real-world experiences of a team navigating the challenges of collaborating on a large-scale, cross-disciplinary interview study. Based on these experiences, we extend the literature on large team qualitative collaboration by highlighting the importance of balancing autonomy and collaboration, and propose eight recommendations to support high quality research and team cohesion. We identify how this balance can be achieved at different times: when centralised decision-making should be prioritised, and autonomy can be allowed. We argue that prioritising time to develop shared understandings, build trust, and creating positive environments that accept and support differing researcher perspectives on qualitative methods is paramount. By exploring and reflecting on these differences, teams can identify how and when to support autonomy in decision-making, when to move forward collaboratively, and how to ensure that shared processes reflect the needs of the whole team. The reflexive findings, emanating from practical experience, can inform large research teams undertaking qualitative studies to explore complex issues. We make an original contribution to qualitative methods research by arguing that balancing autonomy and collaboration is the key to promoting high quality research and cohesion in large teams.

A local plan is a statutory policy document that supports urban development decisions across a local government area in England. Local plans are reported to need more specific requirements for development proposals regarding wider health determinants to address potential health outcomes and health inequalities. This study reviews the integration of Health in Local Plans of seven local planning authorities through documentary analysis methods. A review framework was formulated based on health and planning literature regarding local plans, health policy and determinants of health and dialogue with a local government partner. The findings identify opportunities to strengthen the consideration of Health in Local Plans, including ensuring that policies are informed by local health priorities and signpost national guidance, strengthening health-related requirements for developers (e.g., indoor air quality, fuel poverty and security of tenure) and improving implementation of requirements for developers (e.g., through adoption of health management plans and community ownership). The study identifies further research needs regarding how policies are interpreted by developers in practice, and on national guidance for Health Impact Assessment. It highlights the benefit of undertaking a comparative review, contrasting local plan policy language and identifying opportunities to share, adapt and strengthen planning requirements regarding health outcomes.

Green Infrastructure (GI) evaluation is reported to improve the sustainability of neighbourhood masterplans, but there has been little research examining the links between GI evaluation and masterplan decision-making. A study of six English masterplanned sites was carried out, with paired case studies reflecting three types of neighbourhood development (estate regeneration, urban infill, and rural-urban extension) to examine whether the sustainable neighbourhood standard, BREEAM Communities (BC), affected GI evaluation and masterplan decisions. In each of three pairs, one site had adopted BC and one had not. Strategy-as-Practice provided a conceptual framework to analyse 13 evaluative episodes, based on 48 interviews and public documents. The analysis revealed that GI-related recommendations were typically deprioritised at later masterplan stages, despite earlier decisions or the application of BC. Potential ways to enhance the embeddedness of GI evaluative practice include improving practitioners’ understanding of GI and increasing accountability at later masterplan stages, such as through sustainability reporting.

A growing number of international standards promote Healthy Built Environment (HBE) principles which aim to enhance occupant and user health and wellbeing. Few studies examine the implementation of these standards; whether and how they affect health through changes to built-environment design, construction, and operations. This study reviews a set of sustainability and HBE standards, based on a qualitative analysis of standard documents, standard and socio-technical literature on normalization and negotiation, and interviews with 31 practitioners from four geographical regions. The analysis indicates that standards can impact individual, organizational, and market-scale definitions of an HBE. Some changes to practice are identified, such as procurement and internal layout decisions. There is more limited evidence of changes to dominant, short-term decision-making practices related to cost control and user engagement in operational decisions. HBE standards risk establishing narrow definitions of health and wellbeing focused on building occupants rather than promoting broader, contextually situated, principles of equity, inclusion, and ecosystem functioning crucial for health. There is a need to improve sustainability and HBE standards to take better account of local contexts and promote systems thinking. Further examination of dominant collective negotiation processes is required to identify opportunities to better embed standards within organizational practice.