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Gibbs, D., Deutz, P. and Proctor, A. (2005) Industrial ecology and eco‐industrial development: a potential paradigm for local and regional development?, Regional Studies 39 , 171–183. Increasingly, concepts such as sustainable development and ecological modernization have entered into local and regional economic policies and strategies. However, integrating environmental and economic aims has proved difficult, despite arguments that sustainability enables ‘win‐win‐win’ solutions. Eco‐industrial development is a recent policy initiative that attempts to integrate economic, social and environmental aims in a concrete form. Derived from concepts of industrial ecology, eco‐industrial developments seek to increase business competitiveness, reduce waste and pollution, create jobs, and improve working conditions. While these initiatives are said to offer a new basis for local and regional development, there has been little critical evaluation of eco‐industrial development.Eco‐industrial development, Industrial ecology, Regions, Local economy, Développment éco‐industriel, Ecologie industrielle, Régions, Economie locale, Öko‐industrielle, Entwicklung, Industrielle Ökologie, Regionen örtliche, Wirtschaft, Desarrollo eco‐industrial, Ecología industrial, Regiones, Economía local, JEL classifications: L52, R38, R58,

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This paper analyses how the changing governance of animal health has impacted upon veterinary expertise and its role in providing public health benefits. It argues that the social sciences can play an important role in understanding the nature of these changes, but also that their ideas and methods are, in part, responsible for them. The paper begins by examining how veterinary expertise came to be crucial to the regulation of the food chain in the twentieth century. The relationship between the veterinary profession and the state proved mutually beneficial, allowing the state to address the problems of animal health, and the veterinary profession to become identified as central to public health and food supply. However, this relationship has been gradually eroded by the application of neoliberal management techniques to the governance of animal health. This paper traces the impact of these techniques that have caused widespread unease within and beyond the veterinary profession about the consequences for its role in maintaining the public good of animal health. In conclusion, this paper suggests that the development of the social sciences in relation to animal health could contribute more helpfully to further changes in veterinary expertise.

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There is a well-documented interest in how insights from the study of complexity can be applied to policy evaluation. However, important questions remain as to how complexity is understood and used by policy evaluators. We present findings from semi-structured interviews with 30 UK policy evaluators working in food, energy, water and environment policy domains. We explore how they understand, use and approach complexity, and consider the implications for evaluation research and practice. Findings reveal understandings of complexity arising from contextual factors, scale-related issues and perceptions of unpredictability. The evidence indicates terminological and analogical use of complexity and its concepts by policy evaluators, but limited evidence of its literal use. Priorities for the future include framing complexity more pragmatically and as an opportunity not a cost. Communicating this up the policy hierarchy is the key to progressing complexity-appropriate evaluation – this can be enabled by strengthening links between policy evaluation and academic communities.

This article is the fifth in a series of discussion articles produced for Veterinary Record by a group of social scientists and historians drawn together by Philip Lowe, author of the 2009 report 'Unlocking potential: a report on veterinary expertise in food animal production'. The articles reflect on some of the challenges for the profession posed in his report and aim to stimulate debate about the wider role of vets in relation to government and society. Previous articles in the series are listed on p 410 Farmers look to vets to help them understand complex messages-and vets can learn a lot from their clients as well