Cris Andrews Writer

Geothermal energy: niche trials or mainstream energy source?

An issue-led feature exploring whether geothermal energy can become a viable part of the UK’s renewable energy supply.

The UK's first geothermal power plant has been turned on, and will provide renewable electricity locally, using hot water from underground. Similar projects being discussed elsewhere in UK, but major investment and government backing is required if geothermal plants are to become a mainstream power source.

There are many challenges to overcome making this idea applicable across a wide range of sectors - energy, environmental, engineering, technology, finance, PR, design, construction. It would also work for policy-focused publications, professional and trade journals. 

Nature-based engineering and climate resilience

Can nature-based engineering deliver resilient flood defences, restore ecosystems, strengthen food security and enhance national resilience to climate and environmental risk?

Explores landscape design, ecosystem restoration and hybrid engineering systems, and whether regulations, funding and professional culture are keeping pace.

Uses expert insight and recent research to turn complex scientific, engineering and policy developments into clear, accessible editorial analysis. An issue-led, expert-informed feature suitable for engineering, environment, science, policy, business and sustainability publications.

What defines a modern “main event” sport stadium?

Examines how and why those who run sports organisations are replacing historic venues with high profile, multi-functional stadiums. Choosing infrastructure that is designed for global events, legacy use and commercial flexibility, not just the needs of the sports team or teams that play there.

Explores how finance, design, engineering, construction and policy is reshaping stadium design - from crowd flow modelling and structural optimisation to climate control, energy systems and broadcast integration.

Strong fit for sport, finance, engineering, technology, design, construction, infrastructure and professional publications.

Fear, uncertainty and our relationship with unknown landscapes

The 125th anniversary of The Hound of the Baskervilles is approaching (September to December 2026) Conan Doyle’s most famous Sherlock Holmes story was set against the brooding Dartmoor moorland. 

 This feature explores why remote and unfamiliar landscapes can feel psychologically unsettling, and how human responses to darkness, isolation and uncertainty in wild environments reflect broader patterns in how we interpret risk, unfamiliarity and change in everyday life. Also, why some people experience these settings as stimulating or restorative, while others find them threatening and avoid them.

Uses psychological research and expert insight to translate complex ideas about perception and fear into clear, accessible editorial narratives. Highly flexible idea that can be positioned across a wide range of publications: science, psychology, environment and nature, culture & society, travel & lifestyle, history, general interest

Gambling Levy and the future of harm reduction funding

Explores how the UK-wide statutory Gambling Levy will reshape the way harm-prevention organisations are funded, and what this means for how projects are designed, delivered and evaluated.

In April, UK government announced the provisional allocation of £25.4 million to support gambling-harms prevention and resilience initiatives.

This is a cross-sector idea suitable for thought leadership and expert-led features across professional and specialist publications including finance, accountancy, management, marketing and education.

Cricket’s Lost Characters: why do modern systems produce fewer unpredictable sporting personalities?

Former Australian Test player once told me that cricket boards expect their players to be the sort of person that mothers approve of when they’re deciding what activities they’re children will and won’t do. Boon was an ICC match referee at the time. As a player he holds the record for number of beers drunk on an Ashes flight from Australia to England.

This feature examines how modern professionalism, media management, franchise cricket and social media have changed the personalities that emerge within the game., The likes of Ian Botham, Fred Trueman, Dennis Lillee and other unpredictable, larger than life characters created their own stories. Has the modern game lost this, or do the more moderate, considered players of today, just tell stories of a different kind? Were characters really bigger and more interesting when Boon played and before. Or are modern systems just less tolerant of unpredictability?

Includes first-hand reflections on interviews with figures like Pietersen, Flintoff, Chappell, Pollock and of course, David Boon. And expert comment from former cricket administrators, academic experts on cricket and society, former players from the transitional era, sports psychology experts.

Suitable for sport, culture and society, psychology, media, heritage and general-interest publications. The piece combines narrative reporting, expert commentary and wider social analysis to explore how memory, identity, nostalgia and folklore continue to shape modern cricket culture.

Britain’s Big Cat Hunters

An atmospheric feature exploring the people who spend years searching the British countryside for evidence of phantom big cats. This includes former police officers and field investigators, cryptozoologists, rural witnesses and wildlife obsessives. Rather than focusing on whether the animals exist, the piece examines why the search continues despite the lack of definitive proof, and what this reveals about folklore, belief, uncertainty, obsession and our relationship with landscape and wilderness in modern Britain.

Combines narrative reporting, psychology, folklore, environmental context and human stories to build a wider exploration of why mysteries endure, and why some people dedicate their lives to chasing them.

Suitable for culture and society, psychology, outdoors and countryside, wildlife, heritage, general-interest and long-form narrative publications.

Dog Owners, Boundaries and the English Park

A dog runs up to you in a park, tail wagging happily. You greet the dog with warmth and a few kind words, only to be confronted with a response from its owner that can best be described as odd, at worst downright rude.

This is a behaviour-led feature exploring what apparently trivial encounters in public parks — such as strangers greeting loose dogs — reveal about English social behaviour, emotional boundaries and indirect communication. Using recognisable real-world situations as an entry point, the piece examines how reserve, anxiety, class-coded ideas of “proper” behaviour and attitudes toward public space shape reactions that can appear defensive, awkward or passive-aggressive to others.

The feature combines observation, psychology, sociology and cultural history to unpack wider themes of trust, control, social uncertainty and the way people negotiate everyday interactions with strangers. Balancing human insight with accessible analysis, it turns ordinary moments into a wider exploration of behaviour and modern public life.

Flexible enough to work as a long-form feature, behavioural explainer or culture-and-society piece, the idea suits psychology, lifestyle, wellbeing, behavioural science, general-interest and narrative non-fiction publications.