Research & reports

Bianca Elzenbaumer, Flora Mammana, Carmen Gonzalez Miranda, Irene Manfrini · Local Environment · Italy

This paper explores grassroots infrastructuring supporting communal learning projects focused on caring food practices, from the perspective of practitioners at La Foresta community academy in the Italian Alps. It presents four interdependent activities—a community garden, a participatory drinks initiative, a mobile bread oven, and a forest school—demonstrating how food fosters community economies and empowers eco-social transformation.

Juliane Forßmann, Simon Goebel · Zeitschrift für Flüchtlingsforschung · Germany

An urban gardening project in a residential facility for up to 230 refugees in Germany aims to counteract precarious living conditions. While the garden offers a low-threshold space for knowledge exchange on resource-saving cultivation, biodiversity, and health promotion, this paper also reflects on the project's limits.

Silvia Barbero, Federica Larcher · · Italy (Turin)

This chapter explores the role of the Turin Living Lab in testing nature-based solutions (NBS) in the Mirafiori Sud district of Italy. Local schools play a significant role in testing these solutions. Seven NBS types have been implemented, including new soil, urban horticulture, aquaponics, green roofs and walls, and green corridors.

Coosje Dijkstra, Jutka Halberstadt, Jaap Seidell, Arnoud Verhoefff · VU Research Portal · Netherlands (Amsterdam)

In a school garden in Amsterdam-Zuidoost, children were amazed when their teacher pulled a radish from the ground and ate it. Most children followed suit and discovered that their self-harvested salad was tasty without dressing.

Mercedes Muriel Sáiz · Dialnet (Universidad de la Rioja) · Spain (Madrid)

This article examines the phenomenon of urban gardens from a socio-community perspective, based on a methodology combining a literature review and participant observation in the community garden Ensancha el huerto (Alcorcón, Madrid). The analysis shows that urban gardens operate as micro-ecosystems of mutual support and learning, but the study also highlights risks associated with institutionalization, commodification, and legal insecurity surrounding such initiatives.

Fereday, George, Tang, Bo · London Met Repository (London Metropolitan University) · United Kingdom

This case study examined the integration of regenerative pedagogy in undergraduate architectural education through annual timber structures workshops at Mudchute City Farm, London, over a six-year period. Second-year students learned regenerative design principles focused on climate change, local ecology, and adaptive timber reuse, fostering circular and regenerative design skills. The program prepares students for future architectural challenges, including reducing carbon emissions and increasing biodiversity.

David Caballero Franco, Judith Martín Lucas, Parra Nieto, Gabriel · Dialnet (Universidad de la Rioja) · Spain (Salamanca)

This work describes the Community School Gardens Network (HecoUSAL) project, a Service-Learning program launched in 2013 at the University of Salamanca, Spain. The program aims to improve university education quality, strengthen social commitment, expand sustainability culture, and develop sustainability skills among students. It proposes new teaching-learning models that integrate sustainability skills through multi-sensory, nature-based educational experiences within school environments.

Francesca Gotti, Yona Catrina Schreyer · field · Italy (Bergamo)

This essay describes two alternative spatial practices implemented in Bergamo, Italy: "Software-ing Spaces," a living-designing-building residency in a former monastery, and "Seeds Under the Snow," an experimental laboratory for knowledge exchange and innovative methods within Bergamo's social gardens. Both projects aim to challenge systemic procedures in the construction sector and develop spatial ideas based on empathy, synchronizing place, resources, users, and builders.

Kadri Maikov · Vytautas Magnus University · Europe

The Nordplus project "Healing greenery" has fostered interdisciplinary collaboration since 2018, bringing together international students and lecturers to design healing green spaces. Educational projects serve as a research foundation to raise awareness of environmental risks and the importance of green spaces for mental health, addressing the new generation's disconnect from nature. Participants in annual projects (2021-2024, 19-26 participants each year) highlighted environmental risks including insufficient green spaces and limited awareness of nature’s impact on health.

Lourdes Aragón Núñez, Beatriz Erdozain Manzano · Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education · Spain

Diagnostic research using a questionnaire with 45 closed-ended and 9 open-ended questions was conducted in 21 urban schools in Spain that use gardens in early childhood education. The study assessed the resilience level of school gardens across environmental, economic, social, and curriculum dimensions. Results indicate school gardens are valuable for transforming urban environments and creating resilient communities, generally showing a medium level of resilience, with weaknesses identified in environmental and social dimensions.

Leena Bröll, Aline Haustein · Perspektiven auf Lehre Journal for Higher Education and Academic Development · Germany

An evaluation of a school gardening seminar for student teachers in Saxony, Germany, revealed that practical gardening imparts specialist knowledge, reflection ability, and motivation. These skills are considered crucial for prospective teachers to transmit sustainable values to future generations. School garden lessons, historically introduced in the GDR in 1963/64, are now integrated into primary school science lessons in Saxony.

Noelia Fernández-Salido, Alfonso Gallego‐Valadés, Carlos Serra-Castells, Jorge Garcés Ferrer · Agriculture · Spain (Valencia)

This qualitative study in Valencia, Spain, explored the role of urban allotment gardens in producing social capital. Fifteen in-depth interviews were conducted with key informants involved in urban garden projects. Findings indicate that urban gardens act as relational infrastructures, fostering intergenerational learning and inclusive participation. However, exclusionary attitudes and fragmented governance were found to limit their potential.

Julia Gobs · GAIA - Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society · Germany

This study investigated the school-based food forest project at Chestnut School in Northern Germany, using interviews and participatory methods framed by the Whole School Approach. School-based food forests contribute to holistic education for sustainable development by offering interdisciplinary, hands-on learning environments. They promote systemic thinking, agency, and self-efficacy, fostering human-nature connections, critical thinking, and sustainable food practices.

Iratz Pou de Los Mozos, Igone Palacios-Agúndez, Daniel Zuazagoitia, Unai Coronel Gastiain · IKASTORRATZA e-journal on Didactics · Spain

This field research analyzed the presence and didactic use of school gardens in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, using a two-phase questionnaire approach. The study found a large presence and high didactic use of school gardens, with many interesting experiences, but noted room for improvement. Teacher training and networking among schools were recommended.

Wojciech Sroka, Karol Król, Jakub Kulesza, Marcin Stanuch, Sławomir Lisek · Agriculture · Poland (Kraków)

This study analyzed factors influencing young urban residents' readiness to participate in agro living lab (ALL) projects in Kraków, Poland. Based on a literature review and a survey among university students, it found that readiness to engage in ALL projects is strongly associated with respondents’ field of study, interests, individual experiences, positive attitudes toward urban agriculture, and personal relationships with farmers.

Anna Birgitte Milford, Daniel Keech, Sarah Wangui Muiruri · Agricultural and Food Economics · Europe

This survey study explored differences in organizational models and member characteristics of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Norway and the UK, focusing on factors contributing to member contentment, mental health, and vegetable consumption. Norwegian CSA members participated more actively in cultivation and harvesting and more often prepaid subscriptions than British members. In both countries, CSA membership was perceived to improve members' quality of life, vegetable intake, and physical and mental health, with more active members reporting higher satisfaction and stronger positive effects on vegetable consumption and mental health.

Barelds-Cramer, Leonie, Kapteijns, Annemarie, Battjes-Fries, Marieke · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · Europe

This report presents the outcomes and insights from a series of co-design workshops conducted at four FEAST Living Labs — Leuven (Belgium), Oxfordshire (UK), Ghent (Belgium), and Tuscany (Italy) — aimed at developing community-driven solutions supporting healthier, more sustainable food choices. The workshops used a participatory design methodology including timeline reflection, cognitive mapping of bottlenecks and qualities, and solution-pathway development. In Leuven, mothers of primary-school children wanted enjoyable, healthy, sustainable food to become a social norm, especially in schools, citing increasing exposure to unhealthy food marketing, affordability, and limited healthy school offerings; bottlenecks were mainly at the meso level, and proposed solutions included nutrition education as a standard school subject, stronger regulation of unhealthy food marketing, and digital tools to build knowledge. In Oxfordshire, parents of young children prioritized access to affordable fresh produce, opportunities for community growing, time to cook from scratch, and reduced waste; bottlenecks were more often at the micro level — limited skills, fussy eating, convenience pressures, and high food prices — with solutions including a free recipe and advice app, community gardens, cooking classes, better promotion of local support services, and initiatives connecting farmers and residents. In Ghent, professional stakeholders from food-related organizations in disadvantaged neighborhoods shared a goal of fair food access and stronger community connection through food, identifying bottlenecks in fragmented service provision, pricing barriers, and limited visibility of available food support.

Kolawole Farinloye, Grzegorz M. Józefaciuk, Samson O. Ojo, Ibukun A. Ayodele, Mayowa A. Aduloju · Journal of Natural Resource Conservation and Management · United Kingdom

A study evaluated the agritourism potential of Mudchute Park and Farm, an urban farm in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Canary Wharf, London, United Kingdom, using a mixed-methods approach that combined qualitative assessment of the farm's existing infrastructure and programming with quantitative analysis of its plant and animal biodiversity (2025). Structured data was used to model potential offerings such as educational programs, hands-on workshops and thematic tours. The farm's collection of rare-breed animals and native and cultivated plant species was identified as a base for development, and the study proposed recommendations including a farm-to-fork culinary experience, expanded seasonal festival programming, and leveraging the farm's position as a rural site within a major city.

Mieke Lopes Cardozo, Bas van den Berg, Koen Rens Wessels · · Europe

A narrative account of involvement with FRIS, a community within the University of Amsterdam working on education innovation for a fair, resilient, and inclusive society. The speaker, Mieke, describes being invited to coordinate and supervise a round of thematic teaching-innovation scholarships—organized jointly by the university's Teaching and Learning Centre and the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies as part of the university's strategic plan—and to help build a learning community oriented toward more regenerative ways of learning and working.

Janine Opitz, Monika Egerer · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · Germany

An online survey of 111 responding projects from Germany's urban community gardening network examined the presence and diversity of nut tree species and the motivations and challenges for adopting and expanding them. Nut trees existed in almost half of the responding projects, but in small numbers with low yields, hindered by limited space, local laws and regulations, and interaction with other garden species, and only 50% of projects planned to incorporate more nut tree species in the future.

Emmanouel Arizanis, Dimitrios Kyriazis, Vassilis Barkoukis · Journal of Adventure Education & Outdoor Learning · Europe

This study tested the effectiveness of a specially designed school garden project aimed at improving intrinsic motivation (enjoyment, satisfaction/effort), social skills (responsibility, cooperation), and behavior (attitude, intention) as components of environmental behavior, among 152 fourth- and sixth-grade primary school pupils in Greece (M = 10.89 years, SD = 0.99), assigned to intervention and control groups. Pupils were tested before the intervention, at its end, and two months afterward. Over an eight-week intervention of two hours per week aligned with the Greek school curriculum, the intervention group attended the school garden project while the control group attended unrelated projects. The analysis found the program had a long-lasting effect on pupils' environmental behavior.

Anna Stage (17743305), Marie Caroline Vermund (11075551), Mads Bølling (6661577), Camilla Roed Otte (21175813), Alberte Laura Oest Müllertz (21175816), Peter Bentsen (3527732), Glen Nielsen (10468844), Peter Elsborg (8894495) · Figshare · Europe

This is the SPIRIT checklist for the FoodACT protocol, a multimethod, quasi-experimental study preregistered with ClinicalTrials.gov (#NCT05839080) investigating how the existing Danish school garden program Gardens to Bellies (GtB), delivered at six locations across Region Zealand and Region of Southern Denmark, affects fourth-grade pupils' food literacy, climate change literacy, school motivation and physical activity. Approximately 1,600 pupils attending GtB form the intervention group and approximately 1,600 pupils from non-participating schools form the control group, with pupils in the eight-session program growing, preparing and cooking foods; outcomes will be measured via pre/post surveys, accelerometry in a 900-pupil subsample, text-message surveys and semi-structured and focus-group interviews, analyzed using linear mixed models and thematic analysis. As a protocol document, it describes study design rather than results.

Ville de Paris · Ville de Paris · France

Official Ville de Paris page defining shared gardens as green spaces cultivated and run by residents, intended as places of intergenerational and cross-cultural exchange. About 15 educational gardens host children from 28 Paris educational facilities (nurseries, primary schools, after-school centers). Residents wishing to open a new garden must form an association and contact the city's 'Main Verte' team.

Global Generation · Global Generation · United Kingdom

An article by Global Generation reflecting on a decade of the Skip Garden — a mobile garden built from reused waste skips — in King's Cross, London, describing how it grew from six or seven skips into a space with rooftop planters, a polytunnel, and areas for herbs, vegetables, fruit trees, and composting.

Chmielewski J., Wszelaczyńska E., Pobereżny J., Florek-Łuszczki M., Gworek B. · Sustainability · Poland

The study sampled 112 items — 72 vegetable and 40 fruit — from 16 allotment gardens in Warsaw and measured Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Pb and Cd. Vegetables accumulated markedly more heavy metals than fruits, and leafy vegetables grown near high-traffic roads carried the highest Pb, Cd and Zn. Lead exceeded permissible limits by six to twelve times and cadmium by one to thirteen, leading the authors to advise against growing tomatoes in urban settings. Only trace amounts appeared in fruits, and the Hazard Index rated the fruits alone as safe. The paper calls for continuous monitoring of urban garden soils, remediation of contaminated ground and safer growing practices.