Research & reports

Rotheram S., McGarrol S., Watkins F. · Health & Place · United Kingdom

Qualitative interviews with 18 clients with a learning disability who attend UK care farms examined how these spaces contribute to their health and wellbeing, identifying care farms as a positive 'space of wellbeing'.

· Regional Studies, Regional Science · United Kingdom (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Investigates the motivations and lived experiences of community garden participants in Edinburgh, Scotland.

· BMC Geriatrics · Netherlands

A cross-sectional study in the southern Netherlands comparing quality of care and quality of life for 115 residents with dementia across green care farms, regular small-scale living facilities, and traditional nursing homes.

Alessandro Scuderi, Luisa Sturiale, Claudio Bellia, Vera Teresa Foti, Giuseppe Timpanaro · RIVISTA DI STUDI SULLA SOSTENIBILITA · Italy (Catania)

This study addresses the proposal by the Municipality of Catania to create one of Europe's largest urban gardens in a marginalized, socio-economically degraded area of the city. Starting from an analysis of urban agriculture at the European level, the work aims to highlight the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of this new form of urban green space through a participatory SWOT analysis.

Ana Espinosa Seguí, Barbara Maćkiewicz, Marit Rosol · ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies · Spain

This article, based on a study of allotment gardens in Alicante province, Spain, explains their specific histories which differ from North American and Northern European contexts. It shows how urban allotments provide insight into economic, land-use, and urban-rural changes during crises. Initially for leisure and greening, these projects shifted after the 2009 economic recession to target people at risk of poverty, focusing on productive, therapeutic, and educational functions, though land speculation remains a concern.

Julia Dahlvik, Yvonne Franz, Myrte Hoekstra, Josef Kohlbacher · ISR-Forschungsberichte · Europe

A record of practitioner reflections from a final discussion event held in Vienna in May 2017 by the ICEC research project. It presents quotes from Nathalie Binder, co-initiator of the "Matznergarten" community garden in the 14th district, Florian Brand of the Urban Renewal Office for districts 7/8/16, and Markus Rumelhart, district mayor of the 6th district, on their neighbourhood-level practices and effects. The reflections describe the community garden as built around a "growing together" motto that fostered relationships among members and neighbours, the provision of "neutral ground" space as a key tool of the Urban Renewal Office's work, and local politicians' aim of helping resident initiatives become self-sustaining.

Antoni F. Tulla i Pujol, Ana Vera, Natàlia Valldeperas, Carles Guirado González · Dialnet (Universidad de la Rioja) · Spain

This study examines Social Farming (SF), using local agricultural and natural resources to promote health, employment and empowerment among groups at risk of exclusion, including people with disabilities, those in poverty, with dependencies, in the penitentiary system, survivors of gender violence, older people, at-risk youth, immigrants and homeless people, as a sustainable alternative to urban agriculture around Barcelona. Amid conflict over land demand for housing, infrastructure and facilities in Barcelona's peri-urban areas, protected agricultural land (agricultural parks) and natural parks have facilitated SF projects linked to social movements and the Third Sector; the study built a database of 161 SF projects in Catalonia and used quantitative and qualitative methods, including the CANVAS method for structural and economic viability and the SROI method for social return on investment.

Sima Pouya, Elif Bayramoğlu, Öner Demirel · Kastamonu University Journal of Forestry Faculty · Turkey

A study of the Doğan Çağlar Orthopedic Disabled School in Ankara Province, Turkey (2017) determined how outdoor space was used at the school and developed the main decisions for an environmental (landscape) design project addressing those uses. Face-to-face interviews with school management, teachers, and parents, plus a parent survey, examined contributions to children's physical, emotional, and social development according to disability type and degree. Following a process of problem identification, data collection (questionnaire and evaluation), field analysis of functions, and design master decisions, the study produced landscape-design suggestions for the school garden, highlighting the need to plan for different age groups and physical characteristics, to create spaces where children encounter nature and develop creativity, and to design school and garden spaces for children with disabilities differently from general spaces because their needs vary by disability type, both physically and psychologically.

Social Finance · Social Finance UK · United Kingdom

A project page published on 15 February 2017 and updated 21 May 2026. In 2010 Social Finance structured the world's first Social Impact Bond, raising £5 million to cut reoffending among short-sentenced prisoners leaving Peterborough prison. It covered two cohorts of 1,000, 2,000 people in all, against a pre-intervention reoffending rate of 60 per cent among short-sentenced prisoners. The result was a 9 per cent reduction against a 7.5 per cent target, and investors were paid a return of 3 per cent a year; by 2025 the model had spread to 320 SIBs in 35 countries raising over $861 million.

Tracy Palandjian · Social Finance · United Kingdom

Published 1 August 2017 after the Peterborough Social Impact Bond cut reoffending among short-sentenced offenders by 9 per cent, beating its 7.5 per cent target. Seventeen investors took part and earned a return of just over 3 per cent a year. Seven years on from the 2010 launch, and six years into US market-building, the piece reports 17 American projects mobilising over $200 million across Massachusetts, South Carolina, New York, Oklahoma, California and Connecticut.

Catharine Ward Thompson, Peter J. Aspinall, Jenny Roe, Lynette Robertson, David Miller · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · United Kingdom

A cross-sectional survey of 406 adults in four deprived urban communities in Scotland, UK, investigated the relationship between green space access and health outcomes. While the amount of neighborhood green space and access to a garden or allotment were significant predictors of stress, social isolation and place belonging were found to be the strongest predictors of stress in three communities and of poor general health in the least healthy community. Physical activity, winter green space visits, and home views also predicted general health.

Margaret Pettygrove · UWM Digital Commons (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee) · United States (Milwaukee)

This case study in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, examines food procurement patterns among low-income residents and how local governance and political economic processes shape food environments. It uses quantitative and qualitative methodologies, drawing on spatial analytical and political ecological perspectives. The research critiques the "obesogenic environment thesis" by emphasizing other dimensions of food access beyond proximity to retail sources.

Madeleine A. Guerlain, Catherine Campbell · Journal of Social and Political Psychology · United Kingdom (East London)

This qualitative research explored the impact of community gardens on the psycho-social well-being of marginalized groups in East London, UK, and their role in prefigurative social change. Through interviews, Photovoice, and participant observation with 28 gardeners from four groups, findings suggest that participation is driven by the shared practice of gardening, leading to unintended benefits addressing personal adversities. Community gardens create "health-enabling social spaces" and offer an alternative understanding of prefiguration based on participants' lived experiences.

Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen · ˜L' œHomme · Europe

An essay arguing that, against the recent hype around the term "urban gardening," the term "urban agriculture" (Agrarkultur) better captures its significance for a subsistence economy. It frames community gardening as a women-led social movement that brings previously hidden housework into public view, tracing a history in which the 1806–1813 Stein-Hardenberg reforms suppressed peasants' rights to the commons, causing widows who lost their means of subsistence farming to move into cities; Max Weber's late-19th-century account of farmhands' wives running an autonomous subsistence economy; the 1919 Imperial Allotment Garden Regulation, which established a right to allotments for people in need; and the Second World War, when women were required to supply fresh vegetables from home gardens, allotments and "victory gardens." The essay also notes that today, urban gardening helps voiceless immigrants and refugees settle in unfamiliar surroundings.

Beth Perry, ⁄ Walsh, Diana Silver · White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) · United Kingdom

This project, conducted from October 2014 to May 2015, focused on the Biospheric Foundation in Blackfriars, East Salford, UK. The Biospheric Foundation was an urban socio-ecological experiment aiming to implement a whole-system approach to urban farming in a deprived area. Its goals included designing interconnected systems, retrofitting a building for ecological research, and raising public awareness of healthy food and ecological systems in urban settings.

Jill Rutter · Policy Press eBooks · United Kingdom

This chapter, based on field observations in the UK, examines social interactions in "transversal spaces" such as children's centers, workplaces, online forums, parks, and allotment gardens. These spaces facilitate meaningful social contact between migrants and longer-settled residents, potentially reducing hostility. Research indicates that while interactions across class or age boundaries are common, interactions across ethnic boundaries are less frequent, though individuals aged 18-34 showed the highest ethnic integration.

Carly Wood, Jules Pretty, Murray Griffin · Journal of Public Health · United Kingdom

A UK case-control study measured self-esteem, mood, and general health in 136 allotment gardeners before and after a gardening session, and compared them with 133 non-gardener controls. Paired t-tests showed a significant improvement in self-esteem following an allotment session, and one-way ANCOVA showed allotment gardeners had significantly better self-esteem, total mood disturbance, and general health than controls (P<0.001), with less depression and fatigue and more vigour (P<0.0083).

National Audit Office · National Audit Office (NAO) · United Kingdom

An investigation published by the UK National Audit Office on 29 October 2015. The children's charity Kids Company received at least £46 million of public funding over fifteen years, £28 million of it from the Department for Education. In 2008 it took 20 per cent of the funding available under one programme, and in 2011 it received over twice the amount given to any other grant recipient. Officials raised sustainability concerns in six separate briefings between 2002 and 2015, yet funding continued outside competitive processes; the charity closed insolvent on 5 August 2015 and around 1,900 cases were passed to local authorities.

Georgia Graham · Channel 4 News · United Kingdom

A fact-check on Kids Company, the charity founded in 1996 that operated in London and Bristol. It claimed to reach 36,000 children by 2015 and had received £46 million of public money over fifteen years — £44 million from central government, £28 million of that from the Department for Education. Its 2013 annual income was £23 million, 20 per cent from government and 77 per cent from private donations. The piece notes that government oversight relied on the charity's own self-assessments, with no independent verification of outcomes or beneficiary numbers.

Bishop P. · Journal of European Studies (SAGE) · Germany

A scholarly review of Henderson's study of Ernst May and the New Frankfurt initiative, critically assessing Weimar modernist social housing, garden and green-space programs, and Existenzminimum dwelling within their historical significance and limitations.

Moulin-Doos C. · Journal of Urban Affairs · Germany

Examines how intercultural gardens in Germany respond to migrants' need for spaces of interaction outside home and work, offering a setting to build social capital and practise the mutual respect essential for integration.

Rina Ghose, Margaret Pettygrove · Antipode · USA (Milwaukee)

Case study of Milwaukee community gardens challenging the assumption that participation is empowering: under neoliberal restructuring, volunteer-dependent garden governance shifts state responsibility onto residents and produces uneven, tension-ridden citizenship outcomes.

Marcin Graban · Pressto (Uniwersytetu Adama Mickiewicza) · Poland (Poznań)

The Polish National General Exhibition in Poznań in 1929 attracted many laborers, who later contributed to the unemployed population during the 1930s economic crisis, exacerbating the housing crisis in Poznań. City authorities initially housed the homeless in former exhibition grounds as an interim measure. For a more permanent solution, the city redeveloped allotments or community gardens by building purpose-built residential garden huts or sheds.

Elżbiata Słabińska · Res Gestae · Poland

In 1930s central Poland, national policy to mitigate the effects of unemployment was expanded into so-called "special actions" providing full or partial employment support, comprising efforts to create bases for independent livelihoods, social and educational assistance, and support for employing white-collar workers. These were coordinated by the Labour Fund (Fundusz Pracy) together with national and local authorities and numerous economic and socio-cultural organizations. Allotment gardens and vocational training drew considerable interest among the unemployed. The paper concludes that although these were innovative measures, they were introduced too late to produce visible effects before the end of the interwar period.

Barrow Cadbury Trust · Barrow Cadbury Trust · United Kingdom

Published 7 August 2014, reporting results for the first cohort of 1,000 prisoners in the Peterborough Social Impact Bond: an 8.4 per cent fall in reconviction relative to the comparable national baseline. The figure was produced for the Ministry of Justice by independent assessor Professor Darrick Jolliffe with Qinetiq and the University of Leicester using propensity score matching, finding 142 reconvictions per 100 prisoners at Peterborough against 155 per 100 in the control group. Payment required a reduction of more than 7.5 per cent, so the project did not qualify at this stage; outcome payments were due to be decided in 2016.