Psychosocial outcomes as motivations for urban gardening: A cross-cultural comparison of Swiss and Chilean gardeners

The range of benefits provided by urban greenspaces is reasonably well understood and a broad consensus has been reached that they provide habitats along with social ecosystem services, such as restoration, health and food. Domestic gardens, which are a primary node of contact between city residents and nature, typically represent a significant portion of the urban greenspaces, so the gardeners who manage them play an important role in maintaining the greenspaces within a city. In this way, gardeners voluntarily provide a public service so should be encouraged, but the motivations of individual gardeners have not been sufficiently studied. In this study, we address this research gap by using a 14 item ‘motivations for gardening’ scale to evaluate the motivations for gardening held by gardeners in different cultural contexts. We used questionnaires to collect data in three Swiss cities (Lausanne, Bern and Zürich; N = 409) and one Chilean city (Temuco; N = 167) and analysed the responses at both item and scale levels. Although significant differences between Swiss and Chilean responses were found for all individual scale items, a principal component analysis revealed nearly identical component structures for both the Swiss and Chilean samples. Three clear components were identified; restoration as the motivational component receiving the strongest agreement, followed by socialization, and then food production. Nearly identical component structures were found, with the same scale items loading against the same components, when the sample was divided according to age, gender, education and income. These results suggest that motivations for gardening are not context dependant but rather represent an inherent human condition that frames how gardeners manage and interact with their gardens. Acknowledgement of these human needs: especially regarding the restoration benefits that people gain from these spaces, in public policies related to management and regulation of green urban areas has the potential to contribute to the survival of urban gardens

SwITch at Northumbria University

The iBorrow project benefited from the experience of other institutions undertaking a similar journey, albeit with alternative technology and in different contexts. This case study from Northumbria University is an opportunity to compare and contrast the respective problems and solutions encountered in each project. Northumbria University Library has a reputation for delivering innovative, student-focused services positioned at the heart of the student experience. It is renowned for its excellent customer service and is a holder of the Cabinet Office’s Customer Service Excellence award. It has been developing flexible, technology-enhanced learning spaces for a decade enabling students to study in state-of-the-art spaces within a hybrid resources environment

Studying learning and innovation networks – a conceptual and methodological framework

This paper outlines the main concepts and methodology that the SOLINSA project uses in its study of learning and innovation networks. This project aims to identify barriers to the development of Learning and Innovation Networks for sustainable agriculture (LINSA). In such networks, social learning processes take place, and knowledge about sustainable agriculture is co-produced by connecting between the different frames and social worlds of the stakeholders with the help of boundary objects. Studying such processes at the interface between different knowledge spheres of research, policy and practice requires a specific methodology. A transdisciplinary reflective learning methodology addresses the complex question of understanding learning and innovation. The paper highlights the challenges of this approach that involves stakeholders already in the phase of defining the research objectives and strategies. Results from a first round of application of the conceptual and methodological framework will be presented and discussed