RSE announces 16 recipients of community-led research awards
Generously backed by the Williamson Trust, a total of £73,625.39 will be awarded to 16 community research projects across Scotland.
RSE ‘Healthy Planet, Healthy People’: Community-led Research Awards are designed to enable new and existing community-led research projects in any discipline that promote the health of individuals by fostering healthy communities, healthy environments, and healthy food.
In this second round of the funding programme, the number of projects awarded has exceeded the inaugural round by four projects, such was the strength of the applications.
Professor David E Salt FRSE, Chair of the Williamson Trust, said, “The trustees at the Williamson Trust are excited to fund 16 great community-led projects from across Scotland. Applications to the Healthy Planet, Healthy People Community-led Research Awards continue to grow, demonstrating the strong desire of communities in Scotland to develop local solutions to the ongoing global challenges to our environment, our communities and our food.
This year, we again have an amazing diversity of projects, from dolphins, bees, seeds, orchards, woodlands and lochs to food banks, composting, urban crofts and coffee shops! We truly look to invest in hope and the power of ideas wherever they arise.
The Trust hopes that these locally focused projects can find solutions to the challenges the local communities face and that these solutions can also have wider application.”
RSE Vice President, Research, Professor Anne Anderson OBE FRSE commented, “This marks the second round of RSE ‘Healthy Planet, Healthy People’: Community-led Research Awards, which were introduced to expand the Society’s range of awards and the type of research we support.
The health of people and the environment are closely connected, and I hope that these awards will strengthen these innovative research groups and drive positive change in both areas. I look forward to following their progress and achievements over the coming year.”
Healthy Planet, Healthy People: Community-led award recipients:
Community: Cupar Development Trust
Project: Cupar FoodStation Project
Location: Fife
The Cupar Foodstation Project aims to conduct feasibility research into opening a food-themed enterprise and welfare hub in the Cupar town centre, offering a community-led solution and a people-centred approach delivered through local organisations and food producers.
The aspiration is that the Cupar Foodstation would house several local organisations, including the Cupar Foodbank, Community Larder, a GP referral scheme for fresh, locally grown produce, a catering training facility, a service offering free refurbished bikes, and an artisanal food and drink retail market.
The Cupar Foodstation Project would be the first scheme of this kind in the UK, drawing together local produce growers, GPs, and local voluntary organisations to provide novel solutions to alleviate the high rates of local poverty, improve health and reduce food waste.
East of Scotland Growers don’t currently have an outlet for tonnes of fruit and vegetables that are in surplus to requirements. Local GPs and the Cupar Foodbank would utilise this through a referral scheme designed to tackle ill-health caused by poor diet.
Tony Miklinski CBE, Chair of the Cupar Development Trust, said, “Cupar Development Trust is delighted to have been awarded funding for our Cupar Foodstation Project. The funding will help us progress an innovative project in Cupar, which is designed to improve the health and well-being of local residents, support our local food and drink producers, regenerate a prominent town centre building, and reduce local food waste. We are extremely grateful to the RSE for their generous funding, which will support this exciting community-benefit project.”
Community: Social Juice CIC
Project: Local pear cultivation and consumption
Location: Perth and Kinross
Pear fruits are an important source of nutrition and fibre with diverse forms: culinary, dessert, juice, and perry. Existing supermarket and wholesale supply chains rely almost entirely on imports of three varieties: Conference, Rocca, and Comice du Doyenne. It is forgotten that Scotland once had extensive local pear orchards supplying nearby towns and cities and sometimes markets in England. Pear growing centred in the Carse of Gowrie, Jedburgh, and other micro-climates with a range of indigenous and heritage varieties.
Social Juice will work with community groups and other stakeholders in Perth and Kinross to increase their knowledge about pears growing in Scotland and better understand how indigenous varieties and a resurgence in local pear orchards can improve the diet of Scots, reduce food miles, address food quality and scarcity, increase biodiversity, and support regenerative agriculture and sustainable production.
The knowledge gained will be centralised along with existing sources to create a resource for communities and food growers wishing to increase local fruit production and develop a plan to increase the growing and consumption of locally grown Scottish pears in practice.
Neil Clapperton, Director at Social Juice, said, “On behalf of Social Juice and its partners, thank you RSE and the Williamson Trust for your support for our Scottish Pear project. This community research is just in time to save many indigenous varieties and abandoned pear orchards and explore how to revitalise local growing and community use before our veteran trees are lost. Pears are superfoods and the diversity of native fruit combined with the stories communities can share will be inspiring. It wouldn’t be happening without the Healthy Planet, Healthy People Community-Led Award and the generosity and interest of the funders.”
Community: Edinburgh Agroecology Cooperative (Lauriston Farm)
Project: Using compost teas in market gardens to enhance crop health, yield and build healthy soils
Location: Edinburgh
Lauriston Farm, run by a workers’ cooperative in North-West Edinburgh, is dedicated to sustainable food production, biodiversity, and community. Building soil health is central to our land stewardship and food production. Chemical fertilisers disrupt the balance of soil health, degrading microbial ecosystems. Aerated Compost Teas offer a sustainable alternative, enriching soil health, enhancing plant nutrient uptake and improving yields without the harm of synthetic inputs. Despite their potential, practical guidance for integrating compost teas into commercial market gardens and the potential benefits remains limited. This project seeks to address that gap by refining recipes and protocols to make knowledge of Aerated Compost Teas production accessible and effective for growers (both commercial and at home).
Grower and Coop Director Jossie Ellis said, “We are very grateful to the RSE for supporting our project at Lauriston Farm. This funding will enable us to advance our experiments using Aerated Compost Teas in the Market Garden, which will help to improve soil health, crop resilience, and sustainable food production. With this support, we hope to refine our methodologies, share findings with growers, and contribute to a more regenerative food system.”
Community: South Seeds
Project: What is a sustainable cup of take away coffee?
Location: Glasgow
South Seeds is a community organisation based in the South Central area of Glasgow. It works in partnership with residents and organisations within the local community to help improve the area’s appearance and feel. The group’s mission is to enable Southsiders to lead more sustainable lives.
Through this funded project, the group aims to find out where the most sustainable takeaway coffees are found on Glasgow’s Southside. Positioned in one of the most densely populated areas in Scotland, there are over 30 different independent takeaway coffee outlets within one-kilometre square and a population of over 35,000 within a 20-minute walk of that area.
South Seeds hopes that by sharing how a takeaway cup of coffee can be sustainable, they can drive improvement across all outlets.
The project will be delivered by community-based researchers, and the matrix developed can be copied by other communities. The findings will be published by a local, community-led magazine, which is available in paper form in coffee shops and community outlets as well as online.
Lucy Gillie, General Manager at South Seeds, said, “We want to enable local residents to understand the impact of their purchase decisions and ensure they can choose a product they are happy with.”
Community: Take One Action
Project: Full of Beans: A community film and food project
Location: Glasgow
Take One Action brings communities together to harness the transformative potential of film and storytelling for collective change.
Full of Beans—A Community Film and Food Project, taking place in the east end of Glasgow, is Take One Action’s arts and social assembly. It explores the future of collective food and nutrition through the medium of beans and screens.
Using the humble bean as a theme, at venues from Platform Glasgow to Community Eco Hub in Easterhouse, the group will watch international films about food, share meals, go for research visits, and hear from groups such as Nourish Scotland and agricultural scientists. The community will then come up with recommendations for the future of food in the neighbourhood and will produce a bean cookbook and a short film that they will screen at a public event as part of Take One Action’s 2025 film festival.
Take One Action Director Rachel Hamada said, “Take One Action is excited to be able to convene an arts and social assembly in Glasgow’s Easterhouse this summer that explores the future of collective food and nutrition with the humble but delicious bean as a theme, culminating in a public screening and a tasting as part of our 2025 Real Utopias festival.”
Community: Strathspey Storywalks
Project: Am Monadh Ruadh: A living landscape
Location: Cairngorms National Park
Am Monadh Ruadh, the Cairngorm Mountains are the only sub-arctic habitat in Britain. This landscape of plateaus, hills, and glens was once far more lived-in than it is today. Connections with humans go back millennia. In the UK’s largest national park, climate change makes its visible mark year after year.
Based on the premise that cultural loss is ecological loss, and vice versa, Sarah Hobbs, founder of Strathspey Storywalks, plans to collect previously unrecorded placenames of Am Monadh Ruadh, as used by people who live and work in the mountains.
Recognising that place names are the iceberg tips of social history, stories, and oral records of the connection between people and land, Sarah aims to capture these to explore what grounded knowledge and perspectives have been neglected and undervalued, helping to honour and build a collective knowledge-base that doesn’t replicate the same structures and relationships that brought about both cultural and ecological collapse.
Sarah Hobbs said, “Am Monadh Ruadh (the Cairngorm Mountains) are a living landscape, yet many of these ‘living’ names and their corresponding stories have not been mapped or recorded. Highlighting ongoing human connection with mountain habitats, particularly as they change due to climate, will add to debates on our future relationships with the land, and I am utterly delighted to have the RSE’s support in getting this work underway. Mòran taing!”
Community: Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust
Project: Quarter century of discovery: 25 years of bottlenose dolphin photo-identification in the Hebrides
Location: Isle Of Mull
The Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust hold the longest time series of bottlenose dolphin images, collected from sightings in the Hebrides since 2000. Despite this, the data has not been updated or published for nearly a decade.
Through this funded project, the Trust will now collate recent and historic photographs and sightings submitted through its community sightings network, Whale Track, to produce a photo-identification catalogue for bottlenose dolphins on the west coast of Scotland over 25 years (2000-2024).
This information is essential to inform suitable management measures for conservation as it shows how the animals are utilising specific areas. The project will ensure that the best available and up-to-date information collected by the local community is publicly accessible and effectively disseminated to stakeholders and decision-makers. This understudied population is effectively protected from increasing human activity and developments in the Scottish seas.
Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust Executive Director Alison Lomax said, “The Inner Hebridean Community of bottlenose dolphins are a small, wide-ranging pod regularly seen near shore in western Scotland. Photographs are a powerful tool for strengthening our understanding of bottlenose dolphin movements and the threats they face – providing vital evidence for effective conservation. This project will create a catalogue of individually identifiable bottlenose dolphins which community members have photographed over the past quarter century. The Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust is delighted that the RSE is supporting the community-led efforts to monitor and protect this lesser-known pod of bottlenose dolphins.”
Community: Colvend and Southwick Community Council with Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI)
Project: Colvend Lochs aquatic plant survey
Location: Dumfries and Galloway
The Colvend and Southwick Community Council, with the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI), have been funded to undertake an aquatic and marginal plant survey of the lochs in the Colvend Community Council area. The lochs are a significant ecological feature within the East Stewartry Coast National Scenic Area near Colvend Village. The group is interested in recording the range of vegetation types and searching for several scarce species listed in historical records in the area.
Aquatic plants are good indicators of water and habitat quality but require expert determination; therefore, the community will contract an aquatic plant survey specialist during this project. The resulting data will be compared with historical information to provide a new baseline against which to measure future change. The survey may also point to water quality issues, which will need to be addressed. The project will include training of local voluntary botanists and engagement with landowners and local residents.
Project Manager Simon Pain said, “The Colvend and Southwick Community Council and our partner, the BSBI, would like to express our very sincere thanks for your very kind offer of a grant of £5000 towards the Colvend Lochs Aquatic Plant Survey that we now will be able to conduct later this year. This is a very exciting project, and the small-scale test case we carried out recently in one of the small lochs in our area resulted in some rare finds, so we have great expectations now that we will be able to do a much wider survey.”
Community: Independent Researcher, Juliet Porter in collaboration with the Borders Forest Trust
Project: Scottish Borders orchard research project
Location: Scottish Borders
The Borders has a rich history of orchards dating back to the establishment of the Border Abbeys. Previous local research has highlighted that old orchards and heritage fruit trees are being lost at a rapid rate but that many new orchards are being established.
This funded research project will ascertain the current status: ownership, condition, species composition and management needs of orchards in the Scottish Borders.
The research will take the form of desk-based investigation and site visits to revisit and update data collected in historic regional orchard surveys. The new information will provide an up-to-date overview of our Borders orchards, highlighting support needs and aspirations of orchard owners/ managers, gaps in local knowledge/ skills/equipment and any other associated opportunities. In turn, this will inform the content and development of a Borderswide Orchard Network that aims to maximise their multi-faceted benefits, such as health, wellbeing, food production, wildlife habitat, and cultural activities.
Project Lead Juliet Porter said, “We’re absolutely delighted to be able to put our long-held plans into action to investigate the current welfare of our rich heritage of orchards in the Borders. This will result in an up-to-date overview of local orchards, old and new, highlighting the needs and aspirations of orchard owners/managers and providing insight into the local food security and the biodiversity inherent within our orchards.”
Community: Dronley Community Woodland
Project: Ecological transformation of the woodland edge at Dronley Community Woodland
Location: Angus
Dronley Community Woodland is an area popular with walkers, runners, cyclists and horse riders, with over 20,000 visits annually. It is a multi-purpose woodland where biodiversity, timber production and recreation are equal priorities. The Community offer local employment, school visits, volunteering opportunities and courses, and they manage the wood using ecological, low-impact woodland management strategies, such as Continuous Cover Forestry, to protect the soil, forest microclimate, flora, fauna and trees. Continuous Cover Forestry avoids clear-felling and regenerates woodlands by natural regeneration and underplanting.
Dronley Wood has been damaged substantially during the recent storms. Through this funded project, the Community aims to develop a part of the woodland edge into a diverse, tapered, resilient and mixed woodland edge by implementing careful, low thinning, followed by stacking up brash to create wind and sun shelter. The Group will underplant parts of the woodland edge with site-adapted broadleaved tree species to increase biodiversity and resilience. The project will be undertaken by a team of dedicated volunteers and the local school.
Woodland Manager Dirk Sporleder said, “The funding support allows us to transform parts of our existing woodland edge into a species-rich, structurally diverse and ecologically valuable woodland edge. Underplanting the woodland edge will enhance the biodiversity at Dronley Wood. Mixed woodland edges are rare woodland habitats with a fantastic potential for woodland education and outdoor learning opportunities. We are looking forward to starting to work on our project for the benefit of future generations.”
Community: The People’s Pantry – Govanhill Baths Community Trust
Project: Owning Carfin Street Gardens
Location: Glasgow
Offering access to 43 raised beds outside the People’s Pantry in Glasgow, Carfin Street Gardens encourages residents to learn about and take control of their food systems through weekly gardening sessions facilitated by a staff member.
Visitors can harvest fresh herbs and salad leaves or relax in the peaceful gardens. The project has transformed a highly built-up area into a lush, growing space, which the People’s Pantry said was developed as a response to community interest in growing food.
The People’s Pantry has a team of 10 volunteers who will each take ownership of a planter. They have requested guidance over the next year, and it’s hoped that by the end of the project, they will be confident enough to “buddy up” with less experienced volunteers and support them in their planter ownership in the following year.
In the future, the Group aims for the project to become volunteer-led, bringing the community’s voices to the forefront. To achieve this, the People’s Pantry will also encourage volunteers and staff members to co-design a printed Gardening Toolkit specific for urban growing in Govanhill, giving insights into how community ownership can be best achieved.
A participant said, “The project is changing the environment in the neighbourhood. The street is greener, cleaner, and more peaceful. The benches are also great, bringing people together.”
Community: Earth in Common
Project: Improving biodiversity in urban green spaces using participatory citizen science
Location: Edinburgh
Urban green areas play a significant role in supporting biodiversity, mitigating heat-related health risks and contributing to public health and resilience against climate change.
This project aims to enhance biodiversity in such areas through participatory citizen science. It is based on Leith Community Croft, a model ‘urban croft’ which includes a market garden, an orchard, a community area shared by over 100 growers, and wild plant areas and woodland. The proposal addresses three main research areas: assessing biodiversity on the Croft, evaluating the accessibility of citizen-science methods for community members, and using collected data to inform management actions that promote biodiversity. Over 2026, the community will gather data on biodiversity components, such as cultivated and wild plants and pollinators. This information will help formulate strategies for biodiversity conservation and inform a guidance manual for urban green spaces across Scotland, empowering communities to enhance their environments.
Evie Murray, CEO of Earth in Common, said, “We are delighted to receive this award, which will boost our mission to demonstrate that urban crofts, such as our model Leith Community Croft, a community-run project on Common Good land inspired by the Gaelic concept of dùthchas, can effectively address multiple societal and environmental issues. With its orchard, wild areas, market garden and unique system of group-shared food-growing plots, it has already been shown to foster great biodiversity.
Now, we shall empower our “Crofters”—local residents—to develop citizen-science skills to monitor and further increase biodiversity. This should benefit them as individuals and foster pride and engagement in land stewardship in densely populated Leith. We hope that the methodology we collectively develop will be widely shared and can have a significant positive impact on nature and people’s relationship with it across Scotland.
Community: Artist Natalie Taylor in collaboration with local public in North Edinburgh and the City of Edinburgh Council
Project: Scran Fir Bees
Location: Edinburgh
Through her funded project, environmental artist Natalie Taylor will work in North Edinburgh to extend a series of existing public space artworks incorporating wildflowers to provide nectar-rich habitats and food sources for pollinators. The long-term vision is that these artworks, using large-scale text cut into the landscape, will join up to form a bee corridor across North Edinburgh.
By engaging the City of Edinburgh Council and the North Edinburgh community in devising, implementing, and managing this project, Natalie Taylor hopes to enable people to have agency and ownership during a time of climate anxiety and feelings of powerlessness. Activities such as planting wild seeds and enhancing relatively poor grassland into more biodiverse areas will create opportunities to enhance our natural environment while celebrating community collective action for nature.
Natalie Taylor said, “I am so pleased to be able to work alongside local communities to design, develop and implement the new environmental artwork, sharing skills in meadow maintenance and strategic seeding to increase local biodiversity. Through fun, creative workshops, I will highlight the importance of our relationship with insect pollinators, which contribute vital services to roughly one-third of our food. I see this creative action for biodiversity as really important at the moment due to the ongoing crisis in pollinator populations, especially in urban environments such as Edinburgh where there are so many natural spaces where we can potentially help them.”
Community: Scottish Centre for Food Development and Innovation, Queen Margaret University in collaboration with Cafe Recharge CIC
Project: Rescue. Preserve. Nourish: Turning Surplus into Sustenance
Location: East Lothian and Scottish Borders
Run as a collaboration between Café Recharge co-founders Amanda Robinson and Amy Wight and Caroline Timmins, a product development technologist at Queen Margaret University, the Rescue. Preserve. Nourish: Turning Surplus into Sustenance project aims to investigate waste reduction through pilot dehydration trials using surplus vegetables and fruit.
Café Recharge operates in Galashiels as a community hub and “pay what you can afford” Café. The food they serve is surplus and predominantly rescued from supermarkets. Use By and Best Before dates are observed and managed by freezing the food or cooking before the Use By ends.
Through this project, the researchers hope to reduce food waste further by investigating food dehydration. They aim to understand the efficiency of dehydration, build a framework for the process, formulate a calendar to track rescued surplus food, and facilitate community “chat and chop” events to prepare surplus produce in readiness for dehydration. The group’s ambition is to educate and enable clients to make healthy, tasty meals by producing recipe cards and videos for using dehydrated produce.
Caroline Timmins said, “The team from Café Recharge CIC and the Scottish Centre for Food Development and Innovation at Queen Margaret University are delighted to secure this award, which will allow us to investigate ways of preparing and utilising surplus fruit and vegetables by experimenting with dehydration and creating new food products and recipes. Support from the Royal Society of Edinburgh not only allows us to pursue efficiencies and innovation in food management, it helps us progress our mission of reducing food waste and promoting sustainability in the community.”
Community: Rumpus Room LTD
Project: Pollinator Pals: A co-created civic arts and science project improving nature connection and biodiversity in a urban garden
Location: Glasgow
The Pollinator Pals project aims to connect children aged 6-12 years with nature, belonging, and community in a socioeconomically deprived area of Glasgow. Based in the arts-led Rumpus Room community garden, the project will bring pollination ecologists, plant biologists, and arts workers together to deliver play-driven civic science and education.
Participants will design a summer-long experiment to identify optimal planting for Glasgow’s pollinators, learning about plants’ importance for people and the planet. Activities will include monitoring insects, testing soil health, and identifying plants and pollinators through participatory play led by experts.
The project hopes to explore community belonging, engaging all creatures in the Rumpus Room’s ecosystem. Pro-pollinator planting plans, saved seeds, and a guide to Glasgow’s pollinators will be shared with community gardens citywide, along with a zine of findings. Data outcomes will inform a framework of ‘belonging’ in urban greenspace, with additional sociological support.
The Rumpus Room team said, “We at Rumpus Room in Glasgow are excited by the spring sun to start our Pollinator Pals Project, a co-created civic arts-and-science project to improve nature connection and biodiversity in a Glaswegian urban garden.”
Community: Abundant Borders
Project: Seeding sustainable futures: Building food security through community action
Location: Scottish Borders
Abundant Borders will save and freely share seeds with people who may not be able to afford to buy them and have little or no experience growing food. Seed saving is an ancient practice that preserves biodiversity, builds resilience, and empowers communities.
Through the Seeding Sustainable Futures project, the group will grow a variety of vegetables and herbs, saving seeds from plants best suited to local conditions. These seeds will be packaged and distributed free of charge to individuals and families, along with simple guides to help them get started. The group’s goal is to remove cost and knowledge barriers, making it easy for people to try growing food for the first time. By sharing seeds and basic growing skills, they aim to inspire confidence, promote healthier eating, and foster a connection to nature. This project ensures that growing food is accessible and rewarding for everyone, regardless of their financial situation or experience.
Karen Birch, Chief Officer of Abundant Borders, said, “Our project will save and freely share seeds with people who may not afford to buy them and have little or no experience growing food. Seed saving is an ancient practice that preserves biodiversity, builds resilience, and empowers communities.
We will grow a variety of vegetables and herbs, saving seeds from plants best suited to local conditions. These seeds will be packaged and distributed free of charge to individuals and families, along with simple guides to help them get started. Our goal is to remove the barriers of cost and knowledge, making it easy for people to try growing food for the first time. By sharing seeds and basic growing skills, we aim to inspire confidence, promote healthier eating, and foster a connection to nature.”