SPICE (Social Prescribing for Improving Communities’ Eating Practices) explores the feasibility of embedding a brief, MAP-informed (Motivation–Action–Prompts model) healthy eating intervention within Aberdeen’s social prescribing service. Co-designed with Link Practitioners and informed by GP questionnaires, as well as interviews with community food providers and their service users, the intervention addresses food insecurity and poor diet through person-centred, non-judgmental conversations.
Living Labs (LL) seek to enable people living in remote, rural and island communities to tackle place-based challenges. Through an inherently action-based and participative approach, the research supports dialogue between different layers of governance. LLs respond to the needs of communities and aim to understand the effectiveness of interventions implemented in them, revealing new insights into well-known problems and including lesser heard voices.
The assessment of carbon stores, flood mitigation potential and bird, bat and small mammal occurrence within characteristic upland farmland, semi-natural and natural habitats is allowing the multiple environmental benefits arising from different habitats on upland farms to be better understood. A particular focus has been put on the innovative use of acoustic sensors and camera-traps to assess biodiversity and digital sensors to monitor water levels.