Sustainable resources and Wellbeing: Scoping the holistic benefits of community leaf gathering in Nottingham

Co(l)laboratory 2025 Research Placement

Detail of yellow leaves lying down on a ground path through a forest during sunny day in fall season

Key Details

Deadline: 11:59pm Sunday 02 March 2025

Funding offer: Candidates receive a tax-free bursary of £1,300, paid in 2 instalments.

Project start date: Monday 28 April 2025

Working hours: Part-time, fixed term (minimum 14hrs hrs per week) until 11 July 2025

Working style: Flexible working supported with some in-person training and meeting requirements. Exact working pattern to be agreed between successful candidate and lead supervisor.

Certification: On successful completion, candidates will receive a formal certificate of recognition from Nottingham Trent University and the University of Nottingham.

Project Supervisors

Lead Supervisor: Dr Katy Voisey, University of Nottingham
Co-Supervisor: Dr Jenni Cauvain, Nottingham Trent University
Community Supervisor: Jules Sebelin, Nottingham Community and Voluntary Service

About The Project

The challenge of this research placement project is to identify opportunities for community leaf gathering within Nottingham, transforming leaves from waste material into a sustainable resource, improving the sustainability of Nottingham’s leaf management and also generating community benefit, building on recent green prescribing activities.

The projects combines the areas of societal benefit from engagement with nature in urban settings, sustainable use of natural resources and green prescribing (the practice of supporting people to engage in nature-based interventions and activities to improve their mental and physical health).

Societal benefit of contact with nature, specifically in urban settings, is a growing research area of direct relevance to Nottingham. Leaves are familiar to all, and are recognised as problematic in the wrong locations e.g. causing slippery pavements yet are also a prized addition to compost as leaf mulch. We focus on leaves as these are abundant in Nottingham, and they offer an opportunity for further material benefits in the form of extracts or other applications. Leaves provide a practical focus and a research opportunity as urban leaf gathering as a community benefit concept is an understudied area. Previous work at The University of Nottingham identified several potential applications of waste leaves, and previous work at Nottingham Trent University studied the societal benefits of community-based approaches and urban engagement with nature. This placement combines these areas of research, applying a holistic approach to explore the societal benefits of community leaf gathering activities, including but not restricted to green prescribing, as well as scoping the viability of sustainable leaf uses in Nottingham.

Nottingham has a relatively high density of urban trees and green, and is home to many residential areas which rank highly on the Indices of Multiple Deprivation, with health deprivation and health inequality being of key focus. These factors suggest that community-nature-based interventions and green prescribing initiatives have the potential to make a positive impact on the wellbeing of Nottingham’s diverse communities. Additionally, the recent introduction of garden waste bin charges has pushed leaf waste up the agenda locally.

The placement builds on previous Green Prescribing work in Nottingham, led by the community partner NCVS, and will look to understand how local leaf gathering activities can extend the benefits of the NCVS-led Green Prescribing national pilot.

The project’s unique, holistic approach, and strong community engagement elements will help ensure that meaningful, viable, leaf-based initiatives can developed with local communities for maximum benefit.

Project Aims

The overall aim is to carry out scoping work to identify opportunities for community leaf gathering and how it could be developed to ensure they are integrated with existing initiatives in Nottingham to maximise community benefits. The key objectives that will enable this aim to be achieved are:

Identify a network of potential pilot sites for leaf collection groups and establish connections with stakeholders in associated partner organisations based on existing Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Green Prescribing programme, and beyond.
Illustrate different social scenarios, to highlight the motivations and barriers for taking part in leaf collection activities in varied social settings (mental and physical health benefit, interest in green space management and environmental care, dealing with seasonal leaf nuisance, cost of leaf removal, potential downstream usage of leaves).
Generate use cases of potential leaf based activities for Nottingham to include a reasoned critique of advantages, disadvantages and viability

What will a successful candidate be doing?

Conduct a short literature review to understand what current academic literature says about leaf or other community focused urban natural resource uses to identify any knowledge gaps and opportunities.
Carry out stakeholder mapping and engagement activities with relevant local communities, making use of the NCVS’s “Big Green Book” and other resources stemming from the Green Prescribing national pilot. This will also involve conducting research interviews and site visits to understand if and how leaf based activities could enhance existing initiatives and to ensure that potential future work is based on the needs and experiences of Nottingham communities. This will involve some local travel, with costs covered by the project budget.
Carry out an online survey and related data analysis of the results to scope community experiences, interests and motivations for leaf based activities.
Produce a written report to showcase and discuss the outcomes of the project, and to propose ideas which could be further developed to ultimately integrate leaf based activities into Nottingham’s existing network of community initiatives.

Who are we looking for?

For full details of our eligibility criteria, please visit our 2024 Citizen Scientist Research Placements web page. We encourage those who meet most of the essential criteria to any extent to apply.

Essential Competencies

Passion for urban nature and community-based sustainability initiatives
Interest in social research and developing research in partnership with communities
Good communication skills in English both written and spoken
Ability to analyse and present information systematically
IT literacy in contemporary online platforms (such as Microsoft 365 package)

Desirable Competencies

A desire to develop an understanding of sustainable leaf uses in material science
Awareness of urban sustainability challenges from social and environmental perspectives
Experience of community engagement in Nottingham either via voluntary or paid role
Experience of report writing and research like activities (e.g. work projects with written outputs, undergraduate dissertation)