Three Edinburgh-based community projects have been awarded a total of more than £14,000 in research funding by the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) and Williamson Trust to promote healthy living.
Lauriston Farm and local environmental artist Natalie Taylor will benefit from a share of the funding pot, along with Leith-based Earth in Common.
Lauriston Farm, run by a workers’ cooperative, is dedicated to sustainable food production, biodiversity, and community. They will use their award of £4550 to develop a sustainable alternative to chemical fertilisers using Aerated Compost Teas, a process of mixing compost with water and then introducing oxygen into the mixture.
Despite their potential, practical guidance for integrating compost teas into commercial market gardens and the potential benefits remains limited. The project is aiming to bridge that gap by refining recipes and protocols to make knowledge of Aerated Compost Teas production accessible and effective for both commercial growers and people at home.
Grower and Coop Director Jossie Ellis said: “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.”
Environmental artist Natalie Taylor has received £4500 for her Scran Fir Bees project to extend a series of existing public space artworks incorporating wildflowers to provide nectar-rich habitats and food sources for pollinators.
Her long-term vision is that these artworks, using large-scale text cut into the landscape, will join up to eventually form a bee corridor across the North of Edinburgh.
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.”
The Edinburgh projects are among 16 innovative community-led research projects across Scotland to receive funding from the RSE and the Williamson Trust.
A total of £73,625 has been given to a range of creative projects to foster healthy communities as part of the Healthy Planet, Healthy People awards.
Meanwhile, Earth in Common, based at Leith Community Croft, which includes a market garden, an orchard, and a community area shared by over 100 growers, has been awarded £5000.
The Croft is situated on Common Good land inspired by the Gaelic concept of dùthchas – the deep-rooted connection between people and the land.
They will use the funding to gather data on cultivated and wild plants and pollinators, which will help formulate strategies for biodiversity conservation and inform a guidance manual for urban green spaces across Scotland.
Evie Murray, CEO of Earth in Common, said: “This award will boost our mission to demonstrate that urban crofts, such as our model Leith Community Croft, 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.
“This will 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.”
This is the second year of the awards, generously funded by the Williamson Trust, a charitable organisation. The strength of the applications in the second round of the funding programme resulted in four additional projects being awarded financial support.
Professor David E Salt FRSE, Chair of the Williamson Trust, said: “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 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.
“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.”
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