Improving Wellbeing through Urban Nature

A research project about how Sheffield’s natural environment can improve the health and wellbeing of city residents

Improving Wellbeing through Urban Nature (IWUN) was a three-year research project awarded £1.3 million by the Natural Environment Research Council’s Valuing Nature Programme. Its aim was to find out more about how Sheffield’s natural environment can improve the health and wellbeing of the city’s residents, especially those with disproportionately high levels of poor health.

The project, led by Dr Anna Jorgensen at the University of Sheffield’s Department of Landscape, brought academics from the universities of Sheffield, Derby, and Heriot-Watt together with the Wildlife Trusts, Recovery Enterprises and the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare.

We used a range of methods, including a specially designed smartphone app, to investigate people’s relationships with Sheffield’s parks and green spaces.

Project aims

We studied the interaction within Sheffield between people, their local natural environment and their health and wellbeing. Our aims were to:

How did IWUN do this? We:

Research

Centre for Sustainable Healthcare logo
University of Derby logo
Recovery Enterprises logo
Heriot Watt University logo
NERC logo
The Wildlife Trusts logo
Valuing Nature logo