nobelveldje.wordpress.com

The civil initiative ‘Kerngroep Nobelveldje’ is very satisfied with its role and social activities for temporary use and food growing on wasteland ‘Nobelveldje’ in a Wageningen neigbourhood. They want to share their enthusiasm with people that have similar ambitions in their own neighborhood. However, first the ‘Kerngroep Nobelveldje’ wants to find out how their initiative is perceived in the neighborhood. The idea is to use these results to stimulate others that have similar ambitions. The ‘NatuurSUPER’ organization has been a supporter of civil initiatives like the ‘Nobelveldje’. This organization wants to evaluate their role in this kind of civil initiatives.
Hence, the Kerngroep Nobelveldje and NatuurSUPER have formulated the following research goals:
• To explore the range of qualitative and quantitative methods for the evaluation for this kind of civil initiatives, with a focus on neighborhood commitment and satisfaction
• To identify the best suitable and feasible method
• To test the method in the case of Nobelveldje
• To discuss the results in the context of the strategic intention of the use of these data
• Advising the NatuurSUPER organization in the use of an evaluation method fort their specific question.
The ultimate goal of the thesis can be to design a research method to value civil action in public space. If you are interested in the interface between participatory models, learning-in-action and civic action in urban agriculture, this could be your chance to do relevant research for external commissioners. For more information: Contact person for this project: jeroen.kruit@wur.nl