Green spaces are good and they do good. It's something that we all instinctively know. Fields in Trust have been in the vanguard of research to provide the evidence to back this up. Our insights and analysis allows us to move from discussion about the need for action to targeted intervention in the places it will have the greatest impact.
Original research
We conduct and commission original and innovative research at both micro- and macro-level.
Green Space Index®
Our annual barometer of publicly accessible park and green space provision in Great Britain, the Index takes stock of our nation's parks across five indicators as well as providing analysis on how provision might be affected in the future.
Revaluing Parks and Green Spaces
The first study on parks and green spaces to apply welfare weighting methodology, it provides a robust economic valuation of parks and green spaces in the UK as well as valuing improvements in health and wellbeing associated with their frequent use.
Centenary Park Case Study
Research into the creation of a new public park on derelict land in Rugby finds it has resulted in local residents feeling healthier, happier and becoming more active, demonstrating the wider value of parks in promoting healthy lifestyles and tackling social exclusion.
Impactful insights
The insights we obtain from analysing our research findings allows us to make targeted interventions where protection of green spaces can provide the highest benefit to the communities who use and love them.
Geospatial mapping and data analysis
Using the latest GIS technology we pair location data with demographic insights and our research findings to inform our work and that of our partners.
Insights in practice
Our Chief Executive, Helen Griffiths, demonstrated our insights in practice as part of the Town and Country Planning Associations Green Cities Webinar Series 2020.
Engaging audiences
We use a range of media to share our insights with stakeholders and the public, including animations such as this video showing the growth of our protected estate over time.
In collaboration
We work alongside and with support from a variety of highly recognised and respected organisations across the data and GIS sectors to ensure our research and insight is robust.
Esri UK
We are grateful for the support of Esri UK through their non-profit programme. We use the ArcGIS platform to drive our insights and analysis work.
Geolytix
Working with Geolytix we developed a data model to pair our green space data with demographic insights. The work was recognised at the 2020 Data IQ Awards.
Ordnance Survey
Data from Ordnance Survey is at the heart of our analysis of green space location and provision. We are grateful for the ongoing support their team provide.
We're delighted to welcome Aleks Berditchevskaia to our team as a voluntary advisor to support the development of our data and insight work. Aleks is the Principal Researcher at Nesta's Centre for Collective Intelligence Design, where she leads the project delivery and research on AI-enabled collective intelligence.
She is the lead author of the report, 'The Future of Minds & Machines', on combining human and machine intelligence for problem solving. She also co-authored the 'Playbook for Collective Intelligence Design', a toolkit for creating projects that mobilise collective intelligence, which has been used to train over 370 staff as part of the UNDP's Accelerator Lab network.
Prior to Nesta, Aleks held a number of roles that explored the societal impact of emerging technologies. First at the Science Policy Centre in the Royal Society, contributing to their research on machine learning and then for a consultancy focussing on the use of digital participatory methods for European science policy and knowledge transfer. She holds a PhD in Neurotechnology from Imperial College London.
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Policy and advocacy
We provide advice, influence and support on parks policy matters
What Is Protection?
Find out what our protection is and what it does
Knowledge Base
Our self-service online library of information
Fields Finder
Search for protected parks and green spaces near you