Leiden BuurtKennis

Leiden BuurtKennis is a new citizen science project that gathers local research questions from Leiden's neighbourhoods, and connects these with local initiatives, students, researchers and the city to jointly develop knowledge and actions for a healthy and resilient city.

How are we going to do this?

Empowering local questions and needs through knowledge building
We collect questions, concerns and ideas from residents about their living environment, health and nature, and map which themes and key points of attention emerge. By collecting the necessary knowledge about this through stimulating citizen science, these issues gain more substantiation from the neighbourhood.

Strengthening local initiatives by connecting them with the city
We bring residents into contact with existing citizens' initiatives, civil society organizations and citizen science projects, and support these where necessary by setting up connecting structures. We support local initiative-takers where needed to remain owners of their neighbourhood knowledge in collaboration with the city.

Developing and refining a reusable method in practice
We apply this approach to concrete cases – such as the development of PanoramaPark – and use the experience we gain from this to continuously improve the process in collaboration with residents, policy makers and researchers. We build a repeatable and scalable methodology (toolkit/methodology) to structurally utilize neighbourhood knowledge in policy and science. This will be documented and made publicly available for use in other neighbourhoods, cities or by partners.

Principles

Equality

Residents, policy makers and researchers each contribute unique knowledge.

Reciprocity

Contributions from the neighbourhood are visibly valued and utilized.

Ownership

Initiatives are supported to manage their own issues and knowledge.

Learning by doing

Each issue and associated initiative forms a learning case for the method.

Openness

Results and methods are publicly accessible and are created collaboratively as much as possible.

Partners

Kennispartners:

Municipality of Leiden – policy and urban innovation

Leiden University, Leiden University of Applied Sciences, MBO Rijnland,

Leren met de Stad - (student) research and neighbourhood projects

Ideewinkel – network building for finding collaborations

Buurtpartners:

Incluzio and Buzz – neighbourhood-focused collaboration and implementation

Energiek Leiden, Duurzaam Leiden, Netwerk Leiden Sneller Duurzaam – theme-based collaboration with residents

Contact