The Outdoors and Health Network is a collaborative network of researchers and public sector/policy representatives that have come together to examine the relationship between individuals’ health and well-being and their use of the outdoors. The start-up of the network in April 2010 was co-funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Medical Research Council (MRC), under the Understanding Individual Behaviour Exploratory Networks (UIBEN) Programme. Over the period April 2009 to May 2010 the network members collaborated on a project called “Society’s relationship with the natural world and the role of the outdoors in health and well-being”.

There are currently eight academic institutions and several other agencies that are members of the Outdoors and Health Network. UHI Millennium Institute is the lead research organisation and is coordinating the network’s activities. The initial project consisted of three main types of activity:

1. Networking events: to exchange knowledge, build a sharing culture within the network and plan coordination between the academics and network partners. A variety of in person activities were organised as well as other online and virtual communication means kept the network members in close contact throughout the project.

2. Project development activities: to assess the current gaps within data and research on the links between outdoor use and health and test out new ways of inter-disciplinary working in this area. Two pilot projects were undertaken, one looking at the use of longitudinal quantitative data to understand the relationship between the outdoors and health. The other pilot looked at alternative methods of collecting data on outdoors use and health using qualitative methodologies.

3. Proposal writing and dissemination: networking events will focus on producing proposals for future research that will extend the ideas generated, and tested, through the project development activities. As part of  the dissemination strategy the network commissioned a short film to explain the research that has been undertaken and to identify future research needs in this area.

Although the ‘outdoors’ includes urban spaces such as the street and pedestrian precincts, this project focuses on the ‘natural’ in spaces where people can engage with nature (from private gardens to wilderness spaces). Previous research has investigated the relationship between health and use of the outdoors but this network provides a new opportunity to connect social scientists with biological and medical researchers. The different disciplines have worked together to develop new, collaborative ways of working.

The network has proved to be a beneficial collaboration not just for the academic members but also for the policy-makers and practitioners that have been involved. The members are now exploring funding opportunities to allow the continuance of their network and the research they have discovered is needed to plug the current gaps in knowledge.