By Deborah McArthur Deborah McArthur is North Lanarkshire Council’s Arts Development and Engagement Manager, as well as the community-embedded researcher for REALITIES North Lanarkshire Hub. This hub is foundational hub of the project which began with Art is Everywhere (also known as Phase 1 of REALITIES), funded by the AHRC’s Place-Based Programme. I’m not a researcher. I wouldn’t say I’m very academic. My interest is in people and building meaningful relationships. My background is in the arts, specifically in participatory arts practice, and even more specifically drama and theatre. Creativity is the tool I use for connection, reflection, and change. It enables me [...]

By Andrea Rodriguez Lecturer of Dental Public Health and Social Psychology, School of Dentistry, University of Dundee REALITIES researcher ‘Are you the researcher, or are you a participant like me?’ I heard this question from a participant on the first day of the 6-week Flourish programme led by Ninewells Community Garden for the Dundee hub. The programme was co-designed with health and social care practitioners, and participants were referred from recovery services.  On a beautiful and sunny day in June, I entered in the woods walking fast towards the garden, with my mind concentrated on my tasks for the day. While going through [...]

By Kata Cots Pettit 30.06.2025… Part 1: The Fire In the frosty month of January, I returned to Edinburgh for a visit after fifteen years since I had lived there. I attended ECQI2025 hosted this year by the Centre for Creative Relational Inquiry and the University of Edinburgh. While I was present at ECQI2025, a rush of fire was overtaking my family friends’ Altadena, California home. They had lived there since 1989. On my first day in Edinburgh, before the Altadena and Pacific Palisades fires, I attended a REALITIES workshop with Dr. Marisa de Andrade on producing research through magical realism as advocacy [...]

By Alexandra Jundler Amidst the reading, writing and researching that takes up much of my time as a research fellow for REALITIES, the administrative bureaucracy is pervasive in a way that always seems a bit surprising. Beyond emails and scheduling, the bureaucratic system of a university (or across institutions depending on the issue) is a particular puzzle to behold. One of the main purposes of REALITIES is to reimagine health and social systems to better address health inequalities across Scotland. Yet, a big part of reimagining this is navigating the various academic institutions and systems – which at some point perhaps likewise need [...]

by Scott Davis Each weekend, I slip my handheld radio onto my belt loop and begin work at my local authority’s leisure centre reception desk. The job helps to supplement my part-time post-doctoral university position, with the bonus of keeping me close to what’s happening on the ground in my local Drylaw community, and nearby Pilton and Craigleith. Every Saturday morning, between the sporadic rushes of parents dropping off their kids for weekly swim lessons, a politically minded colleague and I find time to enter into a weekly ritual of confiding shared feelings of frustration and powerlessness over the wider societal problems affecting [...]

by Jan-Bert van-den Berg Artlink’s Curious Routes is one of the strands of work that inform the ground-breaking REALITIES projects, funded by the UKRI Mobilising Community Assets Programme. Jan-bert van den Berg is the community-embedded researcher for the Edinburgh Hub. Through grassroots creative practice and interaction, we support individuals to share interests that establish networks of wellbeing. These will create a ripple effect of shared experiences that seeks to influence necessary change in how public structures tackle health inequalities.    During the first pandemic lockdown the power of community action came to the fore. Neighbours looked out for each other, communities came together [...]

by Alan Marshall, Kimberly More and Helena Tunstall The characteristics of the neighbourhoods we live in have the potential to impact our health, wellbeing as well as other social outcomes. Existing evidence often focusses on area deprivation with less consideration of positive aspects of community that are valued by residents. Such neighbourhood assets might include access to nature, strong feelings of belonging and trust in neighbours or a willingness to give time for broader social good within the neighbourhood. In response the Index of Community Assets team within REALITIES are working to co-develop, collate, and validate a set of neighbourhood measures on community [...]

Harnessing Nature for Recovery: A collaboration with Ninewells Community Garden Chris Lim, Senior Lecturer in Design and Making Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee As part of REALITIES, Ninewells Community Garden is developing a nature-based activities programme aimed at supporting people in recovery in partnership with academics, particularly a transdisciplinary team at the University of Dundee. Located within a 18th century arboretum on the grounds of Ninewells hospital in Dundee, Ninewells Community Garden (NCG) is a volunteers-led initiative that has been serving the community for over a decade. The idea of a community garden started in [...]

A Blog by Sam Rowe, Creative Expressions Coordinator at Bethany Christian Trust In January 2025, Bethany Christian Trust’s Creative Expressions department began drama workshops in a Scottish Men’s Prison to explore the participants’ experiences of neurodiversity and health/social systems. Our aim is to collectively write a piece of theatre that reflects these experiences, that can later be produced and toured to other prisons, conferences and training events. This project follows on from the work we have been doing in the Scottish Criminal Justice system since 2020 (or 2016, for the departments coordinator prior to joining Bethany). This follows three main strands (i) devised performances [...]