Awards recognition for campus food project from our Living Lab    

York St John University is delighted to announce that our Living Lab initiative is in the running for its second Green Gown Award after being shortlisted for the 2024 awards. These awards recognise the exceptional sustainability initiatives being undertaken by universities, colleges and other institutions in the post-16 education sector. York St John’s submission Feeding the Campus is an expansive and ambitious project for students to research and improve food systems on campus. It’s been shortlisted in the Student Engagement category.  

The Living Lab is an interdisciplinary network based in the University’s Institute for Social Justice. It brings together students and staff to collaborate with local organisations and policymakers to investigate and tackle real-life local problems.   

For our first Living Lab, students and staff from 9 different subjects collaborated to investigate local air quality. This pilot project was the winner of the ‘Tomorrow’s Employees’ category in the Green Gowns 2022.  

Since then, the Living Lab has turned its attentions to a new project Feeding the Campus: Social and ecological justice in the York St John food system. Over 1,000 students have participated in Feeding the Campus through course modules, hundreds have attended or volunteered at Living Lab events, and approximately 30 have gained work experience. The project has also supported four paid interns and five paid student researchers. 

The work has covered a range of themes including campus and community gardening, growing food and sharing it through a student-led pop up cafe. It has also expanded to city-wide community garden networks, making gardening accessible to all, including through wheelchair-accessible planters.  

The team have collaborated with the University’s onsite Catering team as they worked to achieve Food for Life Silver accreditation for healthy and sustainable food. With a focus on ethical food procurement, Business students researched and presented supplier recommendations.  

Students have also produced the YSJ Cookbook which gathered simple and affordable recipes from the York St John Community and is now available for free to every student. It further evolved into the YSJ Food Stories Magazine, curated and edited by publishing and creative writing students.  

Dr Cath Heinemeyer, Senior Researcher in Ecological Justice, said, “The Living Lab is reliant on collaboration with so many people on campus – the academic staff and student volunteers who bring their skills, and also the Students’ Union, the Catering and Grounds and Estates teams, the Careers and Student Opportunities team, Communications team, and the Institute for Social Justice. We’d like to thank them all for their enthusiastic support of our projects.” 

Dr Vicki Pugh, Institute for Social Justice Project Manager and Researcher, said: "We are thrilled to be finalists in the student engagement category. Our 2022-2024 Feeding the Campus project has included fascinating food-focused research and activities. Students have created a culinary time capsule in the form of an activist cookbook, problem-solved and generated proposals at our first People's Assembly and even grown food that made its way to our canteen (to name a few things!). 
 
“We have seen our York St John University community connect in new ways - placing student engagement with Estates, Catering, academics and local groups at heart, so it is wonderful to celebrate this through the Green Gown Awards." 

Sarah Williams, Energy and Environmental Projects Officer, said:  “The ‘Living Lab: Feeding the Campus’ project has been such an inspiration to be part of so it is brilliant to see it being recognised nationally as a Green Gown Award finalist.  

“There are many passionate people involved; students, staff and the wider community, who work hard to make positive changes, despite the many challenges faced along the way. It is great to be able to share learning from our project through the Green Gown Awards network.” 

Read more about the Green Gown Awards and the full 2024 shortlist. 

Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony which will take place on Wednesday 13 November at Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh.