Connecting Communities with Nature
Programme Overview
A national programme delivered by ALP Synergy Limited
Funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
Across the UK, many people care deeply about climate change, nature and their local environment. Yet too often, people from different backgrounds and communities are missing from the conversations that shape environmental research, policy and innovation.
Connecting Communities with Nature is a new national programme created to change that. The programme works through trusted community groups to bring unheard and under‑represented voices into national conversations about nature, environmental challenges and future innovation.
The National Programme
The programme is designed to connect people with nature and environmental challenges in ways that feel grounded in real life rather than complex science.
An exciting series of online webinars will be delivered about a range of community and nature topics to inspire you and your community members to engage with the topics in your local workshops.
Participants explore issues such as:
- Access to green and blue spaces
- Local impacts of climate change
- Environmental justice and inequality
- Health, wellbeing and the natural environment
Activities are practical, inclusive and creative, enabling people to reflect on how environmental change affects their lives, communities and futures.
Nature Smart
Nature Smart explores how innovation, technology and new approaches can support nature, strengthen communities and create more sustainable futures.
Nature Secure
Nature Secure focuses on understanding environmental challenges such as climate change, nature loss and unequal access to safe, healthy environments.
Community groups may engage with one or both strands, depending on their interests, priorities and capacity.
Opportunities for Community Groups
Taking part in Connecting Communities with Nature offers community organisations the opportunity to:
- Amplify voices that are often under-represented in environmental discussions
- Provide meaningful and creative engagement with nature
- Support participants to build confidence and share their perspectives
- Connect lived experience with national research and innovation spaces
- Contribute to a UK-wide evidence base and final programme report
The programme is designed to be flexible and to fit alongside your existing work.
Who the Programme Is For
This programme is open to community groups across the UK.
We are particularly keen to work with organisations supporting people whose voices are often missing from environmental conversations. This may include groups shaped by:
- Ethnicity or cultural background
- Disability or long-term health conditions
- Neurodiversity
- Socio-economic disadvantage
- Geography or place
- Age
- Lived experience of inequality or marginalisation
No specialist environmental or scientific knowledge is required. What matters most is trust, relationships and lived experience.
Why Join the Programme?
By joining Connecting Communities with Nature, your organisation can:
- Help ensure environmental research and innovation reflect real communities
- Empower participants to feel their voices genuinely matter
- Strengthen connections between people, place and nature
- Be part of a national programme funded by UKRI and NERC
- Support fairer, more inclusive environmental solutions
Participants often gain confidence, a sense of agency and new ways to engage with environmental issues.
How to Take Part
An exciting series of online webinars will be delivered about a range of community and nature topics to inspire you and your community members.
Community groups are invited to deliver a short series of workshops with their own participants.
Delivery is:
- Flexible – designed to fit around your existing activities
- Accessible – no specialist environmental knowledge required
- Fully supported – with guidance at every stage
Our team will provide:
- Ready-to-use workshop packs
- Training sessions and national webinars
- Ongoing delivery support
- Opportunities for participant insights to feed into national conversations
- Inclusion in a final national report
Your role is to bring the programme to life with your community, using your trusted relationships to support open, inclusive and creative conversations about nature and the environment.
Register for our National Webinars
Welcoming online induction sessions for community leaders, youth workers and facilitators interested in delivering workshops. Learn about the Nature Secure and Nature Smart programmes, explore available workshops, and gain confidence to engage young people and communities no environmental expertise needed.
