The project is a cooperation between the Professorship of Urban Productive Ecosystems at the TU Munich and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin.
The project began in 2019 by Monika Egerer with support from IPODI funding and the Institute of Ecology at the TU Berlin, where she built a network of community garden research sites. At the first Berlin Citizen Science Day 2019, the connection to the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin was established. Together we developed the Citizen Science approach and its link to urban ecology research.
The gardening season 2020 marked the start of joint research with the gardeners from 18 gardens in Berlin. From January to November 2020, the project was carried out under the umbrella of the Berlin-Brandenburg Institute for Biodiversity Research. It was supported by the projects Bridging in Biodiversity Research (BIBS, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research) and Discovering Urban Nature (funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety). The pilot project was awarded by the UN Decade on Biological Diversity 2020. The TU Berlin team consisted of Carolina Achilles, Sascha Buchholz, Julia Felderhof, Anika Gathof, Anita Grossman, Johann Hermann, Claudia Hilmer, Ingo Kowarik, Julia Lorenz, Birgit Seitz, and Tanja Straka, and other field technicians and support.
In 2021, we received funding from the Heidehof Foundation and were able to expand the project to include 15 gardens in Munich.
Since 2022, we have been funded by the Postcode Lottery Foundation. This funding enables us to continue the project and the cooperation with the gardens.
