On 25 July 2022, the Build4People Work Package #1 “Behaviour Change” team met for a Science Workshop with the aim of discussing recent research activities and the outlook of further work and collaboration steps during the ongoing Research and Development Phase of the Build4People project.
The group of environmental psychology at the Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg was represented by Prof. Dr. Ellen Matthies, Dr. Anke Blöbaum, Annalena Becker and Beatrice Guhl. From the side of Build4People’s Cambodian colleagues, Dr. Op Vanna and Dr. Sok Serey from the Royal University of Phnom Penh joined the meeting.
In the beginning, the new student assistant Beatrice Guhl, who joined the Build4People WP1 in June, was introduced to the colleagues of the Royal University of Phnom Penh. Dr. Anke Blöbaum continued reporting recent activities and news of the overall Build4People project and the envisaged research stay in Phnom Penh in October 2022.
Dr. Sok Serey shared insights of the application for a scientific competition hosted by a Japanese University that aims at funding research projects that target SDG11. He worked on the application with other Build4People colleagues at RUPP and related the scientific program to the Build4People project. Many interconnections between the different scientific projects at RUPP and Build4People, e.g., concerning the reduction of plastic consumption can be drawn and research findings and implications from a recent EU project on waste management have also been considered in this regard. This funding aims at technology and knowledge transfer that support sustainable solutions for urban and neighbourhood planning.
As a next input, Dr. Op Vanna presented the data collection and first analyses of a current study on Social Wellbeing and health-related topics in Cambodia. He reported insights about the measurements and sociodemographic aspects of the researched sample.
In the following, Annalena Becker and Beatrice Guhl presented ongoing literature reviews and first methodological considerations for the upcoming online survey investigating pro-environmental behavior change potentials with the target group of New Consumers in Phnom Penh. For this, Beatrice Guhl gave an overview of research aspects that are considered for this group that is considered as the urban middle class, lifestyle related topics and cultural circumstances that need to be integrated within the research.
The subsequent discussion was targeting the question how health-related topics can be interpreted and linked to similar aspects of the Build4People Urban Quality of Life research.
With the help of the visualization of an interactive online board, research designs and measurements that deal with the behavioral domains of waste management and energy consumption were presented and discussed more intensively.
As last input of the Science Workshop, Annalena Becker gave some insights into the Urban Quality of Life survey that was conducted in May 2022 in Phnom Penh and first analyses of the data. She presented the different research aims that are targeted by this study design by the environmental psychological research group of WP1 as well as by the transdisciplinary Build4People consortium.
The measurement of the individual perception and evaluation of Urban Quality of Life will both be investigated from a sociopsychological perspective, as well as linked to the measurements and research questions that are conducted by other B4P work groups, e.g. the measurement of outdoor and indoor temperatures, and the consideration of specific spatial structures in the study site of Phnom Penh’s Chbar Ampov District.
All in all, it was a very fruitful meeting as part of the regular scientific exchange between the Build4People Work Package #1 “Behaviour Change” research partners in Germany and in Cambodia.
We thank everyone for joining this interesting and insightful event, for their time and shared ideas, and we are looking forward to upcoming cooperative activities!