Inclusion in the neighbourhood (InNa)

A good neighborhood and social relationships in the neighborhood can contribute a lot to the quality of life and well-being. Encounters in the immediate environment and the opportunity to actively participate in community life there gain additional importance when physical mobility is limited and the radius of action decreases. In the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic, there has also been a growing trend to shift social relationships into the digital sphere.

The "Inclusion in Neighborhoods" (InNa) project is based on the idea that "hybrid neighborhoods" with physical and digital contact opportunities can help overcome challenges in everyday life and build or expand social relationships. For the emergence and promotion of "hybrid neighborhoods", it is central that online tools are coupled with on-site activities (cf. SNF project "Emerging Digital Neighborhoods", 2020/2021 ETH CASE).

The research and development project "InNa" builds on this insight and aims at a pilot study in a Zurich neighborhood, which includes the implementation of an online tool in combination with offline activities on site. The digital neighborhood platform is set up by the Swiss startup beUnity (see partners).

Against this background, the overarching intention of the project is to support inclusion - by strengthening social contacts and mutual support in neighborhood networks online and offline. Ultimately, the entire neighborhood benefits from this. The research interest of the project is to elicit potentials and limits of such "hybrid neighborhoods".

The research questions that the project wants to answer are:

• To what extent can "hybrid neighborhoods" contribute to activating neighborly relations?
  
• How can people who are difficult to reach be better included? Where are the obstacles in the implementation and how can these be overcome?

The project works together with existing neighborhood actors and municipal organizations throughout the entire process, so that the results can be transferred to other urban neighborhoods once the project is over.