UPDATE 03/05/2023: THE DEADLINE FOR ANSWERING THE SURVEY AND PARTICIPATING IN THE SWEEPSTAKE HAS BEEN EXTENDED UNTIL JUNE 18th 2023.
UPDATE 25/05/2023: THE FOLLOWING COUNTRIES ARE NOW INLCUDED IN THE STUDY: CHINA, THAILAND, MEXICO, ARGENTINA, COSTA RICA, NEW ZEALAND, ISRAEL, ITALY AND SPAIN
UPDATE 16/06/2023: THE DEADLINE FOR ANSWERING THE SURVEY AND PARTICIPATING IN THE SWEEPSTAKE HAS BEEN EXTENDED UNTIL JULY 2ND 2023.
EVIST Survey
Welcome to the website of the research project Ecovillages as Incubators for Sustainability Transitions (EVIST).
This page contains information about the EVIST survey. In addition, it provides an overview of answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ) that might come up while answering the survey.
The EVIST Project
The EVIST Project studies the diffusion of ecovillages’ sustainable practices to their local surroundings.
This survey is the largest global survey on ecovillages until now and aims to increase the scientific knowledge on the diffusion activities of ecovillages in the Global South and in the Global North. In doing so, the EVIST project is closely collaborating with academic partners and representatives from the different GEN Regional Networks. You can find the full list of the EVIST project partners here.
The EVIST survey will generate important data on the characteristics, local impact, challenges and potentials of ecovillages in different contexts. There are 27 countries included in the survey: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Senegal, Kenya, Morocco, Ghana, South Africa, Nepal, India, Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Brazil, US, Canada, Ukraine, UK, France, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, China, Thailand, Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Israel, Italy and Spain.
We encourage all ecovillages in the selected countries to contribute to this survey by answering a web-based questionnaire through the link that will be sent with the invitation e-mail.
The results from this survey will be published in the form of academic articles and reports for practitioners. The information gathered will be anonymised and the (anonymised) raw data will be available open access to all interested people at the end of the project.
Important Documents English
Documents importants Français
Documentos Importantes Português
EVIST Survey: Frequently Asked Questions
Here you can find the answers to the Frequently Asked Questions for the EVIST Survey. Click on a question to get the answer displayed.
The survey is designed to take around 30 minutes to complete.
Some information about the ecovillage such as the number of members, its date of foundation, external collaborations and projects, and basic knowledge about the region where the ecovillage is located.
This is up to the members of the ecovillage. However, because of the research interest it should be someone who has relatively good knowledge about the community and its different activities with people and groups from your locality.
No. It is unfortunately not possible to pause the survey. Please finish the survey in one visit.
To change the language of the survey, please select your preferred language in the top (right) corner of the website.
If you encounter technical problems, please contact the EVIST team at rebeca.roysen@unibas.ch
The deadline for completing the survey is May 14, 2023.
The knowledge generated through this survey will be used to create outputs for ecovillages and other actors working in the field of local sustainability transition. The results will be communicated back to the ecovillages through reports and presentations. Published academic articles will also make ecovillages more visible in academia.
All ecovillages invited to complete the questionnaire, and who subsequently do so, will be included in a sweepstake in which one responding ecovillage from each GEN region will win a voucher of CHF 200. This voucher can be used either for courses offered by the GEN learning platform or for hours of consultancy. Winning ecovillages can choose the experts from a list of consultants from the GEN regional networks. They can also use the hours to donate their own expertise to other ecovillages. You can find the rules and conditions of the sweepstake here (EN, FR, PT, ES).
All ecovillages that complete the questionnaire will be invited to participate in an online session where the EVIST team will provide a first-hand report of the results of this survey, followed by a networking session with other ecovillages from their region.
Dr. Rebeca Roysen, Prof. Dr. Jens Köhrsen, Lasse Kos, Julius Malin and Nadine Brühwiler
The selection of countries to be included in this study was based on two criteria: (1) Countries that had a minimum number of six projects registered in the Global Ecovillage Network international database (https://ecovillage.org/projects/) on 28.02.2022. (2) From this list, we selected the 11 countries with the highest GDP/Capita (PPP in 2020) (total of 277 ecovillages) and the 16 countries with the lowest GDP/Capita (total of 216 ecovillages). These criteria provide a diverse country selection in terms of world region, economic, cultural, social and political contexts. For countries with more than 30 ecovillages, we conducted a random sampling in order to have a balanced number of ecovillages per country.
No. It is unfortunately not possible to forward the link to other ecovillages that might be interested in participating. The methodology of the EVIST project does not leave room for participation of ecovillages that were not selected through the criteria described above.
Invitations to the ecovillages will be sent by April 1., 2023. If your ecovillage does not receive the invitation by then, it may be due to five situations:
It is not located in one of the selected countries;
It is not registered in the GEN database or was not registered on the date when the EVIST team retrieved the information;
In countries with more than 30 ecovillages, not all ecovillages were invited. We did a random selection to select the ones that would be included;
Your ecovillage has less than 8 permanent members or has been present in the region for less than 2 years;
Your ecovillage doesn’t include a community that lives on site (e.g. NGOs).
If you think your ecovilage should have been invited, but did not receive the invitation, please feel free to contact us directly via the contact form of the website or write Rebeca at rebeca.roysen@unibas.ch.
The EVIST team will invite all ecovillages that were part of the survey to a meeting where the results will be presented. The data will be available open access on a repositorium from 2025 on. In addition, articles will be published open access so everybody can read about the findings.
Data protection is of the upmost importance to the EVIST project. The suggested methodologies, data storage and data protection regulations of the EVIST project follow the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union and have been approved by the ethics committee of the University of Basel. You can find the exact anonymization, data protection and data storage regulations of the survey here.
Yes. In this survey, when we ask for the collaborations and/or diffusion activities of the ecovillage, it can refer to the diffusion work of its individual members, and not necessarily of the ecovillage as a whole.