Protected Areas (PAs) are a vital policy tool for biodiversity conservation. However, effective management is often hindered by conflicts related to the social impacts (SIs) they impose on local communities. Despite the significance of these SIs, there are gaps in research, and there's a growing need to integrate SI assessments into decision-making. This would help achieve biodiversity conservation goals, climate adaptation, and address social justice issues for communities dependent on protected natural resources.

FIDELIO was a project funded by the European Research Councils which aimed to develop a new framework to understand how perceptions of SIs are formed, considering spatial and temporal dimensions. Grounded in environmental sociology and psychology, the project incorporated recent debates, such as "nature contributions to people." The key objectives were: Understanding the complexities of socio-ecological systems in PAs, including space and time dimensions; Exploring the key socio-economic obstacles to achieving biodiversity conservation goals, focusing on the social effectiveness of PAs; Developing tools to facilitate SI assessments in PAs.

The project collected data from over 20 PAs across Europe, mainly via structured questionnaires. Over 6,500 individuals participated, and the results showed that health and inclusion benefits—especially connectedness to nature, recreation, and social relations—were most important to local communities. Economic benefits were deemed least important.

The study also explored factors influencing local support for PAs. While support was generally high, parts of local communities remained unsure about the existence of these areas. The developed framework revealed that perceptions of PAs are significantly shaped by the interactions between perceived social impacts, governance, and local levels of social capital.

Theoretical and empirical frameworks from the project have been published in several peer-reviewed journals. These findings were disseminated through workshops, conferences, the FIDELIO website, and social media.

Another key focus of the project was understanding how perceptions of social impacts differ across spatial dimensions. Research showed significant differences in how social impacts are perceived depending on an individual’s location. Detailed maps were created for various case studies, revealing these differences. These maps are available in dedicated reports on the project’s website. The concept of "spatial social equity" was introduced as an important parameter for future consideration by practitioners and decision-makers. Results, along with the methodology for incorporating spatial dimensions, have been published in two peer-reviewed journals.

A final goal of the project was to examine whether perceptions change over time. Two surveys were conducted with the same participants in four case studies. Results indicated that perceptions of PAs change very slowly over time, with only small shifts observed. These changes were attributed to time and other factors within the theoretical framework. However, several case studies were affected by significant external events, including the COVID-19 pandemic, so the results were interpreted cautiously.