Scuders

Scuders is an applied research to study sedentary lifestyle as a behavioural design challenge. The research investigates the conversion of kilometres walked by inactive individuals into funding for sports teams.

The research operates through a longitudinal model of four 30-day editions per year (January, April, July, October). Each edition can host several projects running in parallel, and every project is one closed group of individuals, followed across its four projects with real drop-out measured. Eligibility is restricted to sedentary individuals unfit to walk for 10 consecutive minutes.

Daily activity — up to five 1 km walks, each completed within 20 minutes — is recorded via the phone GPS, with no minimum and no obligation to walk. Biological validation filters out sudden progressions that an inactive person could not realistically complete. The primary metric is the completion percentage against the maximum achievable distance across the year: 3600 km with a group of 6 individuals.

Funding is provided by companies classified as research participants, and the walking distance is converted at a fixed rate of 1 km = 1 euro into a dedicated IBAN account opened for each project, without intermediate credits, tokens, points or management fees. The statement of that account is a shared document, readable by the funding company, the sports team and its own members. It replaces subjective reporting.

Scuders earns the same whether people walk every kilometre or none: the operational fee is flat, identical for every group size, and never a percentage. Capital that is not converted is neither refunded to the company nor kept as profit — it stays permanently locked, and only the interest it generates funds projects in the years to come.

A guaranteed economic result for the sports team would make this a service rather than research. Kilometres not walked are lost and not carried to the next project. That loss is what the completion percentage measures. Everything else is known in advance: the amount is fixed, the conditions are public, the conversion is whole. The only unknown is whether people who today cannot walk for ten consecutive minutes will start walking to fund local sports teams, which is the research question itself.