We have strengthened our research aligned to our expertise within the University priority area ‘Sustainability and Environment’. Through this strategy we have promoted interdisciplinary research across the Global Sustainability Institute (GSI), the Behavioural Ecology Research Group (BERG) and the Applied Ecology Research Group (AERG), within the Faculty of Science & Engineering. We generate new knowledge of how human society influences the environment, and utilise this knowledge to inform policy and develop tools to tackle global issues including biodiversity loss, animal wellbeing, energy, and financial instability relating to climate change and conflict.
Our approach to impact is to ensure early engagement of key stakeholders in all of our projects from proposal design stage, problem definition through to project delivery. For example, company and government experts have been involved from the concept stage through to policy impact in our food systems research, European Commission policy officers worked with ARU to define the questions that structured the underpinning research that led to funding policy change in our energy research, and citizens are intimately involved throughout the lifespan of the research on invertebrates.