Climate change, biodiversity loss, and water quality decline are among the most urgent challenges of our time. Our research programme brings together researchers, communities, policymakers, and businesses across Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Great Britain to find practical, joined-up solutions.
Explore our research themes below to find out more about the work we do and the impact we aim to have.
Research Themes
Projections
Providing new climate, biodiversity and water forecasts at a detail and scale useful for decision-making.
MonitoringÂ
Collecting and analysing data to better understand the land, atmosphere, climate, and water around us. This helps generate information and create useful tools to support smart land use decisions and the sustainable management of natural resources.
Enabling Fair Transformations
Developing fair and effective ways to create and carry out solutions together with people and communities, making sure no one is left behind.
Evidence Discovery & Integration
Creating practical tools and technologies to measure and track the benefits nature offers, like clean water, healthy soil, and biodiversity. This helps us understand how different land uses impact the environment and enables us to make more informed decisions for the future.
Sustainable Agri-food Transitions
We partner with industry to find better ways to use land for food production while protecting the environment. This thematic research area seeks to address the challenges and solutions associated with agriculture, sustainable agriculture, food security & nutrition and agri-tech.
Sustainable Communities & Livelihoods
We partner with industry to understand how land use, the shift to clean energy, and environmental changes affect people and nature. We help develop solutions that support both a healthy environment and thriving, sustainable communities.
Risk & Opportunity
We partner with industry to evaluate climate, biodiversity, and water-related risks while developing practical solutions for these industries and communities. Working with our business partners across various sectors we are evaluating climate, biodiversity and water related risks and developing practical solutions for these industries and communities.
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Investing in Carbon & Nature
We are collaborating with industries that work with nature to create sustainable solutions for people and the environment. These projects investigate how different land use interventions and strategies affect carbon storage, pollution, wildlife, and water quality.
Cross-Cutting Themes
Skills for the Green Transition
We support workers to build new technical skills and take part in industry-focused training. We help them learn to use digital tools that are important for the green transition, the shift to cleaner energy, lower pollution, and more sustainable ways of living and working. We also work with universities and colleges to support education and training across different sectors.
Policy Response Unit
We bring together researchers from different disciplines to respond to UK and Ireland government consultations with evidence-based information on climate, biodiversity and water.
Education and Public Engagement
We engage with people and communities to raise awareness about climate change, biodiversity loss, and water quality issues. Our goal is to help people make informed choices and take action in their communities. We also support education by creating learning materials and resources for teachers and students in primary and secondary schools.
Research Synthesis Working Groups
These working groups bring our researchers together to tackle big picture research questions by combining data, theory, expertise, and different perspectives. This approach helps fast-track discoveries and strengthens the impact of research in decision-making.