Groups & Programmes

Drawing expertise from across the University in ecology, finance and economics, social sciences, human wellbeing, cultural values, AI, machine learning, satellite-based monitoring, and other disciplines and by working closely with stakeholders the programme aims to address wide-ranging challenges to move towards stemming the tide of biodiversity loss, and developing opportunities for biodiversity recovery, globally.

The programme will be implemented at scales from local to global, working with collaborators in business and in government.

We are a group of conservation scientists working on applied research at the interface of social and ecological systems. We work in collaboration with non-governmental organisations, practitioners, government agencies and businesses to provide approaches which address key conservation issues in every biome.

Successful nature recovery requires the full engagement and support of local communities, appropriate local governance and clear articulation of financial costs and benefits. It necessitates not only an understanding of ecology and land use, but also understanding and allowing for local land rights as well as cultural, social, food provision, health and wellbeing, and the economic values of landscapes. The Centre incorporates these multiple dimensions into a single framework for developing scenarios and strategies for nature recovery.

The Centre acts as a hub for innovative thinking, discussion and analysis of nature recovery nationally and worldwide, it unites leading researchers from a wide range of disciplines across the University, its interdisciplinary approach bringing together expertise from the departments of geography, ecology, social science, finance, economics, psychiatry, anthropology, artificial intelligence, statistics and earth observation, to collaborate on a range of projects, in conjunction with national and international partners.

Our mission is to enhance understanding of the potential of nature-based solutions to address multiple global challenges whilst supporting the health of ecosystems and respecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. We are an interdisciplinary programme bringing together natural, physical and social scientists with economists, governance and finance experts from the University of Oxford and beyond.

A multidisciplinary research group working on nature and wellbeing. To provide evidence to inform policies that promote the environment and the communities it sustains.

The mission of the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) is to achieve practical solutions to conservation problems through original scientific research. Our research is used worldwide to advise environmental policy-makers.

We work with partners across the globe to conserve rare plants. We develop ex situ conservation collections from biodiversity hotspots – areas with high plant species richness, and surveys to measure the diversity of these regions. Our work collectively focuses on the Mediterranean Basin and Canary Island Archipelago, and the Ethiopian and Japanese floristic regions. We also work with local conservation groups on rare plants around Oxfordshire, and on parasitic plants – a group neglected from conservation elsewhere.

Our passion is nature, and our mission is to stop biodiversity loss. To tackle this major challenge, we study the distribution and evolution of species and develop methods to speed up scientific discovery. Our research focuses on the tropics, where most species occur and the threats are most acute.

Effective policy and world-class science are both needed to prevent catastrophic environmental degradation on a global scale, yet science and policy often operate in different worlds and to different timelines. Agile aims to address this challenge.

Deliver solution-oriented science through a new model of interdisciplinary research. Groups of researchers from across the University work with stakeholders and partners (including government at all levels, industry partners, NGOs and local communities) in rapid “Sprint” projects to address a time-critical research question identified by policymakers.

Create a critical mass of interdisciplinary researchers capable of working within this model. Agile offers training, career development, community-building and collective learning on the Sprint model.

Contribute to a research culture shift in how impactful, interdisciplinary research is funded and delivered at the University of Oxford and more widely. By collating evidence and learning, Agile will use its findings to influence institutional policies and practices.

The Biodiversity and Behavioural Science Team (BBeST), a research group housed jointly by WildCRU and the Environmental Research Institute in the Department of Geography.

Evaluating impact
We measure the impact of interventions on pro-environmental behaviour using a range of techniques, from qualitative impact evaluation methods to experimental and quasi-experimental approaches. This diversity enables rigorous evaluation of various behavioural interventions, including digital games, documentaries, social media campaigns, and community-based initiatives. Our past work has included assessments of documentaries like Blackfish and Blue Planet, augmented reality games such as Wilderverse, NGO-led social media campaigns, and policy measures like wildlife trade bans.

Audience research
Our audience research employs a mixed-method approach, combining large-scale questionnaires with in-depth interviews across diverse stakeholders to understand the social contexts and drivers of biodiversity-related behaviours. We also use participatory methods, such as co-design workshops, to engage target audiences in developing behavioural interventions. Our expertise includes specialised questioning techniques to reduce social desirability bias, a crucial factor when addressing illegal or socially sensitive behaviours. Examples of our work include examining the drivers of seabird bycatch among fishers in Cape Verde, West Africa; investigating the motivations of sea turtle meat consumers in the Maldives; and exploring trade-offs in shark fin consumption in Singapore.

Measuring societal perceptions of biodiversity
We work on understanding perceptions of biodiversity, particularly species, across geographic, temporal, social, and cultural gradients. Our work focuses on concepts like flagship species and the emerging idea of ‘societal species extinction,’ where a species disappears from the cultural and social fabric of a society despite remaining biologically extant. We are currently collaborating on developing a large scale species perceptions monitoring effort to assess aspects of human-wildlife conflict on a large scale, which will be crucial for tracking target 4 of the CBD’s Global Biodiversity Framework. We are also working on understanding the societal significance of wildlife presence on business and sports branding, in the hope of elucidating the cultural importance of wildlife.

The next generation of tracking technology

We are a team of researchers based at the Department of Biology at the University of Oxford. We study a broad range of interrelated questions in community ecology, with a strong emphasis on empirical work. Our research interests include tropical forest diversity, ecological networks, ecosystem functioning, inter-specific interactions, conservation biology, agro-ecology and the impact of human activities on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.

Our research aims to understand how contemporary ecosystems function, and how they are affected by global atmospheric change and anthropogenic activity.

The ETC (Education and Training for the Climate) hub makes the breadth and depth of this research visible through a vibrant online presence. The hub brings together an expansive network in Oxford and a strategic group of international, interdisciplinary collaborators to generate new research insights into education and training for the climate. The ETC hub explores questions around knowledge, policy, curricular reform, skills, training and industry; teacher education and professional development; global vocational training systems; and educational institution responses. This interdisciplinary portfolio of research activity is be supported by collaborative research projects encouraging the growth of research on education and training for the climate at Oxford.

Through a range of programmes and services, Oxford University’s Environmental Sustainability team is helping the University to reach Strategy goals and to increase its positive impact on the world around us. The University’s Strategy sets two ambitious targets: to achieve net zero carbon and to achieve biodiversity net gain, both by 2035. The biodiversity-specific goal is to identify and address the University’s principal biodiversity impacts through its operations and supply chain, and enhance biodiversity on the University’s estate.

From understanding the origins of the climate crisis to exploring the personal and cultural dimensions of ecological grief, the environmental humanities are essential for addressing some of the biggest challenges facing the twenty-first century. The collection of scientific data regarding biodiversity loss, carbon emissions, and industrial pollution will only get us so far. Not only do the environmental humanities bring a critical eye to the very construction of scientific knowledge; they are also essential for understanding what this data means for social structures, political institutions, and cultural practices.  

The Environmental Humanities Hub at TORCH is a community of scholars drawn from a wide variety of disciplines, from literary criticism and theology, to music and history. We are committed to thinking about how our individual areas of expertise might come together to generate meaningful interdisciplinary collaborations aimed at answering some of the most pressing questions of our time.

The Ethno-ornithology World Atlas is a space for community-curated bird and ecological knowledge in many languages. Founded on the recognition that humans everywhere are inspired culturally, practically and spiritually by birds, EWA is about building relationships between indigenous and local communities, conservationists, academics, and their institutions, to promote bird conservation through the engagement with, respect for and celebration of diverse cultural traditions of knowledge. EWA is a collaboration between Oxford University’s Department of Biology, the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, and BirdLife International. The EWA Research Group in the University of Oxford consists of graduate students, post-doctoral researchers and faculty members spanning the life and social sciences, working on interdisciplinary topics encompassing Anthropology, Ornithology, Geography and Linguistics.

This programme is dedicated to advancing the science of mental health and wellbeing through the development of innovative, nature-based interventions that promote both human and planetary flourishing. Termed Ecological Collective Flourishing (E-Co-Flourishing), the approach integrates physical, emotional, social, and ecological dimensions of wellbeing. The research aims to understand and harness the mechanisms by which engagement with green spaces and cultural institutions can support mental health, particularly in non-clinical settings. By developing and testing scalable, evidence-based programmes, the Theme seeks to contribute to a new model of preventative mental healthcare rooted in community and environmental engagement.

Using ecological and remote sensing tools to understand the impacts of our planet’s changing climate and land-use upon biodiversity, and its contributions to people.

Spanning natural sciences, economics and finance, our research increases understanding of the relationships between environmental change, the economy, the financial system, and people and the solutions to advance a resilient, inclusive and sustainable world for all.

We are interested in how anthropogenic stressors alter aquatic environments. How do stressors, such as heatwaves, species invasions, and habitat loss interact to affect individuals, communities and entire ecosystems? These stressors rarely occur in isolation, so the traditional focus on single stressors will inevitably miss key information on their interactive, and often counterintuitive, impacts. We aim to derive generalities in how aquatic ecosystems respond to multiple stressors by focusing on both multiple levels of organisation (from genes to ecosystems) and multiple scales (from laboratory experiments to field studies).

We are a group of social scientists who examine the human dimensions of land use change. Our work spans numerous world regions, and includes a strong focus on the global to local equity dimensions of land use decisions.

The Marine Conservation Ecology & Management (MCEM) group is composed of an interdisciplinary team of ecologists and environmental economists led by Associate Professor Katrina Davis. Our research assesses optimal use of natural resources to maximise the productivity of ecological and social systems. Our work combines bio-economic and demographic modelling, non-market valuation and optimisation approaches. Current projects include resolution of marine human-wildlife conflict, assessing marine use and non-use values, spatial marine management, and theoretical work exploring how to treat choice-consistency in discrete choice experiment analysis.

We work closely with a wide range of partners to strengthen the relevance, impact and real-world application of our research. This includes engagement with an advisory group of experts and leaders from policy, practice and industry, who provide strategic insight, challenge and guidance, and help ensure our work responds to the needs of decision makers.

We undertake cross-disciplinary research using mathematical approaches to explore novel, exciting and rewarding problems in ecology, evolution, health and economics.
Research in the group addresses a wide range of questions broadly concerning population biology (in developmental biology, population dynamics, community ecology, evolutionary ecology and health).

Many of these projects involve the development of theoretical models in conjunction with experiments or observations in the field or laboratory. To this end, we aim to test different hypotheses by using relevant mathematical models and approaches appropriate to experimental (or observational) data. Further details of our research can be found on the Projects page.

Social science research group examining the cultural dimensions of wildlife conservation. Interested in public understandings of nature and the relationships between natural science and environmental policy. Common focus on the role of charismatic species in shaping conservation practice and policy.

We are a growing network of people from over 500 higher education institutions across the world, working together to promote nature on our campuses, in our supply chains and within our cities and communities. We were founded by UNEP and University of Oxford in partnership with the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

We depend on nature for our survival, and nature depends on us. This is a critical time to stand up for nature. We believe that universities can use their power and influence to help lead their communities on a Nature Positive journey, uniting both the climate and biodiversity crises to build more resilient ecosystems, help nature recover and limit climate change.

We are interested in ecological questions relating to plants and the organisms they interact with both pure and applied. Our topics of interest include: Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning/services; Coexistence; Restoration and re-wilding; Diversity and stability; Tropical forest ecology.

The Oxford Nature Positive Hub brings together leading researchers from across the University of Oxford, and close collaborators from other organisations. We are united by a common theme: working towards understanding and quantifying the drivers of biodiversity loss, identifying opportunities for impact mitigation and nature gains, and investigating policy mechanisms and actions that might underpin pathways towards Nature Positive outcomes overall. Through strong collaboration with partners in government, business, research institutes and international NGOs, we aim to deliver research that can provide the technical underpinnings necessary to catalyse a step change towards a genuinely Nature Positive world. Given the will and the tools, a Nature Positive future is entirely feasible.

Aligning finance with sustainability is a necessary condition for tackling the environmental and social challenges facing humanity. It is also necessary for financial institutions and the broader financial system to manage the risks and capture the opportunities associated with the transition to global environmental sustainability.

The University of Oxford has world-leading researchers and research capabilities relevant to understanding these challenges and opportunities. Established in 2012 the Oxford Sustainable Finance Group is the focal point for these activities. The Group is multidisciplinary and works globally across asset classes, finance professions, and with different parts of the financial system. We are the largest such centre globally and are working to be the world’s best place for research and teaching on sustainable finance and investment.

We are based in one of the world’s great universities and the oldest university in the English-speaking world. We work with leading practitioners from across the investment chain (including actuaries, asset owners, asset managers, accountants, banks, data providers, investment consultants, lawyers, ratings agencies, stock exchanges), with firms and their management, and with experts from a wide range of related subject areas (including finance, economics, management, geography, data science, anthropology, climate science, law, area studies, psychology) within the University of Oxford and beyond.

The Global Sustainable Finance Advisory Council that guides our work contains many of the key individuals and organisations working on sustainable finance. The Oxford Sustainable Finance Group’s founding Director is Dr Ben Caldecott.

Since our foundation we have made significant and sustained contributions to the field, including in some of the following areas:

Developing the concept of stranded assets, now a core element of the theory and practice of sustainable finance.
Contributions to the theory and practice of measuring environmental risks and impacts via new forms of geospatial data and analysis, including introducing the idea and importance of spatial finance and asset-level data.
Shaping the theory and practice of supervision as it relates to sustainability by working with the Bank of England, the central banks’ and supervisors’ Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), among others.
Working closely with policymakers to design and implement policies to support sustainable finance, including through the UK Green Finance Taskforce, UK Green Finance Strategy, COP26, and the high-level Transition Plan Taskforce.
Nurturing the expansion of a rigorous academic community internationally by conceiving, founding, and co-chairing the Global Research Alliance for Sustainable Finance and Investment (GRASFI), an alliance of 30 global research universities promoting rigorous and impactful academic research on sustainable finance.

The Oxford Seascape Ecology Lab focuses on understanding the social-ecological causes and consequences of spatial patterns and processes in the sea, with the aim of developing science-based solutions to support marine biodiversity management and policy. The lab supports members of varied research experience levels in working to weave together theoretical approaches from the disciplines of landscape ecology, conservation biology, systems science and marine ecology. The lab is based in the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford and is directed by Dr Lisa Wedding.

The Salgo Team is composed by an interdisciplinary group of ecologists and evolutionary biologists led by Prof. Rob Salguero-Gómez. We work on the following research areas:

• Drivers of life history strategies
• Resilience
• The evolution of and escape from senescence
• Functional trait ecology
• Species distributions and habitat suitability
• Life history oddities and gaps of knowledge
• Conservation biology and population forecast
• Comparative demography
• Population modelling & methods
• Monitoring technologies (e.g. remote sensing, autonomous robots)
• Big data in ecology

The SalGo team’s ultimate goal is to examine the mechanisms and consequences of demographic variation in species across the tree of life. We do so by using an integrative research programme that includes metabolomics, biochemical, anatomic, ecophysiological, demographic and macroecological approaches. Our work combines field and lab experimental manipulations, ecological modelling, and comparative analyses, coupled with the usage of new technologies.