About

The Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures is a collaboration between the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment and The University of Sheffield.

We work with experts from academia, business and policy to create a sustainable future. And a key part of this is mentoring the next generation of sustainability researchers.

The Grantham Scholars

Interviews with Grantham Scholars — Our researchers are an amazing lot. Pictured are just some of them that we have interviewed, click on the picture to be taken to our Blog, interviews and comment page.

Experts from science, social science, engineering, arts & humanities and medicine come together at the Grantham Centre. As a result, we have an incredible multidisciplinary team. These experts supervise our Grantham Scholars.

In order to foster a broad-minded approach to sustainability problems, each Grantham Scholar has supervisors from at least two different disciplines. And because we want the Grantham Scholars to be the sustainability leaders of tomorrow, we also provide a special training program.

You can hear directly from the Grantham Scholars through our blogs, interviews and comment. From earthworms to urban metabolism, here you can learn about cutting edge sustainability research from the people who are doing it.

Research

Additional to the research of the Grantham Scholars, we have set up dedicated research projects that address the most pressing environmental problems.

For example, we are tackling the plastic pollution crisis with Plastics: Redefining Single-Use. For this project we have gathered a team of world-class experts. From chemistry to psychology, our plastics team work together to create new knowledge and solve old problems. With £1 million funding from UKRI, these experts will redefine single-use plastic.

Do you have a PhD student at the University of Sheffield who could be a Grantham Scholar? Find out how to apply, what we offer, and what to expect.

What Do We Do?

Sustainable Development Goals

Sustainable Development Goals are blueprints for a sustainable future. So UN member states are expected to use these Goals to frame agendas and policies. Find out here how Grantham Centre research connects to each Goal.

The food and agriculture sector offers key solutions for development, and is central for hunger and poverty eradication.

Clean, accessible water for all is an essential part of the world we want to live in.

Energy is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity.

There needs to be a future in which cities provide opportunities for all, with access to basic services, energy, housing, transportation and more.

Promoting resource and energy efficiency, sustainable infrastructure, and providing access to basic services, green and decent jobs and a better quality of life for all

Climate change is a global challenge that affects everyone, everywhere.

Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss.

Our Background

We are co-funded by the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, founded by Jeremy and Hanne Grantham. A world-renowned investment manager, Jeremy Grantham was brought up in Doncaster and graduated from the University of Sheffield with a degree in Economics in 1961. He is a strong advocate for environmental issues.

“It is crucial that scientists take more career risks and sound a more realistic, more desperate, note on the global-warming problem. Younger scientists are obsessed by thoughts of tenure, so it is probably up to older, senior and retired scientists to do the heavy lifting. Be arrested if necessary. This is not only the crisis of your lives – it is also the crisis of our species’ existence. I implore you to be brave.”

Jeremy Grantham, Nature, 2012 Reprinted by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd: Nature (491, 303), copyright (2012)