About

With generous funding from the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, the Grantham Centre has become a leading national and international centre for the training of young researchers in sustainability studies. We work in partnership with experts from academia, business and policy to build a fairer, more sustainable world through action, evidence and influence.

By fostering interdisciplinary research excellence, we have brought science, social science, engineering, arts & humanities and medicine together to train the next generation of sustainability leaders. We fund 70 Grantham Scholars who partake in a bespoke training program alongside their PhD that teaches them how to be expert activists for the environment through engaging with policy makers and industry.

We have influenced industrial and government policy through catalysing innovative research, actively pursuing public engagement and developing networks to bring about change. GCSF has fostered the development of a number of research areas which are now designated as flagships of research excellence at the University.

What Do We Do?

Sustainable Development Goals

The SDGs are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future. UN member states are expected to use SDGs to frame their agendas and political policies. Find out below how our research is connected to individual SDGs.

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

The Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures is 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 received an Honorary Doctorate from the University in 2012 and 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)

Videos

Research Centres

We work closely with our partner sustainability teams at the TUoS. The researchers behind these groups are mentors to many of Grantham Scholars and are coming up with innovative new solutions to sustainability challenges.