To create a sustainable future we need to make sure there is enough food, water and energy for everyone. And we need to do this within planetary boundaries. As such, we are committed to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals – because the Goals provide a blueprint to create a fair future for everyone.
In order to follow these blueprints we need to know how. And that’s where research comes in.
Our problems are multifaceted, they are local and global, material and social, political and industrial. So science alone can’t solve them. We need social science, humanities and the arts to join with science and engineering to create holistic and cross-cutting solutions.
So here at the Grantham Centre, all our projects are multidisciplinary.
Our plan is to support our researchers to create usable knowledge that addresses the complexity of environmental crisis.
Grantham Centre experts represent every faculty at the University of Sheffield. As a result we can create cross-cutting research projects.
For instance, Grantham Scholar Jenny Veenstra‘s first supervisor is soil scientist Dr Manoj Menon from Geography. But Jenny’s second supervisor is from Civil and Structural Engineering.
Another Scholar, Rohit Chakraborty, is supervised by experts from Chemistry, Engineering, and in science communication. Rohit studies air pollution and this range of expertise allows him to examine this problem from the social, chemical and civil perspectives.
Find out more about the Grantham Scholars and their cross-disciplinary research.
Further, the perspectives of policy-makers, business and the media must inform sustainability. As such, our Centre Manager has created a bespoke training program for the Scholars. During this programme our people learn about policy making, communication, how to work with industry and more.
Grantham Centre experts are used to working across disciplines – so come together easily for our special research projects.
We have used this multidisciplinary thinking to win funding for collaborative research projects. For example, our £1 million UKRI funded Plastics: Redefining Single-Use. PRSU has experts from Psychology, Linguistics as well as Chemistry and Engineering. And we carried on this diverse mix of people in its successor: Many Happy Returns.
Another example of this mixed team approach is our project at the Zaatari refugee camp. Here our experts – a team of scientists, engineers, social scientists, Grantham Scholars and policy experts – have co-created some solutions to life at the camp.
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.
In this interview Grantham Scholar Hannah McCarrick explains how digital tech impacts Tanzanian farmers. And how being a mum – with young twins along for fieldwork on the farms – improved her research.
Congratulations to Maria del Carmen Redondo Bermudez on her 2 papers about green infrastructure in schools and air pollution.
Our Grantham Scholars get together to present their research to each other – and eat cake – at a multidisciplinary knowledge exchange.
We work closely with our partner sustainability teams at TUoS. Many of the researchers behind these groups are mentors to Grantham Scholars.