Departmental Research Strategy

Last Updated: May 2021

Our vision for research

The Department of Environment and Geography (DEG) at the University of York is aiming to be the most influential environmental department in the world by our 40th anniversary in 2032. Our overall departmental vision incorporates research, teaching and impact. Our specific vision for research is to 'carry out world-class research with relevance, reach and influence that provides the knowledge and drives the action needed, to define the best solutions for environmental challenges in the 21st century’.

In terms of our research strategy, we are aiming to:

• move up in the relevant research league tables
• increase our research income
• further improve the quality of our research outputs
• widen our research influence and impact
• increase the number whilst maintaining or even improving the quality of our PhD students
• enhance our research culture

with specific goals for each of these elements listed in the table near the end of this document. We will build on the fundamental research being undertaken in the Department, but move our focus further towards challenge-orientated research. We will identify interdisciplinary approaches for understanding and solving real-world environmental problems, and driving real and equitable change, particularly for those people suffering from poverty around the globe. We expect our research to offer equality in participation, progression and success for all and for every member of our research community to achieve their potential, to experience and celebrate diverse cultures, knowledge and identities and to be encouraged to make a positive contribution to the city, region and beyond.

Our research aligns with the University’s strategic aims that champion research that has relevance and reach and produces lasting legacies. We will build on the positive and productive partnerships we have already and develop new ones. The mechanisms we identify in this document for carrying out research will allow us to be more ‘agile, able and aligned’. The principles that guide the University’s Strategic Plan encompass equality, diversity and inclusion; environmental sustainability; internationalism, and collaboration across multidisciplinary boundaries. Our research strategy incorporates all of these principles, as well as reflecting the University vision for us being a University for the public good through responding to society’s greatest challenges and to be a community of shared purpose. It also provides exciting and topical input for our teaching programmes, as well as the potential for future CPD programmes. 

Global context

In 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was launched to end poverty and to set the world on a path towards peace, prosperity and opportunity for all on a healthy planet1. Seventeen sustainable development goals (SDGs) were defined that required fundamental change in our economic, political, social and financial systems, alongside changes in our behaviour. A recent report shows that very few of the 2020 SDG targets have been achieved. Meeting the 2030 goals will be very challenging and recent events such as the COVID-19 pandemic have made matters even worse1. The 2020-21 pandemic has highlighted the need for transformative change to deal with environmental problems and the complex interconnections between environmental and social challenges. The Government’s UK Research and Development Roadmap stresses the need to ‘build a future which is greener, safer and healthier than before’ 2. Current global efforts lack the strength and ambition to deal with issues such as the climate emergency, biodiversity loss, safe water, air, soil and food, socio-spatial inequalities and human health. We need to address the big challenges, but underpin this effort with fundamental research that advances knowledge in specific areas, so that we are well placed to respond to the big issues as well as any future disruptions. 

Our new research strategy has been designed in order to help us address some of the major environmental research challenges. Broadly, we need an inclusive approach that involves both physical and social understanding of systems, engages a range of stakeholders including in the design of research projects from the start (through co-design), and allows us to be inventive and to be innovative. This research strategy defines the challenges we will address, as well as the methods for doing so.

Who are we?

Formed in 1992, DEG has 29 ART staff members, 15 T&S staff members, and 24 post-doctoral staff (as of May 4th, 2021). We also have 60 registered Postgraduate Research students (with a further 15 writing-up/awaiting vivas), 53 taught postgraduate (MSc) and 490 undergraduate students (as of December 2020). We are supported by 8 technicians and 14 members of administrative support staff. Our research includes expertise in physical, natural and social sciences and we work with decision-makers and other stakeholders at international, national and local levels, to develop innovative solutions to the most important environmental challenges. We have strong partnerships within the City of York and the wider region and our research helps to provide the knowledge base to promote and deliver clean water, soil and air, enhance food and energy security, conserve terrestrial and marine ecosystems and identify wider nature-based solutions to enhance wellbeing. Underpinning much of our research is the need to address issues of poverty and equity and to better articulate the relationship between environment and society.

Since January 2016, DEG has been located in a £12.5 million purpose-built Environment Building, along with BioArCh (a joint venture between Biology, Archaeology and Chemistry), SEI York (the Stockholm Environment Institute at York) and YESI (the York Environmental Sustainability Institute). SEI York is one of seven SEI global centres and comprises 36 research and support staff. SEI supports policy and other decision-making around sustainable development, often using participatory research methods. It has been ranked as first or second most influential global think-tank on the environment since 2012. SEI York’s research falls into four broad areas: air quality and climate change; nature-society relations including resource management; sustainable consumption and production; and urban environments and human health. The York Environmental Sustainability Institute (YESI) connects environmental research across the University, bringing together researchers working on environmental questions across a broad range of disciplines. Research in YESI is clustered within three themes: Sustainable Food; Resilient Ecosystems; and Urban Living, though these are currently being revised. BioArCh combines expertise in archaeological science, with internationally recognised strengths in research of proteins, lipids, DNA and stable isotopes, human and other mammals, fish and bird bones, molluscs, soils, as well as microscopic remains of plants and animals. Its research covers prehistoric and historic themes, aiming to forge stronger and more diverse links between laboratory and fieldwork.

Along with the Departments of Politics and History, we lead the Interdisciplinary Global Development Centre (IGDC). The IGDC has more than 100 members across 19 Departments and Centres and facilitates interdisciplinary research across the sciences, social sciences and humanities to address global development challenges, focusing on the themes of social justice, global health and sustainable environments. Our staff also contribute to the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity, which examines how the relationship between humanity and the natural world is changing, and how we might develop and maintain a sustainable Earth. 

As well as the research collaborations highlighted above, we have numerous connections with Departments across all three faculties within the University and with numerous Universities across the UK and internationally. We work closely with stakeholders in the city, across the region, as well as further afield. These include links with industrial partners, public bodies including local, national and international governments, policy makers, charitable organisations and NGOs. 

Challenge-based research themes

The Department’s research base covers the spectrum from understanding the patterns and processes underlying physical geography and environmental science through ecology, economics and human geography to environmental policy. As such it spans scales from the micro to the global. We carry out the fundamental research that helps us to understand the causes and consequences of environmental change, use this knowledge to develop innovative solutions to environmental challenges, whilst engaging with stakeholders to provide credible, relevant and contextualised knowledge to support sustainable transformations and drive social change. Through these challenge areas, we acknowledge that commitments to environmental sustainability need to be matched with commitments around poverty, equity and justice.

We have defined four new challenge areas which will form four departmental research groups. Through knowledge creation and research, we will be:

• Securing a biodiverse planet: This challenge studies the natural world from individuals to populations and from communities to ecosystems, to allow us to identify how biodiversity contributes to the functioning of ecosystems and responds to environmental change, particularly the environmental pressures caused by humans and the consequences for people of biodiversity degradation. Our main research strengths are in tropical forests, drylands, conservation biology and management, wildlife disease, behavioural ecology, the contributions that biodiversity make to human wellbeing and assessing how nature-based solutions can be used to address some of the key global challenges.
• Creating sustainable and equitable food, energy and water systems: This challenge considers the complexity and dynamics of the relationships between economic, geographical, political, and social dimensions. We use innovative research approaches including participatory methods and models to understand the relationship between people and the environment and to identify the interventions needed to bring about transformative change. Research foci are on natural resource management and the links between climate, land management, resource consumption, the economy and development and in social and environmental transformations, particularly around energy, fisheries, food systems and agricultural commodities, health, and wellbeing, transport systems, water resources, urbanization and climate change.
• Delivering clean, green environments: Fundamental physical, chemical and biological processes within the atmosphere, soil and water are a focus of our research for this challenge, including how these processes respond to environmental change and then impact on human and ecosystem health. We also explore governance of clean, green environments and their contribution to human wellbeing. Much of our research in this challenge area considers the significant pressures that human activities in urban areas place on the surrounding environment and ecosystem health. Research foci are on ecotoxicology, indoor and outdoor air quality, and carbon and nutrient cycling.
• Creating a climate resilient world: We focus on understanding how physical and biological systems change on a variety of timescales, and apply this knowledge to forecast change into the future. Research for this challenge provides the evidence base for understanding Earth processes. Our research builds the foundations for society to develop effective adaptation and mitigation strategies to provide future resilience to environmental change. Research focuses on Earth observation and simulation, glaciology, coastal and sea-level change and palaeoecology and how we can manage and adapt to a rapidly changing world.

In terms of future challenges, we are looking to include a new area to deliver ‘Systems Transformations to move beyond net zero carbon’. This new challenge will build on research in the Department, including with our partners in SEI-Y, YESI and the IGDC, but consolidates it to address the global climate emergency and the need to go beyond carbon neutral futures.  We also expect to be a driving force in the new Sustainability Entity, which will bring together researchers from across the University working on sustainability issues. The Department is also driving the creation of a new Built Environment Hub, which will provide a forum for interdisciplinary research in this area across the three faculties.

Challenge Area Research Groups (CARGs)

Our four challenge areas form our main research groups (CARGs) and are inclusive, benefit all career stages, and provide regular opportunities to interact with others. Members of the department (including PGRs, technical support and T&S staff) can join as many of the CARGs as they wish. All new staff and postgraduates are added to the most relevant CARG as part of their induction and everyone is expected to engage with at least one group. Each CARG leader sits on the Departmental Research Committee (DRC) and acts as a conduit between the two, reporting back to the DRC on CARG activities and vice versa. The CARGs will meet for an hour every 1-3 weeks during term time. Activities at CARG meetings may involve internal or external speakers, group discussions, workshops and training sessions, but their key purpose is to provide a strong and inclusive research community in the Department. 

Special Interest Groups (SPIGs)

In order to facilitate interdisciplinary working and to respond to opportunities for emerging topics, grant applications, high impact papers (e.g. likely to be good for REF) etc., we will develop a system that allows SPIGs to form as needed. We expect SPIGs to contain members from across at least 2 or more of our 4 CARGs as well as from other UoY Departments, centres and external stakeholders where necessary. The benefit of these SPIGs is that they can be formed quickly as and when needed, generate a clear deliverable (such as a grant proposal, a publication, a policy initiative or an industry commitment) and then be disbanded when no longer needed (we envisage 3-18 month lifetimes typically). This will allow us to adapt to changes in the external research environment, as new staff join, or new challenges arise. The SPIGs can be suggested by anyone in  the Department (including technicians, ECRs and PGRs) and will run on the principles of equality and diversity. We expect these groups to generate high impact and help us work towards our goal of becoming the most influential environment department by 2032.  

Evolution of challenge areas and SPIGs

This document presents a starting point for future research in the Department. We will review the challenge areas regularly (every 2-3 years) and ensure they are still relevant. We fully expect that the challenge areas will change over time and this may be driven by a SPIG that grows to become a new challenge area. Others may become less relevant or staff changes may lead us to refocus. The challenge areas are also purposefully interdisciplinary. We expect that over time, some CARG members will move between challenge areas, some will be involved with more than one or even all of the challenge areas, whilst others will stay in the same area. 

Research goals and impact

We have defined research goals to be achieved over the next 12 months, 24 months, 5 years and by 2032. These goals will be assessed annually by DRC/DMT to check we are still on track for our 2032 vision to be achieved. They will be updated each year until a new strategy is written. The basis for these research goals can be found beneath the table and note that these apply to core Department only.

*Metrics will be used at a departmental level and will consider individual circumstances, such as career stage, FTE, career breaks etc. The metrics will not be used to evaluate staff performance on an individual basis.

Information used to derive goals

Strategy Development and Implementation: the new research groups and methods for facilitating the SPIGs will be in place by the start of the 21/22 academic year. Metrics will be finalised for each of the sub-categories in the table by this point, such as through work by DRC. After 12 months, we will review how the strategy/metrics are working and revise if needed. After 5 years we expect to have improved our league table positions, with further improvements by 2032. We are currently 26th out of 72 for Geography and Environmental Science in the complete University guide, scoring 70% for research quality and 73% for research intensity. By 2032, we aim to have improved these metrics to >80% and >85% respectively (University of Cambridge Earth Science is currently 82% and 100% in these metrics respectively). In terms of the QS2021 rankings, we sit between positions 101-150 (improved from 2020 when we were ranked 151-200). For QS2021, key competitors are at positions 29 (Leeds), Exeter (43), UEA (44) and Lancaster (67). Therefore by 2032, we aim to move into the top 50.

Research Income: In order to set quantifiable goals, we will aim to improve in the HESA rankings, which uses annual research income/academic FTE. We currently sit within the Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences (EMES) category (though many of our staff would fit better within the Geography and Environmental Studies (GES) category). For the 2018/19 financial year, the average Russell Group values for each of these categories was £136,213 and £72,433 respectively. Our departmental value (excluding SEI-Y) was £58K/FTE, which ranked us 15/17 in the EMES table and 12/21 in the GES table. The latest figures we have for the Department for 20/21 are that we are now averaging £62K/FTE (despite having 4 fewer FTEs than in 2018/19 and the obvious pressures we are all under given our low SSR). We will therefore aim to increase our ranking in this list year on year, until by 2032, we are in the top 5 of the HESA ranking for the Russell group Universities. 

Currently, just under 70% of our staff are PI on grants, with most of the rest co-Is. By the end of 21/22, we aim to have increased this proportion to 75% and then to 90% by 2032. Over time, we will also aim to increase the number of multi-million pound projects we lead. At the moment, we lead three large grants worth more than £1M with an overall or York PI in the Department, with 2 of these bringing more than £1M to York. By 2032, we are aiming to have our staff as PIs on several international projects worth >£5M.  

Research Outputs: Over the rest of this academic year, we will carry out analysis of where we publish and aim to establish a quality metric for these publications. We will use this process to establish a baseline value for this academic year and then aim to improve as detailed in the table. We will focus on quality not quantity, whilst aiming to maintain the number of publications per FTE per year, which is currently about 4.2.

Research Influence and Impact: By the end of this academic year, we will have carried out a stakeholder mapping exercise. We will investigate who we work with, where we get funding from, where and with whom we publish, in order to identify where our research currently has relevance and reach, and more importantly, where it doesn’t. In the next academic year, we will use this information to hold targeted workshops that help our research to have a wider reach and to form new partnerships with a more diverse range of stakeholders. By 2025, we expect these efforts to have allowed us to have more impact with our research and to present our new challenge-based research to a wider audience. By 2032, we will be influencing the global agenda for challenge-based research.

PhD students: By the end of this academic year, there will be a plan in place to attract more high-quality PhD students and from a more diverse range of backgrounds. The latest available figures (2018/19) showed that we have 1.67 PhD students/FTE of ART staff, however this is skewed. At the moment ~87% of our ART staff are lead supervisor for a PhD student and a further ~7% are co-supervisor. Our departmental studentships will be used to support staff that are not supervising a student as per the current academic year. We will aim to move to 95% of our staff supervising at least one PhD student as lead by 2032, with an average of 2.5/FTE. Note that Cambridge has this ratio at the moment, so it seems reasonable to aim to move towards that over the next 11 years given Cambridge’s position at the top of the Complete University Guide ranking for our research area. 

Research Culture: By the end of 20/21, we intend to have in place more tailored and proactive support for each stage of career development (e.g. ECR vs PhD). We will focus on attracting more external fellows to the Department to continue the increased applications we have seen this year and aim to further diversify our community. Through our mentorship scheme, we will help students and ECRs to move on to the next stage of their careers whether in academia or elsewhere, through linking with our in-house employability team. By 2025, we will ask ECRs to volunteer to mentor PhD students. 

By the end of the next academic year, we will aim to have all ART staff with 30% research time based on efficiencies mainly to teaching and assessment activities (at the moment, staff are guaranteed 24%). We will support staff-buyout on grants in a more meaningful way than we have been able to in the past, through an increased number of T&S staff that can support those with major grant successes. By the end of 2025, we would expect all ART staff who are, on average, meeting departmental minimum research expectations to have at least 40% research time (subject to individual circumstances). Note that the departmental research expectations will continue ti be regularly reviewed to ensure they reflect the external funding environment. In addition, by 2032, we would have an exemplar mentorship scheme and thriving PhD and ECR communities

Future growth

We are planning future investments of ca. 10-12 ART staff in the next 7-8 years, which will serve three goals. Firstly, they are aimed at building on existing strengths; we will further develop critical mass in pharmaceutical fate, air pollution, tropical ecology and management, green and blue spaces to enhance well-being and food security. Secondly, new investment (a further 3-4 members of ART staff) will enhance our capacity to conduct challenge-based research and we aim to recruit staff in areas such as climate modelling, coastal management and agritechnology. Thirdly, we will also move into new areas, for example future energy systems, or moving beyond net zero carbon. We will recruit a further 3-4 ART staff in key emerging areas over the next 7-8 years. These new investments will be paid for through increased research income. 

We aim to support our existing research groups by investing in 5 members of T and S staff by the end of academic year 22/23, to alleviate some of the teaching responsibilities of existing ART staff. We will also be increasing administrative and technical support by 2 and 1 FTE respectively over the next 2 years. These measures will free up more time for our existing staff to undertake more research, and also allow us to better support sabbaticals and concentrated blocks of time for research activity, e.g. proposal and paper writing. 

References

1. https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2020/The-Sustainable-Development-Goals-Report-2020.pdf
2. HM Government UK Research and Development Roadmap https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/896799/UK_Research_and_Development_Roadmap.pdf 

Appendix 1

Development of this strategy

This strategy has been developed over the course of 2020 as detailed below:

1. February 2020: the Departmental Research Committee (DRC) Identified three key ways to improve research in the department: free up research time (mainly to be achieved through teaching and administrative efficiencies); rebrand our research themes for higher visibility and more effective interdisciplinary working; work towards increasing the departmental income from successful research grants
2. June 2020: DRC meeting to start to identify new research themes.
3. September 2020: Three workshops facilitated by Rachel Curwen with ~ 20 internal and external participants. These explored the key areas to work on which were (i) research themes, (ii) cohering activities and (iii) engagement (and governance). 
4. October-December 2020: Based on the September workshops, a small Creative Working Group (CWG) was formed to work on the three areas identified above, including PhD, ECR and ART staff. Three sub-groups with 3-4 people in each developed the three strands through a series of whole-group workshops and sub-group tasks between meetings. 
5. November 2020: DRC commented on some preliminary ideas from the CWG.
6. December 2020: Draft plans introduced at staff meeting on 1st December 2020. Staff invited to contribute to a survey on the draft plan and focus group sessions held. Feedback used to further develop the plan.
7. January 2021: Draft research strategy available.
8. April 2021: revised strategy available.

May 2021: Research strategy approved and adopted.

Implementation Plan for Research Strategy - progress updates