In this new series, The Applied Ecologist is amplifying the staff and student voices from the University of Surrey’s Centre for Environment and Sustainability to showcase their diverse, interdisciplinary body of work and to help inspire the next generation.

In this introductory post, we share below the Centre’s goals and ambitions. 

About the Centre

Founded in 1992 by Professor Roland Clift CBE, we at the Centre for Environment & Sustainability (CES) are an internationally acclaimed centre of research and teaching excellence on sustainable development.

From understanding complex sustainable systems and policy issues to integrating natural science-based approaches with insights from the social sciences, we pride ourselves in providing creative and interdisciplinary responses to long-term environmental and social issues.

The Centre originated from a Damascene experience at a conference in January 1991. The conference crystallised the conclusion that the solutions to our environmental challenges do not lie within a single academic discipline. My response to the flash of the blindingly obvious was to seek funding to set up a research centre to bring together engineering and the social sciences. Although my original intention was to set up a small research centre, CES has grown with national and international recognition and influence. Oh, and it has been fun.

– Professor Roland Clift CBE (2024)

What is currently happening in the centre? 

Over the past 30 years, the Centre has been engaging in a host of real-world global research to tackle some of our key sustainability challenges.  Much of this has been embedded within its degree course programmes, instilling the knowledge, skills, and values into the next generation of sustainability leaders to make necessary future transformative changes.

Through this new blog series, we will be sharing with you some examples from our pioneering research as well as showcase the Centre’s diverse range of undergraduate, postgraduate taught and research courses as well as the Doctoral Practitioner in Sustainability programme.

For more information about the Centre, please visit our website.

And discover more posts from the CES blog series.