From the periphery to a focal point

As the Sustainability Research Institute turns 20, members reflect on its identity, achievements and how it will evolve.

The University of Leeds’s Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) is the largest of its kind in the UK.

It conducts and collaborates on studies about sustainability challenges and solutions, sharing its world-leading knowledge with hundreds of students each year.

In 2004, it began with 14 members of staff and three PhD researchers.

“The entire Institute would meet for coffee at 11 each morning,” remembers Damian Howells, one of the original staff members.

At the time, the Institute focused on teaching. Damian was the lead for at least six taught programmes—a task which would not be feasible with the current size of SRI’s cohorts. 

Now, the SRI employs 112 people and teaches around 700 students each year. It currently hosts over 50 PhDs, including 21 international researchers.

Over these two decades, the institute and global attitudes towards sustainability have transformed: there's more and more urgency to reach net zero, respond to climate change and support biodiversity. 

As awareness of our survival challenges has increased, so has the need to understand the intertwined aspects of the environment and society that contribute to the big picture of sustainability.

Lucie Middlemiss was in the first cohort of PhD students to graduate from the SRI. She is now Professor of Environment and Society at the Institute.

Reflecting on what has stayed the same throughout the past 20 years, Lucie says the Institute has always been ahead of trends in sustainability research.

Instead of a sole focus on environmental science, the SRI produces a lot of research that explores sustainability from social sciences perspectives.

This allows researchers to understand human behaviours and needs around sustainability and to create actionable, person-centred solutions. 

When the Institute began, there were no journals that covered this niche, says Lucie. The situation and discussion are very different now.

Researchers from the SRI have published 1031 papers between 2019 and 2024.

The SRI’s groundbreaking research supports a just, fair transition to net zero in the UK; influences local and global sustainable policies; identifies solutions for cleaner energy; identifies potential for land use change to enhance biodiversity and enable food for all.

It has seven research clusters that cover different aspects of sustainability:  

• Business and Organisations for Sustainable Societies
• Climate Change Adaptation, Vulnerability and Services
• Economics and Policy 
• Energy and Climate Change Mitigation 
• Life and Land  
• Social and Political Dimensions of Food Systems  
• Social and Political Dimensions of Sustainability. 

Each collaborates with local and international partners to create real-world impact. 

As well as research institutions, partners have included the World Bank Group; the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN); UK governmental agencies; Yorkshire and Humber Climate Commission; Young Foundation and many more. 

The final cluster focuses on Teaching and Scholarship.

In the UK, researchers support communities to understand and overcome their unique sustainability challenges.

For example, Professor Middlemiss found that net zero policies can push vulnerable families further into poverty; and Professor Milena Buchs assessed the inequality of carbon emissions of UK households to discover the consequences of market-based climate mitigation policies. 

Dr Effie Papargyropoulou’s research supports sustainable food systems in Leeds and the UK.

She collaborates with councils, colleagues and partners to establish and grow community food initiatives. 

Watch “Scaling out place-based, community-centred food initiatives” on YouTube. 

As well as communities, many SRI researchers collaborate with the UK government, informing it on research and sustainability solutions.

Dr Anne Owen calculates the UK’s Carbon Footprint for the UK Government each year, using a model that transfers industry emissions to consumers.

She also created the Local Authority Consumption Account tool to compare the Carbon Footprint of localities across the UK.

Professor Julia Martin-Ortega contributed to the UK’s Climate Change Committee Land Use Report and the first UK Phosphorus Transformation Strategy amongst other influential reports.

She measures the social outcomes of ecosystem change like peatland restoration and behavioural aspects of land management practices.

Professor George Holmes advises government agencies to understand the issues with and impacts of re-introducing species like beavers to England.

Nominated by two government departments, Professor John Barrett earned an OBE in 2022 for bringing evidence on the climate and resource impacts of economic activity into policy making.

John plays a leading role in energy demand research and currently leads the Climate Evidence Unit.

The Sustainability Research Institute partners with over 80 countries on research and innovation.

Examples include Professor Buchs’s work with Horizon Europe on “ToBe: Towards a sustainable wellbeing economy,” in which 15 organisations and 9 countries assess and improve policies to support Europe to become the first climate-neutral continent.

Working towards international sustainable food systems, Professor Stephen Whitfield and Dr Susannah Sallu study the implications of food systems transformations for the health of people, animals and ecosystems in Southern Africa.

They collaborate with a pan-African network of organisations and individuals from various sectors and the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), partners from across Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia to inform policymakers on food systems change in the continent. 

Professor Middlemiss speaks about the sense of community that has been a pillar of the SRI since its beginning.

“There’s a sense of community, reciprocity and respect. We have a commitment to each other, respect for each other’s perspectives and disciplines. Together, we’ve worked through a series of challenging times.”

She talks about Professor Sally Macgill, the first director of the Institute who passed away during the tsunami in Thailand in 2004. 

“We had to get together and work through losing a really important leader. There’s a sense that we do caring work within the Institute, which makes being an academic much more manageable,” she says. 

The experience of community, support and growth is shared by former students and colleagues from the Institute. They go on to impact the world in vast, positive ways.

Professor Julia Levenson was a research fellow between 2011 and 2014. She now works as the Head of Social Dimensions of Global Change at the Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, CzechGlobe. 

She says, “I continue to be inspired by the different ways SRI members work as individuals and as a team to do high-quality research and teaching. I learned from them how to do research that is guided by deeper values of sustainability.

“I also still get opportunities created by colleagues at SRI (thank you!). 10 years after I left, I have SRI members as close friends and close collaborators – that makes it a special place for me!”

Professor Julia Steinberger was a researcher and Professor at the Institute from 2011 to 2020. She now co-leads the world’s largest post-growth research project: “REAL – A Post-Growth Deal” from her position at the University of Lausanne. 

She says, “Leeds was the perfect place to develop original research ideas with curious and talented colleagues. The support of Leeds and SRI in enabling me to put together my research program on “Living Well Within Limits” made a real difference in the latest International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report and laid the groundwork for my current project.” 

Professor Mark Reed, who went from a PhD student to a senior lecturer in the SRI from 2000-2008, says, “SRI gave me my PhD and my first academic roles, enabling me to establish a reputation in my field. 

“The collaborative environment in SRI at that time is something I’ve never been able to create – so much creativity and productivity! Some of the happiest years of my career.” 

Professor Reed works with governments to responsibly scale private investment in climate mitigation and nature recovery and trains researchers around the world to use their work to make a difference.

In 2024 and 2025, SRI members are coming together to take stock of their achievements and redefine the Institute’s identity.  

Professor Alice Owen, the current Director of SRI, asks, “How can we bring all aspects of sustainability together and set the agenda for the research that needs to happen in a time of continuous, tumultuous change?

“Our strengths lie in our diversity and in our focus on solutions, but we still have so much to improve and so much to do.”  

SRI’s collective reflection includes conversations about research culture, diversity, community, essential topics, critiques and collaboration. 

It will sow the seeds for a new collection of outputs in 2025, created by members of the Sustainability Research Institute. 

Based on their reflections, researchers will share think-pieces, video essays and conversations—content that explores the re-invigorated identity of the Insitute. 

The aim is to show researchers, students and the public worldwide that while SRI has had a tremendous impact over the past two decades, the SRI and its members will continue to work to improve lives over the next two.

Associate Professor Yim Ling Siu says, “SRI’s journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Growing from just a handful of people in its inception, I see SRI continuously evolving in different ways to reach toward an ever-better place to study and work at as well as a community to be proud to be a member of.”

More information

Visit the Sustainability Research Institute website.

Section images 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7 are by Ben Craven, School of Earth and Environment.