The Department of Biology has joined together with 4 other institutions in training a new generation of environmental scientists in a pioneering project - ECO-WILD – that aims to help protect wetlands through a new Centre for Doctoral Training.
Wetlands – one of the world’s most threatened habitats - help to combat climate change by acting as a vast 'carbon sink', drawing down carbon and sequestering it so it can't escape back into our atmosphere and they have about 40% of the world’s species depending on them. But these habitats are disappearing three times faster than forests with over a third of the world’s wetlands lost since 1970. Students at the ECO-WILD, Centre for Ecologically Relevant Multiple Stressor Effects on Wetland Wildscapes, will research the threats to these critical environments and will help determine the best ways to protect them.
This pioneering project is led by Heriot-Watt university and includes the Oxford Biology Department (via Dr Michelle Jackson) as well as University of York, University of the Highlands and Islands and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. It is funded by The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and 30 non-academic project partners which include energy company SSE, WWT, the charity for wetlands and wildlife, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), British wildlife charity Froglife and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.
Centres for Doctoral Training are set up specifically to train students studying Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees and funded PhD projects on multiple stressors in wetlands will start this coming academic year. Students will have access to state-of-the-art facilities and through ECO-WILD’s partner organisations students will also have access to wetland sites across the UK.
The new CDT is one of four new centres for Doctoral Training announced this year by NERC. The new centres for doctoral training will focus on the key themes of flood management, freshwater quality, sustainable mineral resources and wetland conservation.
Professor Peter Liss, Interim Executive Chair of NERC, said:
This investment by NERC will equip the next generation of environmental science researchers with the technical and professional skills to tackle some of the most significant challenges facing the UK and globally.
Read more about the CDTs funded by NERC this year here.
Read more from the lead scientist of ECO-WILD, Dr Frances Orton at Heriot-Watt University, here.
