Think Tank

Processes of invention and innovation play out across biological, social and technological systems. These processes can be broadly termed as ‘adaptation’ and are central to determining how complex systems respond to environmental change - from molecular evolution underpinning the emergence of novel phenotypes to the structures of social networks that enable rapid transformational change. We will seek to understand and characterise the structures in social, political, biological, cultural, technological and economic ‘systems’ that facilitate effective adaptation to change and the achievement of sustainable futures.

The structure of biological systems, from organisms to ecosystems, has emerged through the process of evolution and natural selection to maximise the efficiency of energy transformations. Many societal and economic challenges associated with environmental change also relate to energy acquisition and material and resource use. How do we learn from the properties of biological structures and processes to develop more efficient material cycling systems? How do lessons from the natural world help us design more effective technologies and economies? How do insights from research on natural processes apply in social and cultural contexts?

This workshop is designed to explore current research and synergies between academics working at Exeter across all disciplines, especially those of business geography and law. There will be three short talks by leading academic researchers and time for discussion about overlaps and future work. All those with an interest in the field are welcome to attend.

Prof Jane Wills who led the Think Tank said: "The subject is genuinely interdisciplinary, as can be seen by the mix of people present and it is unlikely that so big a group of such diverse actors has been assembled anywhere in the country to tackle this problem."

The Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership and Cornwall Council have officially launched Cornwall’s ‘Environmental Growth Strategy' which aims to encourage businesses, communities and individuals to work together to increase environmental, social and economic prosperity in Cornwall. A first of its kind, environmental growth is focused on helping nature to do more for us. Realising this ambitious goal requires creative solutions to environmental problems and an evidence-based approach to decision-making. This think tanking brought together people working on the strategic implementation and practical side of environmental growth, with University Academics, to discuss how we can facilitate environmental growth activities in Cornwall.

This Think Tank, hosted by the Cross-Campus Social Science Group at ESi and ECEHH, reflected on the intersections of social and natural sciences, exploring links between the health of the environment and the health of humans. It facilitated dialogue between colleagues who research planetary and environmental health with co-benefits for the health of people and their communities, and colleagues who ressearch the ways in which human health and wellbeing is shaped by and shapes environmental factors. At the intersection of these different starting points, questions were asked, such as: how can we balance the health of the environment and the health of humans? What are key relationships and interconnections between the two? What are the gaps in making these connections and what is needed to fill these gaps? A particular interest was to interrogate 'trade-offs' and challenges that arise at this intersection. The Think Tank was attended by staff across ECEHH, ESI, Geography, Renewable Energy, Biosciences, Mathematics and Camborne School of Mines as well as external delegates from Cornwall Council and the Eden Project. A blog on some of the Think Tank's actions will follow shortly.

Through this interdisciplinary expedition, our collective challenge was to explore the contribution that academic knowledge can make to conversations about the future of the landscape focusing specifically on the Trelowarren estate as a microcosm for the exploration of interdisciplinary points of contact and exchange.

Hollywood is synonymous with cinema, Bruges with lace. Paris and Milan are fashion hubs. What, then, asks Professor Trevor Barnes, should make up the fabric of Cornwall’s regional brand and reputation?

Barnes, a geographer at the University of British Columbia, was speaking at the recent Regional economic development: the Cornish way Think Tank, a workshop hosted by the University of Exeter’s Environment & Sustainability Institute on Penryn Campus. Building on his experience growing up in the county, he suggests that a collective identity has long been felt by residents of Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly, but that it has been slow to emerge in the public discourse. Delivering this ‘Made in Cornwall’ mindset, Barnes claims, is about creating a narrative that re-envisions the economy based on sense of place, much like similar work he has supported across Canada in recent years. The Canadian model focuses heavily on concepts anchored in localism and, to borrow an expression from the philosophy of science, around trading zones, which are philosophical areas of agreement teased out from more complex, nuanced discourse.

Location as a starting point

These points of agreement emerged throughout the day-long discussion, which brought University of Exeter academics and staff together with stakeholders from across the county and beyond. Workshop participants, inspired by a cross-sector array of keynote speakers, teased out what makes Cornwall different from other regions, highlighting areas where the county excels and suggesting opportunities for improvement.

In her introductory remarks, University of Exeter’s Professor Jane Wills points out that official devolution documents emphasise the role of location, including the county’s vast natural capital, as one of the most important economic opportunities for Cornwall. The explicit importance of nature, and its value, is further reflected in the county’s unique and pioneering Environmental Growth Strategy, recently published by Cornwall Council, which sets out a roadmap putting natural capital at the heart of the county’s regional development.

University of Exeter’s Professor Kevin Gaston, a co-author of the document, points to indicators of environmental growth, such as an anticipated increase of related management schemes, as evidence that Cornwall can lead when it comes to embedding natural capital within a thriving business environment.

A hub for interdisciplinary solutions

The geographic argument for Cornwall’s brand drives thinking about the county's regional economic development in novel ways, as an autonomous hub rather than a remote, peripheral appendage of a broader nation. To that end, interdisciplinary problem-solving sits at the heart of new approaches to regional economic development. For example, Wills proposes a repurposing of aspects of evolutionary theory to help grapple with certain development challenges. This powerful analytic tool puts the county’s unique economy at the heart of a broader regional ecosystem, which comprises self-organising components capable of adaptation strategies based on collective inheritance, influenced by similar patterns of variation as observed in genetic mutation.

Several speakers addressed a recurring misunderstanding, or differential application, of the concept of growth. Cllr Bob Egerton (Cornwall Council and the Local Economic Partnership) suggests that environmental assets are a vital component within any conversation about growth in the region and drive formalised initiatives in planning, such as Building with Nature. Further, multi-sector programmes like Tevi, a partnership between the University of Exeter, Cornwall Council, Cornwall Development Company and the Cornwall Wildlife Trust, demonstrate the inextricable link between nature, society and the economy across Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly.

Cornwall also has the potential to lead within a broader transition towards a circular economy, a trend already enshrined on the national level in recent resources and waste strategy reporting. To that end, the University of Exeter’s Centre for Circular Economy led by Professor Pete Hopkinson, aims to create novel ways of designing waste out of conventional product cycles. For example, the Centre recently launched a new initiative aimed at rethinking plastics production and use whilst at the same time supporting several interdisciplinary programmes, such as Tevi, with bespoke expertise around decreasing waste and improving understanding of enterprise development and product life cycles.

These aims are shared by the University of Exeter’s Innovation, Impact and Business (IIB) department, a cutting-edge department dedicated to driving the impact of research. By bridging the gap between academics and enterprises across the South West, IIB serves a vital role in facilitating large-scale partnerships, creating opportunities for further work around strategic priorities and generating value that allows for further regional impact and innovation initiatives.

Innovation through responsible growth

At the same time, Cornish enterprises continue to find opportunities for business growth around the circular economy transition. Cornish Lithium, based in the Tremough Innovation Centre in Penryn, explores the extraction of lithium from brine found in subsurface granite in Cornwall. Lithium is a vital resource for the development of low-carbon technology, such as renewable energy infrastructure and batteries in electric vehicles. Building on Cornish mining heritage, the company, represented at the workshop by Chris Harker and Lucy Crane, commands a leading role within emerging economic opportunities in geo-resources, an area that includes mining and the repurposing of mine waste but also the extraction of geothermal energy, which has also recently put Cornwall in the national spotlight.

Nevertheless, participants were wary of placing too much emphasis on growth, with suggestions that future scenarios could be unsustainable without explicit efforts to rein in certain indicators of growth, for example around consumption. Manda Brookman of Permanently Brilliant points to Cornwall Council’s recent declaration of a climate emergency as a wake-up call for direct and immediate action, or what she terms ‘positively disruptive’ thinking, putting into action the concerns shared by Kate Raworth’s widely cited doughnut model of economics. 

Beyond normal indicators of economic prosperity, Professor Jane Wills highlighted that we should also give due weight and attention to the fact that the top ten employers in Cornwall would be considered part of the Foundational Economy. This can be defined as including the organisations that form the infrastructure of a community or region: the health providers, the educators, the local councils, the providers of local services – sometimes known as the ‘Eds and Meds’ economy.  Considerable revenue flow through these providers, essential to the well-being of the community, but often under-represented in discussions of how a region’s economy should grow and flourish.

A work in progress

Going forward, the workshop offered compelling arguments that Cornwall’s identity as an economic region, which is framed around valuing natural capital and supported by a flexible workforce enticed by opportunities of greater work-life balance, remains a work in progress. Questions remain around access to opportunities for all the county’s residents, many of which feed into the national conversation around access, not least by facilitating the achievement of gender equality targets.

In his closing remarks, Matthew Offord, Member of Parliament for Hendon, who sits on the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, highlighted the massive scale and breadth of tech-based socioeconomic change in recent years. In the space of just over a decade, hitherto dominant companies, like Kodak for example, were overtaken by newcomers with game-changing ideas. It is in this dynamic context that Cornwall, Offord suggests, should think about where the priorities of its economic development should lie, identifying cutting-edge opportunities that give the county a leadership role wherever possible. To that end, in the face of Britain’s exit from the European Union, Offord believes that residents of Cornwall, with their historic drive and ambition, can play a leading role in shaping the United Kingdom’s future policies, especially around environmental targets, the regional structural funding landscape, and re-envisaged international trading markets.

For further information about this event or previous ESI Think Tanks, please contact the ESIesienquiries@exeter.ac.uk. ESI Think Tanks aim to explore cross-disciplinary concepts in environmental and sustainability science. So far, the series has covered environmental growth in Cornwall, the anatomy of adaptation, biomimicry, community energy initiatives, the relationship between environment and human health, as well as the future of the Cornish landscape. Future sessions will include a focus on sustainable clothing, and the relevance of studying extreme environments in Cornwall.

In January 2019 Cornwall Council declared a climate emergency, recognising the need for urgent action to address the climate crisis. While the whole world needs to adapt, the council recognised that, in Cornwall, we have an opportunity to lead the way in demonstrating what is possible. The sooner we change, the sooner we can create a Cornwall that provides a clean, prosperous and fair future for all.

In February, representatives from Council departments and University of Exeter academics came together in ESI to look at how together we can play a leading role in delivering ambitious outcomes with the support of and to the benefit of Cornish communities, businesses and natural environment.

>> More details on Cornwall Council’s response to the Climate Emergency

Extreme Environments has been flagged in the University of Exeter's Cornwall 2030 Strategy as a possible research theme and centre/institute, as it is thought to have coherence across the campus and the wider university. The Think Tank gave researchers from different disciplines an opportunity to come together to discuss and debate this proposal.

 The Think Tank was held on Friday October 18th. The morning session consisted of presentations from academics from different disciplines across the university who work on extreme environments. The afternoon gave the group an opportunity to consider a number of questions about the possible Extreme Environments research theme and centre/institute.

More details to follow.

The University of Exeter's Environment and Sustainability Institute and the GW4 Water Security Alliance held its first online Think Tank, Towards Fashion Justice: A UK-India Exchange on Friday 17 July 2020.

This was an interactive online event involving exports from academia and industry that explored multiple injustices in the fashion system from workers’ rights and environmental pollution through to cultural appropriation.

The event broadened and deepened our awareness of fashion’s injustices through interactive events and discussions with participants from India and the UK working across multiple academic disciplines and in businesses. Outcomes will include a report and the basis of a network for the development of cutting-edge research grants in this area.

The ESI’s Professor Clare Saunders introduced the session and shared what has been learned from a preliminary touch-feel exercise with artefacts as well as a survey of Indian and Cornish respondents.

The session invited participants to reflect and build on their own initial ideas about fashion justice and helped work towards developing a report outlining multiple injustices in the fashion industry. There was discussion around a perspective-broadening documentary through interactive online polling and commenting software.

The event closed with reflections from academics across a range of disciplines, who also answered questions raised in the written chat.

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This joint Think Tank was held by the Environment & Sustainability Institute and Exeter Extreme Environments on 16th October 2020, to discuss 'Surviving and Thriving in Extreme Environments'. 

A series of brief talks from some ‘extreme’ humans with a background in social issues, health, medicine and extreme sports, provided a fascinating view of individual and community health and wellbeing in the face of extreme environments and conditions. We also heard from our UoE funding experts. All attendees were invited to discuss opportunities for surviving and thriving in extreme environments. 

This was the second Think Tank hosted by Exeter Extreme Environments, a new hub in the University organised around the pillars of Earth-Space-Communities that seeks to apply the lessons learned from research on extreme environments to prepare us for the extremes of today and the future.

The Extreme human panellists included:

Alice Venn – Human Rights in climate extremes

Mark Hannaford – World of Extreme Medicine

Steve Bowens– Extreme Marine - Crossing the Atlantic by rowing boat

Bethany Robinson – Extreme Survival – SAS Channel 4 TV

Dan Perkins – Surviving in post disaster landscapes

Macarena Mata and Mary Montague - Mediators beyond Borders International

Hollie Kirk – Funding opportunities  

View the full video from the event.

An opportunity to discuss how we can collaborate to co-design a science-based research and monitoring programme

Thursday 22 October 2020

The Duchy of Cornwall’s Natural Capital Project has at its core the ambition to cherish, protect and enhance the environment for future generations.

Across its 130,000 acres of upland and lowland farmland and forests the Duchy is establishing a database that will provide a unique baseline assessment of seven key natural capital elements, namely soils, water and air quality, biodiversity, historic interest, recreation and access and landscape.

Based on these assessments, integrated farm plans will be drawn up to not only safeguard existing features but also to provide ambitious enhancements on each farm and at scale across the estate as a whole.

The Duchy of Cornwall is establishing several demonstration farms (called Focus Farms) where it can develop its more detailed understanding, not only of the costs and benefits (monetary and non-monetary) of the ecosystem services of this work but also where research can be pioneered and developed to help inform its future assessments.

To this end, the Duchy wishes to collaborate with Exeter University to explore a science-led programme for the monitoring of its natural capital assets. It is hoped that this work will provide opportunities for research students to collaborate to develop a multi-disciplinary programme which establishes high quality and cutting-edge methods of natural capital assessment and monitoring.

View the video from the event..

ESI/ ECEHH Think Tank

20 November 2020

View the video from the event.

ESI/ CRPR Think Tank

06 July 2021

Mapping expertise in energy at Exeter

3 December 2021

New Frontiers in Net Zero Farming : ESI Think Tank June 2022

On 24 June 2022 the ESI hosted an event to present recent research findings from our academics and partners and to explore, with a wider set of stakeholders, new innovation in net zero agriculture.

Farming is both a contributor to and sufferer of climate change. In 2019, when compared to total emissions from all sectors, agriculture was the source of 10% of total GHG emissions in the UK, 68% of total nitrous oxide emissions, 47% of total methane emissions and 1.7% of total carbon dioxide emissions.[1] Yet farming is also a sector that can play a leading role in the regeneration of ecosystems and the mitigation of climate change, if more environmental farming and consumption practices are adopted.

For UK agriculture to achieve Net Zero by 2050 a combination of changes in farm management and active sequestration measures to capture the remaining carbon needs to be adopted. Greater collaboration between farmers and researchers is needed to explore the solutions required.

Exeter has breadth and depth in food system research which we are bringing together under our Exeter Food Strategic Research Network. Net zero agriculture is a key area of research for this group and the external partners we collaborate with.

We brought together some of these researchers and partners at the ESI’s New Frontiers in Net Zero Agriculture event to share current research in soil health and carbon sequestration, animal feed, on-farm energy and biofuels. We also explored together the emerging research priorities for net zero food production.

The presentations throughout the morning delved into the most recent science on the topics, which the audience was able to interrogate during the Q&A. After a networking lunch attendees were welcomed to Bennaman’s energy independent farm test site near Truro to see in action what Chris Mann, CEO of Bennaman, had described earlier that morning regarding the methane capture from the farm’s slurry pit.

Recent scientific evidence indicates that methane’s climate change contribution is increasing due to warming leading to increased release of methane from the environment, such as from wetlands, as well as the effect it has on the atmosphere’s ability to naturally convert methane particles into hydroxyl radicals.[2] Due to methane’s damaging impacts we are particularly interested in further exploring the causes and mitigation possibilities of this gas with our partners.