The research profile and activity of the Geography Department has been transformed since RAE2001, with reorganisation of all staff into three of the five Lancaster Environment Centre  research groups (namely, Environment and Society, Environmental Change and Pollution, and Catchment and Aquatic Processes); four new appointments including 2 new Chairs, in Environment, Risk and Social Justice (Gordon Walker) and Climate Change and Policy (Rob Wilby); quadrupling of external research grant spending  to ~ £4m in the RAE period; awards of prestigious medals (x 3) and a Royal Society award; and a record of research outputs and agenda-setting of tangible international quality.

The Department currently consists of 20 permanent academic and academic-related staff; one teaching assistant; 14 research staff and 9 non-academic staff. It has an RAE grade of 4, aspires to at least an RAE grade 5 or equivalent in 2008, and has a Teaching Quality Assessment of Excellent. We are an integral part of the  Lancaster Environment Centre (LEC), which brings together environmental researchers of international reputation from the University of Lancaster and the Natural Environment Research Council’s (NERC) Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) to form one of the largest groups of its kind anywhere in Europe.

The pooling of human resources across a range of disciplines creates a powerful UK and European Centre that is making a major international impact and has significant inputs into policy-making. Additionally, we have close links to Lancaster’s strong Social Science Faculty including highly-rated research centres such as the Institute for Health Research, Institute for Cultural Research, Institute for Women’s Studies, Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy and strong departments of Sociology and Applied Social Science.

Lancaster University thus provides an ideal environment for interdisciplinary research. Research activity and research income generation in the Department is strong and burgeoning. Capital investment of £4.5 million will provide a purpose-built new building for the Geography Department within the LEC complex, into which the department will move in late 2006.

Geography’s research activities also have interactions with the two remaining LEC research groupings:

Organisms and the Environment
Geosciences