Our vision
The Research Institute's vision is to provide a new basis for sustainability science. It will push the boundaries of traditional sustainability research and find solutions to the challenges of diminishing resources and climate change.
The Research Institute is helping to reinforce Cardiff's reputation as a unique international leader in the emerging field of sustainability science, by bringing together leading scholars and research clusters across a wide-range of academic disciplines. Through making these new connections, the Research Institute is tackling the vital issue of sustainability and sustainable places in a fundamentally new way, seeking solutions to the enormous environmental and social challenges facing humanity.
Through new scientific approaches it is placing stronger emphasis on sustainable living in sustainable places by studying the complex and dynamic interrelations between ecology, society and economy. By studying these interactions at local, national and international levels, the Research Institute is placing itself at the centre of global debates, drawing on existing expertise in the scientific fields of planning and applied social and psychological sciences, business and law, biological and earth sciences, engineering, architecture and health.
The Research Institute is explicitly addressing the question of how cities and their regions - which are all developing under different combinations of market and governance arrangements - can adapt and be guided towards more sustainable spatial strategies. As a new scientific 'meeting place', it helps to provide an improved understanding of the complexity, transitions, adaptations and resiliencies required in the design, re-design and planning of places.
Led by the Research Institute Director, Dr TC Hales, Sustainable Places is managed by a team of leading academics from across the three Colleges: