The Challenge
Effective policy and world-class science are both needed to prevent catastrophic environmental degradation on a global scale, yet science and policy often operate in different worlds and to different timelines.
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Environment
We need to act now to address biodiversity loss, climate change and poverty, interlinked challenges that are undermining human health and wellbeing around the globe.
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Policy
The social and environmental challenges we face are solvable, but rapid responses are needed. Policymakers and scientists need to work together to develop effective, solution-focused policies to get results.
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Research
To encourage researchers to work across disciplines and engage in policy work and outreach, we need to ensure that this essential work is valued and rewarded in academic career paths.
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Collaboration
Policymakers and researchers often work at different speeds and can be driven by different incentives. Effective policy needs these communities to be aligned and work together.
The Solution
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Fast-paced research ‘Sprints’
These will mobilise the best interdisciplinary research teams from across the University of Oxford and beyond to deliver solutions-focused science that provides the information decision makers need, when they need it. Sprints will be undertaken in close collaboration with government at all levels, industry partners, NGOs and local communities. They will build a new model for academia to work with stakeholders and catalyse a culture change around how interdisciplinary research and policy engagement is funded and delivered.
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Delivering solutions-focused science through co-production with policymakers and feeding into the policy cycle in real-time.How does it work? Can I get involved?
Explore sprints
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How do we account for biodiversity?
This Sprint will support an integrated approach to renewing and restoring nature in a socially just way.
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Can we turn waste into fertiliser?
The UK’s urban centres create high volumes of food and garden waste. Consumers are increasingly segregating this out for separate collection, which local authorities then use in anaerobic digesters and other systems before disposal.
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How do we scale up Nature-based Solutions?
Building resilient landscapes by scaling up NbS can also have a hugely positive impact on local communities, contributing to the “levelling up” agenda.
News
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The Agile Initiative’s Summer School is now open for applications
‘Connecting environmental research with policy: a pathway to real-world impacts’, 10-14 July 2023, is now open for applications
30 January 2023 -
Sharing Agile learning and preliminary Sprint outputs in Malaysia
Agile Initiative researchers, Dr Kok Siew Ng and Dr Purusothmn Nair showcased the concept behind the Agile Initiative, the Agile-style research Sprints, and the preliminary results from their Sprint developing regional nutrient flow mapping as keynote speakers at the Sustainable Process Integration Forum.
18 January 2023 -
From global to local: lessons on scaling up Nature-based Solutions from COP27
As we enter our fourth month of work on our Agile sprint on Scaling Up Nature-based Solutions in the UK, team member Audrey Wagner reflects on her time at COP27 and considers what we can learn from the recent events at COP27.
1 December 2022
Get Involved with the Agile Initiative
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