From beans to minerals: the new projects getting science into policy

In 2025, the Agile Initiative invited researchers at the University of Oxford to apply for up to £30,000 for rapid science-to-policy (S2P) projects. The S2P projects are designed to deliver evidence-based solutions to environmental policy questions. We are pleased to announce these fantastic projects below. They will run from January-March 2026. 

Understanding the contribution of water industry environmental spending to financing nature in the UK (Alice Stuart) 

Water is one of our most tangible connections to the rest of the natural world, yet both globally and in the UK water quality and supply are in crisis. This project will look at the water industry national environment program (WINEP), which commits UK water companies to actions expected to cost £22.1bn in order to meet their environmental obligations between 2025 and 2030. We aim to understand contribution of WINEP to UK nature finance, and the barriers and enablers to aligning this environmental spending with nature recovery. 

Green Approaches to Public Procurement: International Insights (Emma Lecavalier) 

At a time when climate rules are facing backlash and increased scrutiny, governments are increasingly viewing their own spending as an untapped instrument of climate policy. To help governments green their spending and maximise the innovation-potential of their purchasing power, this project examines the barriers and opportunities associated with sustainable public procurement. The Agile Science-to-Policy is supporting the OxGAP team to finalise its white paper, Procurement for the Planet, and is enabling additional research into the unique challenges of sustainable food procurement. The funding is also resourcing a convening of UK procurement officials to share insights from the white paper and identify potential pathways for translating its recommendations into policy practice.  

A Roadmap for UK Beans: Releasing Beans’ Potential for Net-zero, Nature and Nutrition (Jing Zhang) 

This project develops a UK roadmap for pulses, exploring how they can play a larger role in delivering healthier diets, more resilient farming systems, and wider environmental benefits. Building on previous work from the BeanMeals project and the Legumes Initiative, the project combines rapid evidence synthesis, targeted stakeholder conversations, and a multi-actor roundtable to identify key barriers, opportunities, and system-level levers for change. The focus is on UK-relevant crops and value chains, with particular attention to how production, consumption and policy can be better aligned. The roadmap aims to support more coordinated action across agriculture, food, and policy, and to inform future research and decision-making. 

Dr Jing Zhang, a food systems researcher at the Environmental Change Institute and the Project and Knowledge Exchange Lead for the Agricultural Resilience Impact and Innovation Hub (AGRIIH), leads this project. The project brings together an interdisciplinary team working across food systems, agriculture, and nature-based solutions, with close engagement from external partners spanning policy, civil society, and practice. 

Building high-integrity nature markets through people, place, and partnerships (Caitlin Hafferty) 

The UK is rapidly advancing its approach to high-integrity nature and carbon markets, with major policy and standards in 2025/26 including consultations on UK/international principles and development of the BSI Flex 705 community benefits standard. However, community engagement, place-based governance, and co-benefits are often framed as resource intensive, complex risks mitigation strategies. This project reframes these dimensions as essential infrastructure not only to market integrity, but also to integrating market mechanisms into blended finance models and partnerships for more resilient outcomes. 

The social and environmental dimensions of UK Critical Minerals – A rapid assessment, policy stock-take and research agenda (Mark Hirons) 

As the UK moves toward securing domestic mineral supply chains essential for the green transition, this project aims to fill a crucial gap. There are currently no critical reviews or interdisciplinary syntheses of the urgent questions being asked by the booming demand for domestic, ‘re-shored’ extraction of critical minerals. This project aims to produce an interdisciplinary synthesis of what is currently known, and critically, what remains unknown, about the social, environmental, and policy nexus of emerging critical minerals extraction in the United Kingdom.