Binks Institute for Sustainability
The Binks Institute for Sustainability addresses the critical questions we face in achieving environmental sustainability locally and globally.
The University of Dundee has a long track record of academic achievement on a range of topics closely related to the challenge of achieving environmental sustainability. The excellence of our work has been widely recognised in science, law and policy related to energy and water, in community-based sustainability initiatives, sustainable materials and engineering, and crop resilience bioscience. By bringing the teams working on these issues (and more) together, the work of the Institute will respect the complexity of the problems we face by drawing on insights generated from across the creative arts, humanities and social sciences as well as engineering and life sciences.
This new Institute will facilitate a step-change by harnessing the excellence and passion of our academic community to confront some of the most perplexing challenges facing human societies today. Through interdisciplinary collaboration and external partnerships, the Institute will address the need for effective climate action, including successful Net Zero strategies, and the associated need to achieve equity and inclusion in a just transition to a sustainable world.
Mission
The Binks Institute for Sustainability will maximise the University’s contributions to address environmental issues and deliver positive, impactful change on society. It will do this by drawing together world-leading research from across the University, enhance our educational programmes to develop the skills and expertise of future generations, and bring to bear our knowledge and expertise to make our operational activity more sustainable. The institute will engage with local and global communities, government agencies, NGOs and business to co-develop our capacity to live in environmentally sustainable ways.
Initially, we will focus on four research areas:
- Food, Feed and Fibre
- Energy and Water
- Sustainable Design
- Engineering for Sustainability
Some links to work being done in these themes:
- Future Infrastructure and Environment | University of Dundee, UK
- What we do | Environmental Futures (dundee.ac.uk)
- Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science | University of Dundee, UK
- Design HOPES | University of Dundee, UK (this is a good link for news)
- Plant Sciences | University of Dundee, UK
The Institute has been established with generous support from the Binks Trust, who are also supporting renewable energy research at the University of Oxford, and the Binks Hub at the University of Edinburgh.
University to establish new Binks Institute for Sustainability
The University of Dundee is creating a new Sustainability Institute which will attend to the critical need for contemporary societies to confront the climate crisis and to facilitate ways of living in environmentally sustainable ways.
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