Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery launches

The Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery (LCNR) was launched with an event at the Oxford Botanic Garden on 9 May.

The LCNR is being established at the University of Oxford in 2022 for an initial period of ten years. The purpose of the Centre is to draw on and consolidate the world-leading expertise of the University and its partners to address the challenge of delivering effective and socially inclusive nature recovery at scale, in order to support goals of reversing national and global biodiversity decline by the end of this decade. The Centre will be a hub for innovative thinking, discussion & analysis for nature recovery, uniting researchers from multiple disciplines to collaborate to tackle the challenge of halting & reversing the loss of biodiversity.

NbSI will be leading work on nature-based solutions (NbS) within the centre, including determining how to scale up NbS and nature recovery in the UK in a way that helps to address climate change, while also supporting biodiversity and local communities. Research will be grounded in case study landscapes in the UK (starting with Oxfordshire and the Scottish Highlands but expanding to other landscapes) and the Global South.

The Centre is led by Director Professor Yadvinder Malhi, and NbSI Director Professor Nathalie Seddon is one of the Centre Co-Directors, alongside Professor Michael Obersteiner and Dr Ben Caldecott. It is supported by a £10 million grant from the Leverhulme Trust, and additional co-funding from the University of Oxford.

Learn more about the Centre on the LCNR webpage.