Partnership grants
Five Nexus Network Partnership grants were awarded to research groups aiming to advance understanding of food-energy-water-environment interactions and support actions to improve their sustainability.
A total of £500,000 of funding from the Nexus Network, along with additional support from the ESRC Global Challenges Fund, allowed the groups to build research collaborations in locations across both the UK and Africa.
Improving Organic Resource Use in Rural Ethiopia
Led by Professor Euan Phimister, University of Aberdeen
This project aimed to increase understanding of the interactions between food, energy and water associated with organic resource use in specific geographical and social contexts, and to help identify appropriately adapted local solutions to improve community sustainability and resilience.
This project will provide a model for applying transdisciplinary Nexus thinking to improve policy design. It also shows how integrated biophysical, economic and social science data collection can be used to better capture household adaptation; a challenge that has been recognized by the World Bank.
READ REPORTBiomass Fuel at the Nexus: Policy Lessons from Bottom-Up Perspectives in Urban Ghana
Led by Dr Sujatha Raman, University of Nottingham
This project investigates how urban households and charcoal producers in Ghana experience, envision and manage the nexus and develop and disseminate the implications of this bottom-up understanding for national and international policies.
This project demonstrates the utility of a bottom-up nexus approach for clean energy policies targeting biomass fuel users and producers. Social scientists led the team of physical scientists and stakeholders to investigate how urban households and charcoal producers in Ghana experience, envision and manage the nexus between energy, food, waste and the environment and to develop and disseminate the implications of this bottom-up understanding for national/international policies.
READ REPORTUnderstanding the land-water-food nexus in Elgeyo-Marakwet, north-west Kenya
Led by Professor Henrietta Moore, University College London
This project draws together interdisciplinary experts, policymakers, and local community members to explore the land-water-food nexus in north-west Kenya.
The communities of Elgeyo-Marakwet in North-west Kenya who live across the temperate Cherangany hills and the dry and arid valley, are heavily reliant on the land-water-food nexus for sustenance and livelihoods. This project focuses on disentangling the complex and interdependent landwater- food nexus dynamics between the Cherangany forest reserve and the semi-arid Kerio Valley regions of Elgeyo-Marakwet, exploring the potential implications for local biodiversity loss and livelihood resilience in the region. It will collate, review and greatly extend existing research data to understand the land-water-food nexus in relation to both historic and potential future environmental changes.
READ REPORTEngaging policy understandings of kitchen practices and how they can change
Led by Dr Matt Watson, University of Sheffield
This project engages with policy partners to apply new social science understandings of what goes on in home kitchens. This will inform interventions aimed at changing demand for water, energy and food, including through understanding their inter-dependencies and trade-offs.
The home kitchen is a prime site for the practices that result in domestic demand for water-energy and food services, often in ways which reveal their interdependencies and trade-offs.
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The Energy-Climate-Food Security Nexus: Developing a multi-stakeholder deliberative governance model in Northern Ireland
Led by Professor Sally Shortall, Newcastle University
This project explores and addresses the regional impacts in Northern Ireland of the global energy-climate-food security nexus, focussed on global energy availability and climate change and their impacts on regional food security.
READ REPORT
Image credits:
Resource use in Ethiopia: thanks to Professor Paul Hallett from the University of Aberdeen.
Biomass fuel in Ghana: with thanks to Temilade Sesan
Nexus in NW Kenya: thanks to Nisi Creatv on Flickr.
Kitchen Practices: with thanks to Barney Moss on Flickr.
Nexus in Northern Ireland: thanks to Will Bakker on Flickr.
