Networking grants

Shocks to the food-energy-water nexus: impacts and responses.

Led by Dr Candice Howarth from University of Surrey.

Nexus Shocks are low probability, high impact events that span energy, water and food systems. They impact multiple actors, scales and disciplines making them complex to understand and uncertain to address. The Nexus Shocks Network brought together interdisciplinary and cross-sectorial expertise to engage in constructive dialogue, identify opportunities to address challenges, and better inform decision making in response to nexus shocks.

The Domestic Nexus: interrogating the interlinked practices of water, energy and food consumption

Led by Dr Matt Watson from University of Sheffield.

The ‘Domestic Nexus’ project examined the dynamics of consumption at the domestic scale. The household is a critical junction where the provisioning of resources such as water, food, energy meets with everyday practices such as laundry, eating and comfort. The project was run by Matt Watson, Peter Jackson and Liz Sharp from University of Sheffield with Dale Southerton, David Evans, Alan Ward and Ali Browne from the University of Manchester.

Nexus Impacts of a Brexit – Britain’s exit from European Union

Led by Dr.Guy Ziv from University of Leeds.

There is high uncertainty on drivers affecting future UK consumption of water, food and energy, and the inter-dependencies between both drivers and dimensions of the nexus. We aim to better clarify and map these issues and their relevance to decision making and policy at the national and EU level.

In November 2015 the Nexus Brexit team held a workshop at the University of Leeds, which brought together around 30 academic and non-academic experts to list key drivers and inter-connections affecting UK domestic consumption of water, energy and food. The outputs of that workshop were used in a follow upworkshop on Uncertainties of future UK water, energy & food consumption on 8 Dec 2015, in Cambridge. Following the decision taken by the UK public in June 2016 to leave the EU, the team used the data gathered from both workshops to test three scenarios based around possible future relationships between the UK and the EU in order to assess the potential impacts of different levels of UK-EU integration on energy, food and water demand in the UK.

Network of Organic Resource use in rural Africa

Led by Professor Euan Phimister from University of Aberdeen.

The Organic Resource Use in Rural Africa network brought together a range of partners (regional and local policy makers, scientists, entrepreneurs, industry and civil society organizations) to co-design research on organic resource use in rural areas of Ethiopia to determine potential impact on basic human requirements for energy, food and water.

Agroecological Business: Connecting civil society, SMEs and consumers to nature and the land.

Led by Professor Steffen Boehm from the University of Essex.

The Agroecology Network brought together experts working in the field of agroecology and sustainable rural livelihoods, exploring the potential for sustainable and resilient business practices for small and medium-sized UK producers. The network built a strong evidence base for the potential of these business practices in the UK.

The Nexus in Parliament: Supporting parliamentary engagement with environmental and social interdependencies

Led by Professor David Demeritt from King’s College London.

This project enabled closer collaboration between parliamentarians and academics from across the natural and social sciences. This will pave the way for co-designing a subsequent research project to improve the capacity of Parliament to carry out its democratically vital role in legislating for and then scrutinizing the governance of ‘nexus’ issues, such as flooding and air quality.