Professor Jacqueline (Jack) Hannam joined NRI in September 2025 as the Head of Agriculture, Health and Environment Department. She was previously Professor in Pedology at Cranfield University leading the Land Information System and Soil Informatics team.  Prior to her time at Cranfield, she held research positions at ETH Zurich and the University of Liverpool. 

Jack’s research focuses on soil data, soil health, land use change, regenerative agriculture and soil policy. It has included digital soil mapping using AI to predict and map soil properties, modelling agricultural land capability under climate change, and developing new frameworks for soil health indicators. She is interested in how different forms of soil data and soil knowledge can be integrated into model and analysis frameworks to inform local sustainable soil management, land use decisions and national monitoring schemes to track soil health. She works in transdisciplinary teams developing new concepts in soil and land systems and translates these into evidence for decision making. 

Jack was President and trustee of the British Society of Soil Science (BSSS) and is currently chair of the BSSS policy working group. She works at the science-policy interface providing expert evidence in government inquiries and has co-developed new policy with soil policy teams. Jack is a member of the Natural England (NE) Science Advisory Committee, an independent committee tasked with ensuring NE’s work is based on sound science and evidence. 

Jack is a member of the Centre for Art and Ecology at Goldsmiths focusing on practice-led interdisciplinary artistic research to support liveable ecosystems. She co-founded Soapbox Science Milton Keynes a public engagement platform spotlighting women in science, been interviewed on broadcast media (Countryfile, BBC R4 Today Programme, Sky News and BBC World) and has contributed to podcasts and trade journals.  

Soil Health and Regenerative Agriculture 

• Which regenerative farming methods work best in different places? 

• How to scale-up these methods and track their impact on soil health across farms and landscapes? 

• Can practicing multiple regenerative practices improve soil health or cause trade-offs with other environmental and social services? 

• How do policies, climate change, and environmental markets (like carbon credits) influence farmers’ decisions to adopt regenerative practices? 

Understanding Soil as a System 

• Soil is a complex and dynamic system that’s hard to monitor and manage because it changes over time and space. 

• How can tools like sensors and satellites help us understand what soil is doing and how it is changing—like storing carbon, supporting crops, or filtering water. 

• Using this data, how can AI and machine learning detect how soil reacts to changes in farming or climate? 

• Combining different types of knowledge (scientific, local, traditional) can find better ways to measure soil health and shape smarter environmental policies. 

LUNZ Hub: Land Use for Net Zero, Nature and People. Co-I; UKRI; Defra, DESNZ, Welsh Government, Scottish Government, DAERA 2023-2027 

The LUNZ Hub is an innovative research initiative that will help drive the transformation of UK land use needed to achieve net zero by 2050. 
The LUNZ Hub consortium of 34 organisations, including research institutes, farmers groups, advisory services, non-governmental and arts organisations equips UK policy-makers, industry, civil society and communities with the evidence they need to drive transformational change in land use. Home - LUNZ Hub 

JUSTLANZ: Just transformation of food-farming systems UKRI; Defra, DESNZ, Welsh Government, Scottish Government, DAERA 2025-2028 

JUSTLANZ aims to develop transformative pathways for a just transition to net zero for the UK food- farming sector, considering local, regional and national priorities. Working with livestock farmers and their communities, the food-farming sector, policy makers, academics and conservation organisations, JUSTLANZ integrates different knowledges, views and values to co-design, and develop innovative and sustainable solutions and pathways in four UK pastoral landscapes. 

The project combines policy-driven land use scenario models, climate data and future visions from food- farming communities to co-create “preferred” scenarios that attempt to reconcile land-use demands. As a bridge between the LUNZ Hub, I will be contributing to the development of land use scenarios and analysis of carbon stocks in different grassland-soil systems in the UK. JUSTLANZ - LUNZ Hub 

Nitrogen Climate Smart. Co-I; Innovate UK; 2023-2027 

The NCS project is a farmer-led research programme, led by PGRO involving 17 industry and research partners and over 200 farmers. Steered by science and proven by real farm enterprises, it will have significant benefits for both crop and livestock productivity, including cost savings. The primary aim is to reduce carbon emissions by replacing imported soya with homegrown pulses and reducing synthetic N inputs in pulse rotations. We are working on experimental approaches to integrating legumes in arable rotations and quantifying their multiple benefits to soil health and GHG emission reduction Nitrogen Climate Smart (NCS) Home Page - The NCS Project 

• Head of Agriculture Health and Environment department 
• REF UoA6 lead co-ordinator 

• Member of the Natural England Science Advisory Committee  
• Associate editor for SOIL and Soil Use and Management. 
• Trustee, Board and Council member of the British Society of Soil Science (2021-2026). 
• Member of the British Society of Soil Science. 

• Hannam, J.A. Keay, C.A. Mukherjee, K. Rugg, I. Williams, A. Cooke, J. 2025. Changes in land capability for agriculture under climate change in Wales. Science of The Total Environment, 987, 179790. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.179790  
• Hannam, J.A.  Harris, M. Deeks, L. Hoskins, H. Hutchison, J. Withers, A.J. Harris, J.A. Way, L. Rickson, R.J.R. 2025. Developing a multifunctional indicator framework for soil health. Ecological Indicators, 175, 113515 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113515 
• Clarke, D.E., Stockdale, E.A., Hannam, J.A., Marchant, B.P. & Hallett, S.H., 2024. Spatial-temporal variability in nitrogen use efficiency: Insights from a long-term experiment and crop simulation modeling to support site-specific nitrogen management. European Journal of Agronomy, 145, 127224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eja.2024.127224  
• Clarke, D.E., Stockdale, E.A., Hannam, J.A., Marchant, B.P. & Hallett, S.H., 2024. Whole-farm yield map datasets – Data validation for exploring spatiotemporal yield and economic stability. Agricultural Systems, 235, 103972. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2024.103972  
• Girkin, N.T., Burgess, P.J., Cole, L., Cooper, H.V., Coronado, E.H., Davidson, S.J., Hannam, J., Harris, J., Holman, I. & McCloskey, C.S., 2023. The three-peat challenge: business as usual, responsible agriculture, and conservation and restoration as management trajectories in global peatlands. Carbon Management, 14(6), pp.1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/17583004.2023.2275578  
• Sánchez-García, C., Button, E.S., Wynne-Jones, S., Porter, H., Rugg, I. & Hannam, J.A., 2023. Finding common ground: Co-producing national soil policy in Wales through academic and government collaboration. Soil Security, 100095. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soisec.2023.100095  
• Sakrabani, R., Garnett, K., Knox, J. W., Rickson, J., Pawlett, M., Falagan, N., Girkin, N. T., Cain, M., Alamar, M. C., Burgess, P. J., Harris, J., Patchigolla, K., Sandars, D., Graves, A., Hannam, J., & W Simmons, R. 2023. Towards net zero in agriculture: Future challenges and opportunities for arable, livestock and protected cropping systems in the UK. Outlook on Agriculture, 52(2), 116-125. https://doi.org/10.1177/00307270231178889 
• Borchers, N. Hannam, J. Pawlett, M. 2022. Microbial community composition of translocated ancient woodland soil: a case study. Restoration Ecology, 30(7), e13618 https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.13618  
• Breure, T.S., Haefele, S.M., Hannam, J.A. et al. 2022.A loss function to evaluate agricultural decision-making under uncertainty: a case study of soil spectroscopy. Precision Agric 23, 1333–1353. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11119-022-09887-2  
• Eric C. Brevik, E.C.  Hannam, J. Krzic,M. Muggler, C. Uchida, Y. 2022. The importance of soil education to connectivity as a dimension of soil security. Soil Security, 7, 100066, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soisec.2022.100066.  
• Songchao Chen, S. Arrouays, D. Mulder, V.L. Poggio, L. Minasny, B. Roudier, P. Libohova, Z. Lagacherie, P. Shi, Z. Hannam, J.  Meersmans, J. Richer-de-Forges, A.C, Walter, C. 2022. Digital mapping of GlobalSoilMap soil properties at a broad scale: A review. Geoderma, 409, 115567.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2021.115567