NATURAL
RESOURCES
INSTITUTE

Knowledge for a sustainable world

Early Career Researchers’ Network

ECRN 2The University of Greenwich is committed to developing the next generation of leading researchers. 

Targeted sets of activities designed to support Early Career Researchers (ECRs), and ensure that they are well equipped to successfully develop into world-class researchers, are set out in the HR Excellence in Research Award Action Plan, supported by GRE & HR.

Within the university’s Faculty of Engineering and Science which includes the Natural Resources Institute, we have a dynamic and highly multidisciplinary working environment that strives for a vibrant and inclusive culture of research excellence.  The network has been established to allow ECRs to come together and develop their research and wider development skills, learning from each other and from more experienced colleagues within the university.

The network is open to all ECRs within seven years of gaining their PhD, to those striving for their research independence and also to those, changing career direction.  The network aims to be inclusive and seeks to enable ECRs to co-create a locally owned and sustainable programme of support that will benefit them through opportunities for multi-disciplinary interaction, support and engagement on issues that matter to them.

The network is highly complementary and indeed feeds into the ECR PGR Forum as well as the training opportunities managed by the university’s Research & Enterprise Training Institute.

Committee Members

Natural Resources Institute 

School of Engineering 

School of Science 

Connect with us

To join the Early Career Researcher Network, find us on:

  • Microsoft Teams: Early Career Researcher Network - FES-GR-RDS
  • Email ecr-fes@gre.ac.uk

Agriculture, Food and Veterinary Sciences

NRI researchers address challenges and opportunities relating to the spectrum of activities from food production to consumption, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries particularly in sub-Saharan Africa but increasingly also on those related to the UK. At the primary production end of the scale this includes a particular emphasis of the vectors of disease of people, livestock and crops. Our work post-harvest concentrates on durable and perishable crops to, reduce losses, enhance financial and/or nutritional crop value, improve storage and preservation, improve food processing technologies, ensuring food safety and quality management and, address food loss and waste – all with the ultimate aim of improving the livelihoods and nutritional status of vulnerable, less advantaged populations.

The Chemical Ecology Group works on the identification and use of naturally-produced chemicals for control of pests, particularly in the developing countries.

Climate change and biodiversity loss are two of the biggest global challenges in the coming decades, primarily due to their impacts on the provision of ecosystem services.

The Food Systems Research Group addresses challenges and opportunities relating to the spectrum of activities from food production to consumption.

The work of the Pest Behaviour Group ranges from laboratory-based research to analyse the basic physiology and behaviour of pests and vectors through field-based studies of pest behaviour and ecology to translational research where knowledge of pest behaviour is used to develop innovative control technologies.

The Plant Health Group’s research focusses on reducing yield losses caused by pests and diseases through application of integrated natural and social science approaches. Fundamental research to understand complex plant-virus-vector interactions are focussed on providing critical components needed to generate impact through improved and sustainable control measures.

Anthropology and Development Studies

NRI social scientists are committed to researching major questions about how households and communities in the global South escape from poverty, how they make themselves more resilient to external trends, and how they can be helped by governments and their policies, civil society, market actors, and international agencies. We research these questions in projects we design and lead ourselves, and in collaboration with colleagues from the biophysical sciences, in NRI and beyond.

Our research addresses poverty and vulnerability, and how poor people themselves, governments, the private sector and civil society can help overcome them

 

Impact Case Studies

NRI undertakes interdisciplinary research to improve lives and sustain our planet. We generate new knowledge and insights, carrying out our work together with our global partners and the communities we aim to support, to ensure our research has sustainable impact. From the concept stage to implementation and assessment, delivering real impact is intrinsic to our research projects and programmes, and encompasses our whole research environment organised into interconnected Research Groups and Development Programmes. As part of UKRI’s exercise to assess the impact of research outside academia, we submitted seven impact case studies in REF2021, the UK’s system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions. In this section, you will find summaries of our impact case studies with contact details of the lead academic.

Early Career Researcher Network (ECRN)

The network allows ECRs to come together, to enhance their research and wider development skills in a dynamic and highly multidisciplinary working environment that strives for a vibrant and inclusive culture of research excellence.