Our Partnerships

In October 2022 we signed a three-year agreement with Natural England.  We will work together on challenges that can’t be solved with expertise from practitioners or academics alone. However, by working together we hope to use our research power to protect nature and landscapes by co-creating solutions, informed by both theory and practice.  Over the past decade we have worked on more than 60 joint projects with Natural England and look forward to building our partnership further.

Read more about our partnership agreement

In December 2022 we joined the Nature Positive Universities Alliance, a partnership of 117 universities from 48 countries, who have pledged to start a journey towards becoming nature positive. This initiative is part of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration; a movement to avert climate catastrophe and mass extinction, launched at the COP15 summit in 2022. As part of the alliance, we aim to halt, prevent and reverse nature loss, through the restoration of ecosystems and address the impact of our activities on nature. It is hoped that by sharing our approaches to conserving and enhancing biodiversity, we will educate future leaders and find solutions to environmental challenges.

View the Nature Positive Universities website to find out more.

We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint and are at the forefront of research into net zero initiatives. A funded PhD studentship with Quorn Foods has developed a strong evidence-base for the nutritional value of mycoprotein, a key protein found in meat-free products. The studentship provided Quorn Foods with a strong, comprehensive ‘proof of concept’ that mycoprotein is a healthy protein source, which supports muscle maintenance and growth as effectively as meat-based alternatives. Quorn Foods has now funded a further PhD studentship with the University, looking into mycoprotein’s application to sports nutrition. The partnership has created benefits for Quorn, our students and our academic teams.

Find out more about our industrial studentships.

We are proud to announce a new, national partnership and research initiative with the National Trust. The project will explore how both organisations can best respond and adapt to environmental and cultural change, support wildlife renewal and improve wellbeing through nature. Experts will develop science-based, action-orientated research to inform land use decision making and better understand ways to care for our natural and cultural landscapes. The focus will be to plan and manage the inevitable transformation of landscapes, so they work best for people, place, nature and future generations. This is only the second university collaboration of its kind from the National Trust, and it builds on more than 20 joint research projects and four student placements run collaboratively over the last five years.

Find out more about our National Trust partnership.

In the wake of Covid-19 antimicrobial resistance poses a significant threat to public health, making it more likely that diseases will lead to severe illness and death. Researchers from the Living Systems Institute (LSI) have worked in close partnership with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) through PhD studentships, to undertake detailed research leading to key breakthroughs. This success has led to Dstl funding two further studentships, one of which began in January 2023.  It is hoped further breakthroughs can be made to allow us to understand more about this key area.

Find out more.

As part of Strategy 2030 we commit to being partners in global networks of universities with shared values, creating new research and education opportunities. We are committed to social justice and access to education for all, which means safeguarding higher education in times of adversity. Through the Researchers at Risk scheme, we are offering sanctuary to researchers facing discrimination, persecution and violence. We are also proud to be twinned with King Danylo University in Ukraine. This partnership will foster joint research projects and academic exchanges, which will help sustain the Ukrainian higher education system and ensure its universities are ready to play a role in post-war reconstruction. Together we will develop projects in energy security, human rights, and issues relating to veterans and trauma.

Find out more.

Our strategic partnership with the University of Queensland through the QUEX Institute continues to go from strength to strength. QUEX brings together world-leading researchers to enhance our joint global research impact, focussing on global sustainability and wellbeing. Together we tackle major global challenges through interdisciplinary research, staff and student mobility and industry and business collaboration, publishing high-level policy reports that help shape key government initiatives across the globe. Central to QUEX is our joint PhD programme, which has now funded 52 students to research a wide variety of topics within our themes of Healthy Living, Global Environmental Futures, and Digital Worlds and Disruptive Technologies.

Find out more about the work carried out with the QUEX Institute.

In 2016 the UK-China Humanities Alliance (UKCHA) was founded as a cross-institutional structure to facilitate collaboration in humanities research and education. The alliance brings together scholars from leading universities in China and the UK in mutually respectful dialogue and intellectual exchange. We are currently the lead UK institution in UKCHA, with responsibility for liaising with the Secretariat based at Tsinghua University, co-organising joint workshops and conferences and helping to coordinate UKCHA activity in the UK. As part of this work, Exeter oversees the (Re-)Connecting Research in China grant to support collaborative research across the Alliance, as well as Early Career Researcher fellowship opportunities. Our work fosters global engagement, mutual understanding and trust, and ensures we are more innovative and connected than ever before.

Find out more about the work we do with UKCHA.