Current externally funded research projects

Externally funded research projects

This year has seen significant activity across our externally funded research projects. The following provides a brief overview (presented in no particular order).

Amy Proctor and Stuart Brown are involved in The BBSRC RESPECT project (Rapid Engagement with Stressed Peatland Environments and Communities in Transformation). The project kick-off meeting and first stakeholder meeting was held in May 2025. This was attended by project stakeholders including Natural England, NatureScot, the Scottish Government, the National Trust, Community Land Scotland, the Forth Rivers Trust, Historic England, Historic Environment Scotland and the IUCN UK Peatland Programme. More information on the project, which is part of UKRI's Land Use for Net Zero programme can be found here.

Beth Clark is Co-PI with Fritha Langford on a New Animal Welfare Foundation (AWF) funded research project on designing more pig centric production systems running October 2025-April 2026. Beth concluded another AWF project entitled 'Breeding animals for resilient feet: On-farm decision-making and the role of culling in sheep lameness management and breeding strategies' with Dr Niamh Mahon at the James Hutton Institute and the National Sheep Association. Beth is also working on an Innovate UK funded project with Lucy Asher, entitled: Facilitating Learning Opportunities, Cultivating Knowledge and Welfare through Integrated Sensing and Expertise (FLOCKWISE).

Lynn Frewer,  Carmen Hubbard and Beth Clark are involved in a COST Action Affect-Evo on an Evolutionary View to Understanding Affective States across Species. The project protocol can be found here.

Amy and Beth have wrapped up their Research Culture project on interdisciplinarity. The final report can be found here. Link still to come. Beth is currently running a follow up survey on this which will be combined with questions on research culture.

Newcastle Household food collection program. The Newcastle City Council piloted a Household Food Waste Collection scheme across 5,183 homes in September 2024.  Following a workshop with invited academics from Newcastle, Northumbria and Sunderland Universities Diogo and colleagues administered a survey of residents in the pilot area and examined the viability of developing a participation monitoring scheme using tracker data and geographic information systems. The outcomes of this first research project were summarized in an INE policy brief (see here). 

This original research left many questions open, and in June 2025 in a second stage program, four focus groups were held with residents in the pilot and non-pilot areas of the city together with a rapid review of the academic literature on food waste disposal behaviour. A Final Report, which will be shared with the City Council, will be available soon.

Diogo Monteiro is currently involved in two major projects, in collaboration with colleagues in NUBS (and elsewhere).

Video advice to Farmers

In 2023, a team of CRE and from the Behaviour and Experimental Economics group at NUBS started a collaboration with DEFRA’s behavioural team aiming to provide quantitative and supplementary qualitative evidence on the efficacy of an advisory visit. In 2024 this project evolved to assess the impact of using short form video information on farmers’ uptake of collaborative actions in Mid-tier ELMS schemes. The work is being are submitted for presentation at the 100th AES conference as well as for publication at Ecological Economics.

 Novieta Sari is working with Lynn on the HoliFood project (EU Horizon programme), focusing on co-design risk communication for climate-related food safety risk identification, especially related to the context of "science to society". Among a number of research outputs from the programme a Webinar was held in November, with Novieta as one of three Keynote speakers. The webinar explores how changing consumption patterns, digital transformation, and sustainability concerns are creating new food safety challenges across Europe. The recording can be seen here, which highlighted “𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒙 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝑰𝑺 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒆𝒄𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒂𝒓𝒚 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚.”

 Sally Shortall is Coordinator of the Horizon Europe GRASS CEILING project. This ends in December 2025. This three-year Horizon Europe project is a multi-actor project which aims to empower rural women and increase the number of socio-ecological innovations led by women in agriculture, the rural economy and rural communities. The Newcastle lead was Orla Collins, with Sue Bradley employed as researcher. Melanie Thompson-Glen from NICRE led the Scottish living lab (there were living labs across nine countries). 

Rural Future Network II 

Sally Shortall led tThe first round of Rural Future Network brought together academics, policy makers and practitioners from the UK and Ireland (ROI) to begin reframing rural policy for the changing demands on rural space expected post-Brexit and post-Covid-19. The key objectives were building trans-disciplinary relationships, developing capacity and co-creating a future research agenda. The key tools were providing research briefings on the relevant topics; preparing policy briefs following the workshops; using an innovative agile methodology during the workshops to stimulate a shift in the way rural research questions are developed; and providing opportunities for knowledge exchanges between key actors in the different regions

The Network was so successful that each devolved government partner was keen to fund its continuance. This led to Rural Future Network II. The first workshop was in October and focused on future rural development programmes in the UK. Various members of CRE participated

Sally Shortall and Salvatore Barilla are working on the SafeHabitus Horizon Europe project which looks at farmer health, safety and wellbeing across eleven European countries.  Sally has focused on the ethics of doing research with the survivors of farm accidents, gendered safety issues, and responsibility for health and safety at the level of the European Commission. Salvatore has focused on mental wellbeing and the impact of climate change on farm workers health and safety

Menelaos Gkartzios  continues to lead a work package in the AHRC-funded research project FIRECULT, which explores the relationship between wildfires and cultural heritage internationally. Three funded residencies coordinated in association with The Maltings and local partners, have already taken place in Dublin, Ireland and Palermo, Italy, and there is an ongoing residency programme in Izmir, Turkey. You could find more information here