Sustainability can be summarised as: “Enough, for all, forever.” It’s the science behind ensuring that everyone has enough electricity, heating, water, food and everything else required to achieve a good quality of life.
To capitalise upon expertise in this area, Newcastle University has established the Newcastle Institute for Research on Sustainability (NIReS). Currently situated on the main university campus, it is envisaged that the Centre will be located on Science Central, the site of the former brewery in the heart of the city centre. This will enable a new hub for sustainability to be developed, building upon the University and the wider region's expertise in this critical area of science.
Drawing on world-leading expertise in fields such as transport, energy and clean industrial production, the University is committed to helping improve people’s lives, for example through changes to the way we travel, improvements in the way we handle water and waste, and helping us to become more energy efficient.
Building on the region's internationally-leading strengths in the sustainable sciences, the focus of the sustainability theme is supporting a number of key areas:
Energy Research - the University's research capability in this area are based at the Sir Joseph Swan Institute for Energy Research. Work at the centre aims to address climate change and energy security as well as looking at developing cleaners ways to power our homes, businesses and transport networks of the future. Areas of research at the Centre include: sustainable biofuels; fuel cell & hydrogen technology; CarbonNeutral technologies and renewable electricity.
Marine - The School of Marine Science and Technology at Newcastle University is the largest and broadest-based marine school in the UK, covering the fields of marine engineering, marine biology, naval architecture, offshore engineering, coastal management and small craft technology.
Transport - The focus of transport technology research at Newcastle University focusses on four themes: making transport greener; developing new intelligent technologies which improve efficiency and safety of transport; designing safe and secure transport infrastructure and developing a fully-inclusive transport system.
Urban Sustainability - Sustainable urban planning is concerned with urban energy consumption, water provision, waste water treatment. transport infrastructure and land use development. The work at Newcastle University integrates a range of disciplines including engineering, geochemistry, microbiology and the social sciences to develop solutions which enable fully sustainable cities to be achieved.
Food security and rural environment – Newcastle University Farms are the most active research farms in the UK
Natural environment – scientific areas associated with climate change, biodiversity and ecology
Clean processes and products – including such areas as coal gasification and green chemistry
Find out more about NIReS here.
