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A quick round up of the latest news, jobs and opportunities
Statement from members of the ACCESS Leadership Team regarding support for Social Sciences and Humanities in UK Higher Education
Members of the ACCESS Leadership Team would like to stand in solidarity with social sciences and humanities colleagues at the University of Exeter and in universities across the UK impacted by recent and ongoing threats of redundancy. We support recent calls by Susan Smith, President of the British Academy, for our new Prime Minister to instigate an urgent review of funding for higher education and research in the UK.
This is a worrying time for the sector. Analysis by the British Academy for The Guardian shows that nearly 4,000 HASS academics were made redundant in the 12 months to December 2024, of whom just under 3,000 were social scientists. According to the Academy’s Mapping SHAPE academic staff, early career staff have been particularly affected by redundancy, with numbers declining across HASS as a whole, and most notably across the social sciences. Precarious employment and redundancies pose an existential risk to the social sciences and humanities and to the health of our universities.
Society needs these disciplines. We have seen the negative impacts of a warming world over the past few weeks, with record temperatures across the UK disrupting all aspects of human life. The social sciences and humanities are central to the inter- and transdisciplinary environmental research so urgently required to tackle the climate and environment crisis we now face. We call on the Government to act now to ensure a strong and vibrant Higher Education sector. Rather than erode our existing base of expertise, we need to strengthen UK social science and humanities, enabling early career researchers to flourish in their careers and inform society with their insights.
Signed
Patrick Devine-Wright, Karen Bickerstaff, Alice Moseley and Saffron O’Neill (University of Exeter), Benjamin Sovacool (University of Sussex, Boston University), and Kate Burningham (University of Surrey)
News
NEW ACCESS GO-Science Adaptation Report
We are excited to share a new ACCESS GO-Science report: Putting people at the centre of UK climate adaptation and resilience
Written by the ACCESS Adaptation and Resilience Task Force, supported and co-chaired by the Government Office for Science, this report demonstrates how social science insights and approaches can help policymakers design and deliver more effective adaptation policy that considers human wellbeing, agency, and lived experience.
The report synthesises social science evidence for policymakers, alongside 6 case studies and a list of useful resources and practical tools and shows how insights and approaches from social science can be used to improve climate adaptation and long-term interventions.
The Adaptation and Resilience Task Force comprised 13 academic and government social scientists. It was co-led by Irene Lorenzoni (University of East Anglia) and Rory Walshe (Government Office for Science).
Read the full report and executive summary here.
Watch the Assembly 2026 recordings
The ACCESS Assembly 2026 session recordings are now ready to view on the ACCESS YouTube channel.
Available sessions include:
- KEYNOTE: Yacob Mulugetta: Who Knows the Energy Transition? State of Social Science in Africa
- International Panel: Julie MacArthur, Saurabh Arora, Hsing-Sheng Tai
- Negotiating the boundary between research and policy: Lessons from ACCESS task forces and Policy & Practice Working Group
- Negotiating disciplinary and sectoral boundaries: Lessons from MOSSEPP (Mainstreaming of Social Sciences in Environmental Policy and Practice) Project and the ACCESS/IES Interdisciplinary Working project
- Building Sustainability on a Foundation of Care & Sociological Care a Repository for Research Outputs
- Developing equitable climate standards: learnings from youth engagement and governance assessments
- The Social and Environmental Impacts of Data Centres
- Experiences of nature & pro-environmental values, self-identities & personal norms among UK Muslims
A note on the ACAI Assembly session – Ecomodernism: Contradictions, Pluralities, Disruptive Possibilities and Decolonial Futures
We are grateful for the contribution ACAI (Advisory Community to ACCESS on Intersectionality) made to the ACCESS Assembly and wanted to share the recording of the ACAI Assembly session on the ACCESS YouTube channel to get greater reach for their important work. However, having consulted ACAI, we have noted that colleagues from minoritised groups are facing increasing threats of violence from individuals espousing far-right ideologies, and we do not want to put ACAI members at risk.
We encourage all colleagues who wish to view or share the ACAI recording and/or discuss how to make real change within your own organisations, to contact ACAI via ACCESS_admin@exeter.ac.uk
Congratulations to Neil Adger
ACCESS would like to extend our congratulations to Neil Adger (ACCESS Co-Investigator, University of Exeter) on his election as Fellow of The British Academy.
Fellows are nominated and elected on the basis of outstanding academic distinction.
Professor Susan J. Smith PBA, President of the British Academy, said:
"At a time when society is grappling with radical uncertainty in the face of technological, economic and environmental change, the humanities and social sciences have never been more important... Our new fellows join a community of scholars with unparalleled expertise, dedicated to advancing research, fostering collaboration across disciplines and demonstrating the value of the humanities and social sciences."
Funding
BR-UK Commissioning Fund
Applications are now welcome for up to five early career seed fund grants (focusing on the environment and sustainability) funded by the Economic and Social Research Council via the Behavioural Research UK consortium.
Applications should be centred on behavioural research focused on the environment and sustainability that can address one of the following themes:
- Integration of knowledge across types of data, academic disciplines and sectors, involving methods that: triangulate different types of data; improve integration of knowledge across disciplinary ‘silos’; and advance how behaviours are measured.
- Explaining variations in effectiveness of behavioural interventions across contexts (e.g. types of populations, settings and behaviours). This will enable the accurate generalisation of research findings to specific contexts.
Closing date: Friday 11 September, 4pm
British Academy International Interdisciplinary Research Projects 2027
The British Academy is inviting proposals for the next round of its International Interdisciplinary Research programme. Projects will be led by UK-based researchers in the humanities and social sciences working with international partners and wishing to develop genuinely interdisciplinary projects that range across all SHAPE and STEM disciplines on the theme of Mobilities.
Closing date: Wednesday 7 October, 5pm
Jobs
Roles at GBE (Great British Energy) Local
GBE Local are actively building out the team to achieve the Local Power Plan ambition of 1000+ local and community owned energy projects by 2030. They are looking for people passionate about ensuring clean power works for (and can be owned by) every community, and about meaningful engagement and empowerment.
The following roles are now live for applications:
Capacity and capability service manager (x3) (Aberdeen/Edinburgh) shaping the enduring UK-wide capacity and capability service to ensure communities and local authorities have the support they need to build and own projects
Capacity and capability coordinator (x3) (Aberdeen): leading development of materials, guidance, advice, partnerships and programmes to build knowledge, capability and standardisation in the local and community sectors
Closing Date: Sunday 2 August
Policy Engagement Coordinator (Brokerage), Universities Policy Engagement Network, UCL University of London
The Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN) is a central space for academics, policy actors, and professional services staff who undertake and support academic-policy engagement.
As Policy Engagement Coordinator, you will play a key role in connecting policymakers with academic expertise to help ensure research informs public policy.
Closing date: Wednesday 5 August
Senior Conservation Scientist, RSPB, Northern Ireland
RSPB have an exciting opportunity for a social scientist to join RSPB Northern Ireland and the RSPB Centre for Conservation Science as a Senior Conservation Scientist to deliver a specific project and provide strategic social science leadership across the PeacePlus Nature programme.
The successful candidate will help deliver research that informs peatland restoration and species recovery, while exploring issues such as environmental justice, community perspectives and just transition approaches to conservation.
Fixed term until 31 July 2029
Closing date: Sunday 9 August, 11.59pm
5 Postdoctoral Research Fellows, SOAS University of London
The Centre for Sustainable Structural Transformation, SOAS University of London is looking for highly motivated and talented early career researchers interested in working with the co-directors, policy fellow and broader research network on a new research programme on the political economy of sustainable structural transformation.
Fixed term contract until 31 August 2028.
Closing date: Sunday 9 August 9, 11.59pm
Senior Social Scientist, JNCC, Hybrid in Peterborough, Aberdeen or Cardiff
JNCC’s Interdisciplinary and Evaluation Team is seeking a Senior Social Scientist to support its portfolio of interdisciplinary evidence, advice and implementation activities.
This role will strengthen the social and interdisciplinary evidence base underpinning biodiversity conservation, nature recovery and environmental policy. You will champion approaches and analysis that connects nature recovery with people’s values, behaviours, livelihoods, health and wellbeing; helping ensure JNCC’s work contributes to equitable, inclusive and socially informed solutions that benefit nature and society.
2-year fixed-term contract.
Closing date: Wednesday 12 August, 11.55pm
Postdoctoral fellows, The British Academy
The British Academy is inviting proposals from early-career researchers in the humanities and social sciences wishing to pursue an independent research project, towards the completion of a significant piece of publishable research.
Fellowships are for 3 years.
Closing date: Wednesday 30 September, 5pm
PhDs
Fully funded PhD, University College Dublin
How visualisation of the sub-surface affects decision making in issues of underground resource development
Visualisation is increasingly perceived as a tool that can engage users in unfamiliar and complex subjects. In this PhD project, we seek to explore how the ability to visualise the sub-surface beneath our feet affects attitudes and decisions in the general public and other stakeholders.
Applications are invited from students who can demonstrate an excellent background in any relevant area of the social sciences (e.g., environmental psychology, geography, communication) or visualisation (e.g., industrial design, computer graphics).
Fully funded PhD, University of Exeter
How do people, families, communities and places live and thrive through major infrastructural and socio-economic change? This PhD explores that question through the UK nuclear sector, focusing on the transition from operations to decommissioning at Sellafield in West Cumbria.
This fully funded PhD studentship is supervised by Leila Dawney and Karen Bickerstaff, (Geography, University of Exeter).
Closing date: Monday 7 September
Opportunities
Department for Transport ARIs: Delivering green and healthy transport
Delivering green and healthy transport requires action across multiple timescales and levers, from technological change and infrastructure investment to behaviour, service design and spatial planning.
The ARIs seek research that deepens our understanding of how transport can reduce environmental harms and support better health outcomes.
The Department for Transport are keen to hear from people who are doing research in any of DfT’s areas of research interest.
Help shape the next Government Trend Deck
The Government Office for Science are looking for external experts to help them review draft trends being developed for the next UK Government Trend Deck, a cross-government resource that brings together evidence on the long-term trends likely to shape the UK over the coming years and decades.
If you have expertise in areas including climate change, health, skills and education, and urbanisation, your feedback could help evaluate the robustness of the evidence presented, what's been overlooked, balance and framing and more.
Closing date: Wednesday 12 August
POST call for contributions: Exposure and vulnerability to climate impacts across the UK
Some groups are disproportionately affected by climate impacts such as flooding, extreme heat and poor air quality. Understanding and, where appropriate, addressing these unequal risks is an important component of a just approach to climate adaptation.
This briefing will review the evidence on current patterns of exposure and vulnerability to climate impacts across the UK, how these may change over time and interact with evolving climate hazards and how this understanding could support adaptation planning.
Deadline: Monday 31 August, 11.35pm
Share your views on the new GCSE natural history proposed subject content
The Department for Education is seeking views on the proposed subject content for a new GCSE in natural history.
The GCSE will allow students to engage with and study specific organisms, including plants or animals and the contexts in which they live, and their complex interactions and dependencies. It will develop students’ skills of observation, description, recording and analysis, through sustained and structured field study.
Findings from this consultation will be taken into account when finalising the subject content.
Deadline: Friday 4 September
Info
Climate change isn't only changing ecosystems. It's changing us
Heatwaves are changing more than how we cool our homes—they may also be changing where we go, how we exercise, and how we experience nature.
A new research project from the Net Positive Centre involving teams from Forest Research and University of Exeter is going to explore how outdoor nature-based recreation patterns are or might shift as weather patterns alter due to the more extreme weather events that we are facing these days as a consequence of changes in the climate.
New book: The Environmental Republic
The Environmental Republic, a new book from Giulio Boccaletti (Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change) "challenges the false choice between environmental protection and human freedom, showing how place-based institutions can deliver both sustainability and human development through true self-governance".
How can we organise research differently, so that it can respond to ambiguous, rapidly shifting policy timeframes?
Both research and policy increasingly recognise that complex environmental challenges demand more adaptive ways of working. But what does this mean for how research itself is organised?
Drawing on a year-long, policy-engaged Sprint with Natural Resources Wales, Agile Initiative researchers reflect on the research infrastructure, relationships, and diverse ways of working that can support genuine co-creation alongside live policy processes.
The impact of drought on health
With large parts of England now officially in drought and wildfire risks increasing dramatically, it's easy to see drought as an environmental issue alone. But its impacts reach much further.
In a new blog for Net Positive Centre, Tim Taylor (University of Exeter) explores why drought should be recognised as a growing public health challenge in the UK—not just an environmental one.
See you in September
The ACCESS newsletter now takes its summer break. I will be back in early September with more ACCESS news and ESS events, jobs, and opportunities.
If you have any ESS-related news you'd like us to feature in the September newsletter, please reply here or email me (Suzy) at: s.p.a.darke@exeter.ac.uk
Have a lovely summer!
Are you on the ACCESS Network database?
ACCESS aims to make social science expertise more accessible. We have created a publicly available, searchable database (The ACCESS Network) of social scientists and experts working in the fields of climate and environment.
Join the ACCESS Network to share your research and start making connections with other environmental social scientists.
