LJMU officially launches climate and sustainability institute

Liverpool John Moores University has officially launched its new research institute to address the key issues around climate and sustainability.

Academic and professional services staff from across LJMU attended an event to mark the beginning of the Liverpool Research Institute for Climate and Sustainability (LiRICS).

LiRICS brings together LJMU’s world-leading research around climate and sustainability and its development is one of the key objectives in LJMU’s Climate Action Plan, which sets out the university’s commitment to working towards a net carbon zero future.

Music, LiRICS and a wishing tree

The event was opened by LJMU Vice-Chancellor, Professor Mark Power, followed by a number of engaging presentations by the leads for each of the institute’s networks:

• Partnerships for incubating and accelerating transitions
• Inclusive transitions
• Greening economy
• Lifespan education
• Nature-based solutions

Teams from across the university hosted stalls showcasing their work and research outputs and how they can support the aims of LiRICS.

Local artist KingFast provided music, while attendees were invited to hang their hopes for the environment on a number of wishing trees which will be planted across the LJMU estate.

Here at LJMU we have got lots of really great expertise around climate and sustainability across all the different departments and faculties. LiRICS is about bringing all those different people together, working across different disciplines and then growing that ability that we have to be able to work with different partners to try and address all the issues that face us around the climate and the ecological emergency.

Head of LiRICS, Dr Colm Bowe

Fostering impactful interdisciplinary research

LiRICS has developed a five-year strategy with four objectives around sustainability and climate action research and knowledge exchange:

• To increase external income
• To increase the volume of internationally excellent and world-leading outputs
• To create educational opportunities for behaviour change
• To enable collaborative engagement and impact initiatives for internal and external stakeholders

Get involved with LiRICS

You can find out more about LiRICS and how to get involved on the institute’s webpages.