Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development.
The University of Lincoln has at its heart working in partnership, locally, and globally to deliver research, teaching, civic, and industry links that improve people’s lives and livelihoods, as recognised in our strategic plan.
We will drive, enhance, and harness global advances in technology and digitalization, applying them in selected industrial settings to improve the lives of individuals and communities. We will help to build an economically successful, socially coherent, highly skilled, and culturally vibrant city and region.
Our purpose is to transform lives and communities, attracting talent from around the globe to create, for Lincolnshire and communities across the world, a virtuous circle of opportunity, prosperity, and economic growth.
Strategic Plan 2022-27
As a University, we have built strong relationships with regional NGOs and government:
Professor Simon Pearson of the Lincoln Institute for Agri-food Technology was asked by the UK government's Department of Environment Food and Agriculture to develop policy around the future of Agricultural Technology, leading to a report which was published in 2022.
Professor Chris Thomas, Global Professor in Water and Planetary Health, is the Principal Investigator in the NERC-funded FLOODMAL project, an international collaboration deploying novel techniques to study malaria vector distribution on the Zambezi floodplain, a vast area with very high levels of malaria transmission in western Zambia.
The Lincoln Policy Hub showcases the many ways in which our work is developed with and brought to the attention of policymakers from inside and outside government enabling us to ensure it has impact. It features blogs, policy briefs, and policy guidance, connecting politicians, decision makers, and practitioners with our research to help to deliver evidence-based policies.
As part of the Lincoln Climate Commission, we work closely with NGOs and the City of Lincoln to develop new ways of mitigating and adapting to climate change. Our senior colleagues have also contributed to policy development in Lincolnshire through the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership. Our work with the Lincoln Climate Commission is also an example of cross-sectoral dialogue, involving a wide number of local NGOs as well as government. In October 2021 we led the organisation of a very successful cross-sectoral conference on Nature Recovery with our partners at Wilder Doddington, including charities and private sector enterprises.
In 2023, we welcomed academics, financiers, corporates, and policy makers to our first Nature-Based Solutions Using Carbon and Biodiversity Credit Funding Conference to identify opportunities for expanding high value nature-based investments. Carbon and Biodiversity Credits help organisations deliver nature-positive outcomes by offering financial incentives. This funds long-term conservation, rather than just offsetting negative impacts. During the conference, a range of expert guest speakers covered topics such as biodiversity net gain, nature-positive pledges, carbon trading schemes, and much more. Speakers included: Dr Éliane Ubalijoro, CEO, CIFOR-ICRAF, Nairobi; Dr Peter Brotherton, Director of Science and Climate Change, Natural England; Sarah Mukherjee MBE, CEO, IEMA; Maxim Vergechik, Senior Nature Economist, UNDP; Bill Gilbert, Head of Carbon Markets, NatWest;, Dr Tim Coles OBE, CEO, Replanet; and Dr Joseph Bull, Associate Professor for Climate Change, Oxford University.
The project, led by the University's Professor Ananda Breed, is a four-year international, multidisciplinary project which provides a comparative approach on the use of interdisciplinary arts-based practices for peacebuilding in Kyrgyzstan, Rwanda, Indonesia, and Nepal. It is a collaborative project between universities, cultural artists, civil society organisations, and young people across the world.
Some selected highlights of the Mobile Arts for Peace project and their contributions to the SDGs are outlined below:
We were funded via UKRI Newton Fund for Mobile Arts for Peace's project Map at Home, which looked at online psychosocial support through the arts in Rwanda. This aimed to connect mental health service users and mental health service providers using locally informed approaches to mental health and wellbeing. The initiative has scaled up to a national level in relation to informing the Mental Health in Schools programme and training in hospitals and health centres using arts-based approaches. We are also focusing on mental health and wellbeing within the larger MAP Network Plus project.
We have informed curricula through a MAP CPD programme in Rwanda, the development of child clubs in Kyrgyzstan, Rwanda, Indonesia, and Nepal, and the creation of local curriculum in Nepal and Indonesia. We are also working with UNESCO in relation to informing arts-education in Nepal, and have just launched a MAP UNESCO event that included ministers, IO, and NGO officials, alongside other stakeholders, including artists and youth researchers. There have been 'arts dialogue' forums that focus on communicating the needs/issues of children and young people to decision-makers. This includes local MAP researcher clubs that are established in schools/out of school settings and has involved a training of trainers for teachers/youth workers/young people (ex: 7 child clubs in Nepal, 18 youth researcher clubs in Kyrgyzstan, 45 clubs in Rwanda, and working with street connected youth via youth focused organisations in Indonesia).
We have created a youth advisory board consisting primarily of young women who have addressed issues of gender equality. Additionally, several of the 32 youth-led small grant projects that were funded by MAP focused on gender equality such as girls' access to education. One of our projects One Drum uses drumming for girls and women to drum their issues and to transform culture through festivals that involve decision-makers. Since drumming has traditionally been restricted to men, the fact that girls and women are using drumming as a form of expression is in itself a step towards gender equality as perceived within Rwandan culture.
We have focused on the use of local arts-based methods. Often, this includes working with marginalised communities to reduce inequalities and the arts-based outputs express issues/needs as identified by them to be communicated to decision-makers. We have also worked with children and young people to inform curriculum and policy.
We are working in partnership with UNESCO and have created a network across HEIs, CSOs, cultural organisations, and government bodies.
We have supported the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust in the Love Lincolnshire Plants project, which aimed to preserve Lincolnshire's botanica heritage and train future botanists, including our students who benefited from extra botanical training alongside talks and events on our campus. We also established a partnership with Doddington Hall, a local estate that has begun a 400 year rewilding project. Our students and scientists contributed baseline data for the biodiversity and ecosystem services of the estate and continue to contribute data as the estate re-wilds. The estate also provides ongoing opportunities for our students to learn about biodiversity and ecosystem restoration.
A key partnership, which includes our National Centre for Food Manufacturing, has secured part of the £220 million Growth Renewal Fund and will be used to position Grimsby as a global centre for seafood innovation and education. Grimsby and the surrounding area will benefit from almost £500,000 to develop programmes that will grow the local seafood industry with improved skills, technology and innovation. Seafood businesses also have the opportunity to receive a grant of £3,000 to £9,999 to support activities that improve productivity and efficiency. The programme will work alongside the UK Food Valley Pilot (Seafood).
We are a key partner of the South Lincolnshire Food Enterprise Zone, home to a variety of businesses offering purpose-built offices and research and development workshops, focusing on food supply chain optimisation, productivity, food sustainability, logistics, and packaging.
We declared a climate and environmental emergency in 2019 and became signatories of the SDG Accord in 2021. Since 2021, we have run an annual Climate Action Week, including the delivery of a wide range of lectures and workshops to which all students are invited, and we have worked with the Students’ Union to deliver a range of sustainability events. Carbon literacy workshops are offered as part of these events. Students can also attend our flagship public lecture series. The University of Lincoln Students’ Union has been offering an Eco-award since 2021, which requires students to undertake training, undertake relevant volunteering, and evidence key lifestyle changes.
We offer a wide and expanding range of courses focused on aspects of the Sustainable Development Goals. Examples of courses and subject areas where the SDG themes have been integrated include:
Many students have had specific elements within their programme focused on aspects of the SDGs. For example, students in Law can take an Environmental Law module, and Film students learn about Albert accreditation within their industry and can become Albert grads. Mathematics students have the option to work on a final-year project applying their knowledge and skills to an issue in sustainability, Pharmaceutical Science students take a module on Global Health Challenges, and Engineering students work on project challenges directly related to SDGs. All Life Sciences students have the option to take an overseas field course in which they can learn about the conflicts between development and biodiversity conservation.
We have been actively expanding our portfolio of sustainability-related programmes with recent additions, including MSc Sustainability, MSc Chemical Engineering with Sustainability, MSc Biodiversity, Conservation and Nature Recovery, MSc Environment and Planetary Health, MSc International Food Safety, Sustainability and Innovation, and a short course in Food Insights and Sustainability.
Our Climate Action Festival is open to the public and includes a wide range of local organisations who contribute to their organisation and delivery. Our Climate Change Lectures, first delivered in 2021, are available to the public online and continue to be accessed, with some of the lectures having hundreds of views.
The Lincoln Institute of Advanced Studies lectures have a broad audience including members of the public, alumni, and students. These often tackle sustainability issues, for example, Professor Louis Kotze on Earth System Law for the Anthropocene – November 2021and Professor Sundari Anitha on Women Striking Back: Struggles and Strategies Against Violence and Exploitation – May 2022. Highlights for 2022/23 included a December 2022 lecture by Professor Richard Barnes on international law and the ocean, directly addressing SDG 14 and 16 and professor Mark Gussy's lecture on rural dentistry given February 2023 directly addressing SDG 3. These free, in-person lectures are also a forum for discussion on the topic during pre- and post-lecture refreshments.
The Lincoln Institute of Agri-food Technology run a series of ‘Breakfast Briefings’ to which members of the farming community (and other members of the public) are invited – in addition to their relevance to SDG 2, they also encourage conversations about other aspects of sustainability in a farming context (examples include electrification of farm technology and nitrogen use efficiency). The Lincoln Institute of Agri-food Technology also hosted a Ted-X event on ‘The Way We Eat’.
