Human Geography and Environmental Sciences (Research)

This programme draws on the expertise of the Research Institute of Geography and the Lived Environment (RIGLE) at the University of Edinburgh.

It is a vibrant intellectual home for more than 100 researchers working across the physical sciences, social sciences and humanities.

Research areas

We work with a broad range of geographic themes and approaches and have particular research strengths in:

• critical and qualitative human geography

• quantitative and statistical geography and GIS

• geohumanities and environmental humanities

• cultural, development, environmental and urban studies

We study:

• critical and popular geopolitics

• the cultural politics of ‘race’, gender and sexuality

• energy futures and extractivism

• food security and sovereignty

• health inequalities

• hazards and disasters

• human-animal relationships

• media and mobilities

• political activism and protest

• sustainable development and environmental resource management

• urban change and gentrification

Collaboration

We work closely with communities and groups outside the academy in Scotland, Europe and beyond.

We exchange knowledge regularly through the four research groups that sit within the Institute (Health, Population and Place, Historical and Cultural Geography, Human Geography and Environment and Society) through regular seminars and other events, reading groups, writing retreats, and collaborative research programmes. We also work closely with colleagues in other schools in the University.

Decolonising initiatives

Our PhD feeds into the coordinated efforts throughout the university to ensure that our faculty and students reflect the talent and brilliance of all communities, and benefit from the presence, approaches and methodologies of racially and ethnically diverse thinkers.

We receive funding from all the UK Research Councils, including the AHRC, ESRC and NERC as well as from a number of other funders.