29 June 2011

X-CECHR Postgraduate Symposium - Securing the Future

Postgraduate students from the Centre for Environmental Change and Human Resilience (CECHR) will tomorrow lead a research symposium examining a wide variety of topics relating to social and environmental security and justice.

CECHR is a joint initiative between the University of Dundee and James Hutton Institute established in 2008 to provide a focus for novel interdisciplinary research addressing societal responses to environmental change and promoting sustainability.

Central to the CECHR mission has been the establishment of a Graduate School, entitled the X-CECHR, which acknowledges the value of students at the heart of any new research network.

Eight of the current cohort of ten graduate students will outline their research at the X-CECHR Postgraduate Symposium, which will be held over two sessions at the River Rooms, University of Dundee Tower Building on Thursday, 30th June. CECHR Director Dr John Rowan and Professor Pete Downes, Principal of the University, will welcome students, academics and other delegates to the event at 9.15am.

Dr Rowan said the Symposium would be an exciting exploration of the research being carried out by postgraduate students at the University and James Hutton Institute.

'From an academic perspective, this is an opportunity to learn about the considerable breadth and scope of the projects being carried out across CECHR,' he said.

'CECHR is an exciting initiative bringing together leading-edge research from the University and JHI and providing interdisciplinary opportunities for talented young researchers who will become the academics and practitioners of the future.'

Session 1 will focus on energy, water and food security and justice and topics such as the challenges of meeting EU renewable energy targets, adapting to climate change, and food security issues the UK will face in future.

The second session looks at how we can build environmental and social resilience. The subjects being explored range from ways of combatting soil erosion to the implications for human health of global environmental changes.

More information about the students who will be presenting at the X-CECHR event, and their research, is available at www.dundee.ac.uk/centres/cechr/postgrad.htm.

For media enquiries contact:
Grant Hill
Press Officer
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384768
E-MAIL: g.hill@dundee.ac.uk
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