RENEW is a five-year partnership programme (2022 – 2027), led by the University of Exeter and the National Trust and funded by NERC, to develop solutions to one of the major environmental challenges for humankind: the renewal of biodiversity.

Globally and in the UK, we are in an accelerating biodiversity crisis. The Renewing biodiversity through a people-in-nature approach (RENEW) programme envisions successful biodiversity renewal as driven by people. This commits us to understanding the different ways in which people can be in nature, and the opportunities – and challenges – this creates for renewal.

Work within this project within ECEHH is focused on individuals (Theme 1). We aim to explore and understand how individuals relate to and experience nature and biodiversity and how this may change with biodiversity renewal. We will do this through a range of methods including secondary data analysis of existing surveys, a bespoke longitudinal survey so that we can explore changes over time, and qualitative work to explore aspects in greater depth.

Other work in this project aims to understand nature experiences at the community level (Theme 2), recognising that many communities feel disconnected from biodiversity renewal activities and its benefits. Theme 3 focuses on land managers and will work to identify how to integrate practical opportunities and constraints into strategic planning initiatives and look at ways to incentivise delivery of biodiversity renewal at a landscape scale. In theme 4, RENEW will work towards embedding biodiversity renewal in finance and business activities, developing new tools and standards.

There are also three cross-cutting themes. Theme X1 is focused on environmental intelligence and integrating big data from multiple sources to support the work of the other themes. Theme X2) is a solutions generator to identify opportunities and address the challenges of biodiversity renewal in an agile way. And finally, Theme X3 will explore the collaboration and intra- and interdisciplinary working of RENEW to facilitate the spread of its benefits and good practice in research and delivery organisations involved in biodiversity renewal.

The programme aims to inform the pro-nature initiatives of key engaged partners to deliver evidence-based best practice that can be scaled at the global level.

The project leadership team includes:

• Professor Neil Gow, University of Exeter
• Professor Kevin Gaston, University of Exeter
• Professor Catriona Mckinnon, University of Exeter
• Professor Rosie Hails, The National Trust