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York Environmental Sustainability Institute
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About us

Addressing the world’s most pressing environmental challenges—such as ensuring food security, tackling climate change, and protecting biodiversity—requires more than just innovation. It demands collaboration across disciplines, sectors, and perspectives. Through our research themes—Food, Water and Waste, Resilient Socio-ecological Systems, and Environment and Health—we are driving interdisciplinary solutions to these urgent global issues.

YESI plays a unique role at the University of York by bringing together researchers from across the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities to drive interdisciplinary solutions. We connect expertise, facilitate impactful partnerships, and create opportunities for research that informs policy and practice—ensuring York’s environmental sustainability research makes a real difference.

I'm delighted to be taking on this role and look forward to catalysing new and exciting interdisciplinary environmental sustainability research across campus, as well as collaborating with external partners in both the UK and overseas.

Professor Lindsay Stringer, YESI Director

Who We Are

The York Environmental Sustainability Institute (YESI) was established to drive truly interdisciplinary research in environmental sustainability—connecting world-class researchers across the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities to tackle global challenges.

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We generate the evidence needed for sustainable solutions, working across three key research themes:

Through partnerships that span disciplines and sectors, YESI ensures that York’s research has real impact—locally, nationally, and globally.

Our Objectives

YESI Icons: Collaborate, Support, Faciliate, Nurture & Enhance
  • Facilitate interdisciplinary research on environmental sustainability across the arts & humanities, sciences and social sciences;
  • Collaborate with stakeholders to co-develop research;
  • Support knowledge mobilisation and translation;
  • Nurture research leaders in environmental sustainability;
  • Enhance the profile, impact and influence of UoY environmental sustainability research.

We maintain an inclusive and compassionate approach to deliver interdisciplinary collaborations and research excellence.

University of York research

YESI supports the University's research strategy. We work closely with other University initiatives on environmental sustainability.