Projects supported
Projects we support cover a range of geographical topics, from volcano monitoring, to adaptations to climate change, to farmers' rights issues. Our grants programme has funded research undertaken in laboratories, archives and in the field in countries across all seven continents.
Grants awarded in 2025
The following projects have been selected for funding to date as part of this year’s grants programme. Grants are awarded subject to projects receiving approval of risk and ethics assessments.
Frederick Soddy Postgraduate Award
- Sara Granados (University College London ) The amphibious entanglement in the fluid geography of Mompox, Colombia
- Elspeth Mathau (University of Cambridge) Creating food in fragile Landscapes: impacts of environmental, social, and climate changes on emergent agriculture, indigenous harvest traditions, and forest conservation in subarctic Canada
- Sonam Rinzin (Newcastle University) Tales from the Mountains: Enhancing GLOF Risk Understanding Through Local Knowledge and Experience
- Mingcan Rong (University of Bristol) Ex-situ plantiness: a vegetal geography of Chinese plants in UK’s botanic gardens
Frederick Soddy Schools Award
- Lathom Junior School - Investigating a local place
- St Joseph's Catholic Primary School - Y5 Residential Trip to Leeson House, Dorset
- Kirkbie Kendal School - Y9 Energy fieldwork
- Camden School for Girls - Loch Ossian Adventure
- North Nibley Primary School - Enhancing Fieldwork Skills: The twelve wonders of Nibley/South Gloucestershire
- Beaumont Leys School - Snowdon Challenge
- Westlands School - Olympic Park Regeneration fieldwork for year 10 geography students
- Derby Cathedral School - A-Level Geography Fieldwork
Geographical Club Award
- Molly Urquhart (University College London) Volcanic Wisdom: Strengthening Global Resilience Through Enhanced Multi-Hazard Early Warning and Alert Level Systems
- Ali Mert Ipek (University of Manchester) The Highlands in Transition: Rural Restructuring, Livelihood Diversification, and the Commodification of Nature in Turkey's Eastern Black Sea Region
Geographical Fieldwork Grants
- Chloe Robinson, Anna Sawko (University of Sussex) and Paulina Koppel (University of Azuay) Collaborative Ethnobotany and Visual Anthropology in a Shuar community (Ecuador) Multidisciplinary Evidence in Defence of the Rights of Nature
- Henry Wilson, Joe Hopkinson, Alex Biddulph, Jack Clough (Newcastle University) Newcastle University Aoraki/Mount Cook 2025
- Philippine Coutau, Eva Livingstone, Jacob Cox, Monica Groth, Abigail Brown (University of Oxford) Seeds of the Tian Shan: Cycling a Century Since Vavilov
- Ben Geertsma-Dolton, Joseph Fawcett and Leon Comstive (University of Bristol) An investigation of the hydrological and biogeochemical composition of glacial meltwater from Russell and Leverett glaciers along a proglacial transect, Greenland
- Carmen Benbow, Rowan Dawson, Ruizhe Liu, Lydia Loughran (Newcastle University) Newcastle University Maranhão 2025
- Alistair Brendon, Edward Beswick, Jakob Timmerman (University of Oxford) Expedition Herzegovina
- Christian Ciattei and Tesa Blowey (Oxford Brookes University), Hélène Birot (Wildlife Conservation Society) Spatial and behavioural ecology of southern yellow-cheeked crested gibbons (Nomascus gabriellae) at a tourism site in Cambodia
- Mo Dallow-Arino, Saptarshi Ganguli, Cristina Hutchison, Darren McLaughlin, Ilona Cockburn, Rosie Keenan, Rohan Hart, Tia Robertson, Harris McCutcheon, Richard Alexander Levai (University of Glasgow Exploration) Ridge Reflections: Topography’s Influence on Main Ridge Forest Stand Structure and Diversity
- Cameron Powell, Molly Gath, Tobias Brake (Durham University) Quantifying the deglacial evolution of actively retreating glaciers on Mýrdalsjökull and Vatnajökull Ice Cap, south Iceland?
Henrietta Hutton Research Grant
- Julian Chhatralia (University College London) Investigating the Effects of Wildfires Regimes on Spatio-Temporal Movement Patterns and Habitat Utilisation in Wild Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) in a Fire-Prone Environment
- Sara Pastina (University of Oxford) Climate-Resilient Agroforestry in Quilombola Communities of the Brazilian Amazon
- Gabrielle Pengyu Shao (University College London) Assessing Ecosystem Restoration in a Chinese Wetland Reserve: A Study of Land Use Transformation from Waste Land to Wetland
Innovative Teaching Grant
- Smriti Safaya (University of York) Geo-environmental Citizen Science Toolkit: co-created and curriculum-aligned resources to use citizen science for geography fieldwork
Jasmin Leila Award
- Catherine Wilkinson (Liverpool John Moores University) Leaky Bodies, Locked Doors: Reimagining School Spaces and Storying Resistance with Children with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)
Monica Cole Research Grant
- Elena Buermann (University of Cambridge) Understanding Climate Variability in the Mountains: Tree-Ring. Reconstructions from the Pamir-Alay Mountains, Central Asia
- Bethan Evans (Aberystwyth University) Rapid quantification of surface meltwater discharge on Alpine glaciers using drone photography.
- Benjamin Johnson (University of Bristol) Glacier Algal Sampling Strategies (GLASS)
- Lani Lama Tamang (University of Hertfordshire) Assessment of Water Quality and Pollution Levels in the Khumbu Region: A Comparative Analysis of Riverine and Tributary Systems.
- Honor O’Riordan (University of Hertfordshire) Monitoring the potential impact of tourism on biodiversity on glaciers and in newly exposed proglacial ecosystems.
- Peter Santarius (University of Cambridge) Tree-Ring Analysis of ENSO-Driven Spring Precipitation Patterns in the Pamir-Alay Mountain system of Tajikistan
Neville Shulman Challenge Award
- Saxon Bosworth - The Life of a Tortoise on the Ustyurt Plateau
- Rebecca Conway - Pakistan : The Kalash
Peter Smith Award
- Carmen Benbow, Rowan Dawson, Ruizhe Liu, Lydia Loughran (Newcastle University) Newcastle University Maranhão 2025
Postgraduate Research Awards
- Fiona Brehony (The Open University) A Creative and Critical Intervention Exploring the Past, Present and Future of Rivers
- Teun De Jong (University of Bristol) Climatic zones shape social behaviour: a case study in Africa’s most common wasp
- Majdouline El hichou (University of Edinburgh) Ecologies of resistance: Indigenous women seeding and weaving sustainable futures
- Rebecca England (University of Manchester) The SpectroGas: field testing the next generation of gas sampling instrumentation
- Millicent Harding (Durham University) Sensing and assessing the Arctic tundra-Forest Ecotone at Relevant scales
- Mariana Hernández-Montilla (University of Manchester) Understanding Local Definitions of Success in Forest Landscape Restoration: A Case Study from Mexico's Indigenous Territories
- Ali Mert Ipek (University of Manchester) The Highlands in Transition: Rural Restructuring, Livelihood Diversification, and the Commodification of Nature in Turkey's Eastern Black Sea Region
- Charles Josefson (King’s College London) Towards the Neuroinclusive City: A Critical Examination of Neuro-Urban Geographies with Young Londoners
- Joe Langley (University of Cambridge) Forecasting human-elephant conflict risk in near real-time: Integrating local knowledge of dynamic land use by humans
- Eoghan McArdle (Ulster University) Biomass Accumulation and Biodiversity on Artificial Structures in Coastal Waters and the Contribution to Carbon Cycling
- Alice Phillips (Aberystwyth University) Ice patches as hotspots for Arctic zoonoses
- Kora Ross (University of Aberdeen) Unravelling Glacier and Climate History of the Californian Sierra Nevada during the Last Deglaciation
- Fernanda Sobreiro e Cruz (University College London) Women’s resistance: community-based planning and female leadership in favela territories in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Sijie Tan (King’s College London) Comparative Spatial Analysis on England and China’s Care Homes: Improving Care Home Quality Geographic Indices through Delphi Method in China
- David Kwok Kwan Tsoi (University of Oxford) Moral Economy of Transnational Housing Market: From Hong Kong to the UK
- Molly Urquhart (University College London) Volcanic Wisdom: Strengthening Global Resilience Through Enhanced Multi-Hazard Early Warning and Alert Level Systems
- César Vicencio Vega (University of Manchester) Geographies of Urban Discard: Territorial reorganisation and community transformation in Chuquicamata Mining Settlement, Chile
- Daniel Walsh (Northumbria University) (De-)Colonising the Cosmos: Exploring Power and Place-Making Amongst “NewSpace” Industries in Texas, USA
- Veronica White (University of Exeter) The Farming Futures Cycle Tour: Envisioning the future of farming in England
Ralph Brown Expedition Award
- Cordelia Freeman (University of Exeter) RíoTox: Navigating reproductive harm from herbicide leach in Chilean rivers
Ray Y Gildea Jr Award
- Catherine Waite (University of Northampton) Exploring the potential of mentor partnership programmes between university and A-Level Geography departments to support students undertaking NEAs
- Lisa Wedding (University of Oxford) Just Maps? Diversifying Spatial Conservation Planning
- Hong Yang (University of Reading) Enhancing Critical Thinking in Geography Education Amidst the Rise of Generative AI
Small Research Grants
- Edwin Baynes (Loughborough University) Geomorphic impacts of changing storminess in mountain rivers
- Jacob Fairless Nicholson (University College London) Anticolonial Agriculture: Investigating the role of Farm Schools in Food Sovereignty and Youth Empowerment during the Grenadian Revolution
- Linley Hastewell (University of Southampton) Quantifying boulder transport using RFID* technology: a long-term monitoring perspective.
- Will Haynes (University of East Anglia) Between décor and decorum: the urban governance of homelessness in Boston, USA.
- Liam Keenan (University of Nottingham) From financial crisis to FinTech cluster: exploring the rise of FinTech in Iceland
- Roseanna Mayfield (University of Nottingham) Assessing historical methane production from wetland systems in Northern Sweden
- Kieran O’Mahony (University of Gloucestershire) Nuclear natures and the emergent socioecologies of the ‘Difficult-to Return-Zone’ in Fukushima, Japan
- Catharine Pschenyckyj (Teesside University) On the margins: Investigating how shallow peatland management impacts on climate and biodiversity benefits.
- Emma Rawlings Smith (University of Southampton) Balancing tensions in educational policy reforms: perspectives on the success of the A level geography non-examined assessment in England
- Margherita Scazza (Bath Spa University) Learning with the territory: Indigenous autonomous education and post-extractive futures in the Ecuadorian Amazon
- Nathaniel Télémaque (King’s College London) Black Geographies of Kings Hill Dominica: Exploring Everyday Uses and Meanings of Green Spaces in The Eastern Caribbean
- Catherine Wilkinson (Liverpool John Moores University) Leaky Bodies, Locked Doors: Reimagining School Spaces and Storying Resistance with Children with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).
Thesiger-Oman International Fellowships
- Léonie Newhouse (Durham University) The Weight of Work: Portraits of Work in Kakuma and Kalobeyei
- Martin Stokes (University of Plymouth) Earthquake damage in dryland mountains: the hidden hazard of river terrace landforms
Walters Kundert Fellowship
- Matthew Baddock (Loughborough University) Seeing the unseen: detecting and quantifying Arctic dust sources in West Greenland
