Transformational research

Answering society's big questions

The University's transformation fund funds research projects that seek to address major global issues of our time. By pulling together academics working across disciplines to tackle important, social, economic and environmental challenges, these projects are making an impact on people's lives and helping to expand our base of world-leading research.

Read a summary of the projects below and follow the links for information on the progress that each of the projects has made so far, their successes and their ambitious plans for the future.

Culture, Society and Innovation Hub (CSI)

Conducting research for, through and about innovation in the cultural industries by focussing on four specific areas is the concern of the CSI hub.
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Impact and innovation in the Arts and Humanities

The Arts Research Impact and Innovation Centre will put research impact at the heart of everything it does. Five research fellows are being recruited to focus on a specific impact and innovation theme.
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Building sustainable societies

With an ageing and growing population, issues such as healthcare delivery, crime, work, and care for the elderly are becoming ever more important. Our social scientists from across the University are looking at these social challenges in order to shape the thinking of policy-makers at every level.
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Energy solutions

Our scientists plan to deliver the tools needed to enable, enhance and accelerate the move towards low carbon, secure, economically viable and socially equitable energy systems.
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Bringing people and technology together

The Socio-Technical Centre (STC) aims to put people at the heart of the design of buildings, services and computer systems. It is working on a range of projects with world-class partners such as Rolls-Royce, Arup and John Lewis. It has also been involved with helping the Cabinet Office's Emergency Planning College in their preparations for the 2012 Olympics and other large scale events.
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Feeding the planet

Increasing the harvest of nutritionally valuable crops and protecting the delicate environment in Africa is one of the challenges being addressed by Leeds plant experts and medical researchers.
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Getting new medical treatments to patients

Speeding up the process of taking medical research and turning it into new healthcare treatments is a priority for researchers in our biomedical and health research centre.
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Cutting the costs of drug production

Producing pharmaceuticals more efficiently, reliably and sustainably is the goal of our institute of process research and development.
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Water where we need it

Parts of the world suffer drought while elsewhere floods present a serious hazard to people. Helping us address these problems, and the impact of climate change on water supply, are over 50 experts at Leeds who are looking at how we capture, store, treat and recycle water.
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Find out more about our research on faculty websites and our news pages.