Unit of Assessment 5
Biological Sciences

Our submission in Biological Sciences encompasses research in our Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Research Division. Working across disciplines we focus on understanding fundamental questions in biology and use experimental approaches to examine how the natural world functions, changes and adapts. We do this by studying organisms and their environments, examining large-scale phenomena and complex trophic interactions, and applying the outcomes of our research to real world problems, to influence the public, government and industry.

Our staff work on diverse topics from target species, to species interactions, to research at deep timescales. Our research is carried out in two broad interrelated groups:

• Ecology: strengths in molecular ecology, field ecology and modelling skills are employed to address applied challenges in areas such as climate change adaptation, urban ecology, macroecology, conservation biology and forensic sciences.
• Evolutionary biology: to understand and investigate evolutionary processes operating at many different spatial and temporal scales, study major evolutionary transitions that influence both historical and current biodiversity patterns and apply evolutionary methods to study systems of practical significance, for example, evolutionary models applied to human cancers and the evolution of human traditional knowledge, culture and language.

Staff and doctoral students

We submitted 19 staff (15.7 FTE) to REF2021, including 6 Professors, 5 Associate Professors, 5 Lecturers, 3 Research Fellows (with 4 Early Career Researchers). Over the assessment period, there were 86 doctoral completions. We have about 60 PhD students at any one time; in 2019/20 students came from 14 countries including the UK. 

We are involved in two doctoral training programmes:

• We are a major partner, along with Imperial College London, of the NERC Centre for Doctoral Training in Quantitative and Modelling Skills in Ecology and Evolution (QMEE).
• We are an integral part of the NERC-funded SCENARIO (Science of the Environment: Natural and Anthropogenic pRocesses, Impacts and Opportunities) Doctoral Training Partnership.

Sector recognition

Selected examples of national and international recognition between 2014 and 2020:

• Fellow of the Royal Society (Professor Mark Pagel)
• Fellow of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (Dr Andrew Meade)
• Defra Senior Fellowship (2018-21) secondment (Professor Tom Oliver)
• NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology Fellow (Dr Soon Gweon)
• Chelsea Flower Show Gold Award (PhD group led by Dr Alastair Culham)

Examples of the impact our research has had at local, national and global levels.