SGSAH British Council EARTH Scholarship Scheme 2025

Cluster 3: ‘Triple E’ – Economy, Ethics and Environment

HEIs: University of Glasgow, Glasgow Caledonian University, University of Stirling, University of Strathclyde, University of the West of Scotland

Academic Leads: Academic Leads: Dr Charles Pigott  (University of Strathclyde, Cluster Lead) and Deputy Lead Professor Mark Banks (University of Glasgow)

This cluster draws together a range of interdisciplinary arts and humanities expertise around three broad and inclusive themes; firstly, the cultural and creative economy and theories of its sustainable and socially-just future; secondly, issues of ethics, politics and political ecology as they play out in human and non-human contexts, and in different historical periods; and, thirdly, theories of environment, including creative approaches to researching species, energy, ecology and the geohumanities. The cluster will take an inclusive approach to these themes, and seek to deliver training through its range of key existing research projects and centres including (but not limited to) Centre for Cultural Policy Research, The Dear Green Bothy, Creative Geohumanities, A + E Collective (Glasgow), Centre for Environment Heritage and Policy (Stirling), British Animal Studies Network, One Ocean Hub (Strathclyde), Centre for Climate Justice (GCU), and the Protracted Crisis Research Centre  (UWS) as well as other relevant academic groupings and affiliates. The wide range of Scottish sector partners and potential sites for research placements might include BBC Scotland, The Hunterian Museum, Creative Scotland, Creative Carbon Scotland, Fife Contemporary, the Scottish Council on Global Affairs, and Zero Waste Scotland inter alia – plus our members have an extensive range of international and institutional networks on which to draw in order to support recruitment and training.  The cluster also commits to providing cross-cluster training where possible, and to hosting a cohort-wide networking or programme event hosted by The Dear Green Bothy at the new University of Glasgow Advanced Research Centre (ARC).

We welcome all applications in the broadest areas of the Environmental Arts and Humanities, and would be particularly interested in those that might contribute to ongoing work within our cluster. Members of the cluster are participants in the following research centres and creative practice groups and projects: 

Centre for Cultural Policy Research (Glasgow) 

Creative Geohumanities Cluster (Glasgow) 

The Dear Green Bothy Project (Glasgow) 

Centre for Environment, Heritage and Policy (Stirling) 

Scotland’s International Environment Centre (Stirling) 

British Animal Studies Network (Strathclyde) 

One Ocean Hub (Strathclyde) 

Centre for Climate Justice (GCU) 

Protracted Crisis Research Centre (UWS)  

Scottish Centre for Island Studies (UWS)  

A+E (art + ecology) Collective  

ASAD Arctic Sustainable Design Network 

Philosophers for Sustainability 

The Alasdair Gray Archive 

Our research areas include: 

• Creative Practice – writing; film making; music; sound art; creative-critical work;  

• Cultural Industries and Creative Economy  – cultural production and ecological crisis; ethical and sustainable economy; ecological issues in arts, music, theatre, and film-making;  

• History - of the marine world, the environment, animals; maritime histories; natural resource governance (especially marine-facing); from the early modern to the modern era;  

• Literature – including ecocriticism, ecopoetics; Black Studies; cross-cultural, cross-linguistics research; animal literary studies; indigenous languages and literatures; literature and the digital; 

• Media, Journalism and Communication – communications for social and behavioural change; science communication; environmental communication; media, ethics and environment  

• Philosophy - geophilosophy, philosophy for sustainability; ethics and environment  

• Politics - hydropolitics, food futures, political ecology; energy ethics; plastics and society; labour politics 

Cluster members have expertise in global issues, and in the Middle East and North Africa; Western and Southern Africa; Latin America; Europe; Scotland. 

In addition, group members work alongside colleagues in a range of other disciplines – including in the social, natural and environmental sciences – and are interested in exploring the role that interdisciplinary research might play in environmental arts and humanities.