Academic Research with Somerset Wildlife Trust
Why a Research Prospectus?
Our Research Prospectus is a strategic tool designed to inspire, coordinate, and amplify research that aligns with Somerset Wildlife Trust’s mission. It outlines key areas of interest, current gaps in knowledge, and opportunities for collaboration identified by our staff. Whether you're an early-career researcher, an experienced academic or a researcher working in an individual or corporate capacity, this guide helps you connect your expertise with meaningful, applied conservation work. It also helps the Trust to benchmark the work that it is doing and look for opportunities to make evidence-based advances in land management and advice.
Use the search tool below to explore the areas for research.
Collaborative opportunities
We are committed to working in partnership with organisations or individuals who have research capacity. This includes academic institutions and their students and research staff, but also research interested business from SMEs to large corporates as well as independent researchers and other specialists.
Our Prospectus identifies priority themes and ideas generated initially from within the Trust, where collaboration can lead to tangible impact for people and nature. We welcome submission of further ideas of research projects, student placements, and collaborative funding bids for co-design through an iterative process.
Somerset Wildlife Trust works closely with a network of environmental NGOs and private companies as well as local and national government bodies, and is part of the wider Wildlife Trusts movement, a federation of 46 independent trusts across the UK. This opens up opportunities for research with a broader geographic and policy reach.
Who Should Get Involved?
This prospectus is open to researchers at all stages — from undergraduate students to senior academics — as well as practitioners and commercial organisations working across a range of disciplines and sectors. This includes but is not limited to conservation, social sciences, humanities and heritage, economics, data science and technology. We are particularly keen to be innovative in our action and look forward to opportunities to trial new approaches If you have an idea or area of interest that aligns with our focus, we want to hear from you.
How We Support Research
Somerset Wildlife Trust offers access to ecological data, field sites, and staff expertise. We may also support ethics applications, student supervision, and dissemination of findings. We work with a strong network of communities within Somerset and so are well placed to provide platform opportunities for user engagement and feedback. While we cannot usually offer direct funding, we offer substantial in-kind value and are keen to be collaborative partners on funding applications and joint ventures.