Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) Postgraduate Research
Research Coventry
discover more online www.coventry.ac.uk/research
Welcome to the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience Today, the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) is a thriving community of scholars and practitioners made up of 55 staff and 42 PhD students - roughly equal numbers of men and women from different parts of Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe. CAWR is an intellectually challenging and stimulating place. Our transdisciplinary research brings together a unique mix of natural and social sciences, and combines them with the local knowledge of farmers, water users, and other citizens. We use participatory research methods, which recognise the value of citizen knowledge and expertise. Our research not only lives up to traditional academic measures of excellence such as rigour, originality, and reliability; it also aims to solve real-world problems and have a positive impact on environment and society. Professor Michel Pimbert Executive Director and Theme Leader
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About CAWR The CAWR drives innovative research for the understanding and development of equitable and resilient food and water systems throughout the world. Food and water security is increasingly threatened by factors such as climate and environmental change, loss of biodiversity, conflict and market volatility. New knowledge, policies and technologies are needed to develop systems that are more resilient to change, and which ensure the health of our food and water supplies. Resilient systems are better able to bounce back from stresses caused by longer-term change or short-term events - be it natural processes, such as flooding, or human impacts, such as war or water pollution incidents. Through its focus on food and water, the centre’s research develops and integrates new knowledge in social, agroecological, hydrological and environmental processes, as well as the pivotal role that communities play in developing social and ecological resilience.
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Research themes Resilient food and water systems in practice This analytical lens focuses on developing new theoretical, conceptual, numerical and practical knowledge on the processes which confer either system resilience or instability. Individual and whole systems are developed as appropriate for stabilisation situations - that is, to enhance the ability of agriculture and water management to withstand and respond to natural and man-made disasters. This includes re-establishing agriculture and access to water after human-induced or natural disasters, sustainable management of abiotic stresses in agriculture, such as drought, salinity, contaminated land and climate change, and sustainable management of biotic stresses in agriculture, such as invasive plant species or insect plagues.
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Fundamental processes and resilience Resilience is the important ability of communities or physical, chemical or biological systems to ‘bounce back’ from, for example, some kind of disturbance, shock, dynamic natural process, and environmental disaster or disease outbreak. However, the fundamental processes which lead to system resilience or lack of resilience are not well understood. CAWR’s research therefore focuses on advancing knowledge on the underlying processes that promote resilience in food and water systems.
Community self-organisation for resilience This research focuses on the complex and contested ways in which communities self-organise to manage the food and water systems upon which they depend. From re-purposing and re-valuing forgotten resources and skills in an age of austerity, to adopting new technologies for new opportunities, or re-building livelihoods after disasters or conflicts, communities embrace multiple strategies and tactics in their pathways to resilience.
Policies and institutions for resilient food and water systems
People's knowledge and transdisciplinary working group
Our research critically explores the politically progressive thinking and action that is often needed to challenge and transform unsustainable structures and hold powerful actors and networks to account. For example, this research aims to better understand how, and under what conditions, can citizens be more centrally involved in policy-making and the governance of resilient food and water systems. This theme also seeks to analyse the power relations implicit in adaptive management, as well as the historical, cultural, and political-economic processes that drive human-environmental changes that ultimately impact on water and food security/food sovereignty.
Our vision is of a world where we can all be part of creating useful new knowledge, whatever our background, in order to create a more just and sustainable society. The people’s knowledge group seeks to build a global community of practice working of practitioners using the following research approaches: Participation: different groups working together in all stages of the research process. We work to ensure that all groups can have more equal power as they collaborate. Transdisciplinary insights: working with people from different traditions of knowledge systems and with diverse world views. This includes indigenous people, farmers, scientists and citizens. Transformation: our research focuses on action. We aim to change society and create a more just world.
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Research environment CAWR has been based at the Ryton Gardens site since September 2014. The beautiful gardens include impressive displays of shrubberies, herbaceous plants, native trees and wildflowers. The 10 acre outdoor space also hosts a range of facilities to drive organically-managed research, including glasshouses, poly-tunnels and cultivated land, mainly used for vegetable production. Research is conducted here to develop practical techniques to improve the sustainability of crop production, particularly with respect to soil fertility. The centre also houses a number of state-ofthe-art laboratories, including an environmental monitoring and field simulation laboratory, which calibrates, services and prepares online sampling systems before they are deployed in the field. Additional facilities include a video editing suite, postgraduate hot desks and a library. We also regularly host free seminars, workshops and lectures in our multi-use meeting space, which are livestreamed to our social media platforms.
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CAWR is proud to be home to a thriving postgraduate community who are an integral part of our research environment. Working collaboratively with their peers, staff and external experts and stakeholders, together we are driving outstanding, worldclass research that truly makes a difference to our understanding and development of global sustainable and resilient food and water systems. In the past six years, CAWR’s community of practice has grown in confidence and started to make a difference through its transformative ways of working and thinking. Now the largest centre for agroecology research in the world, CAWR and its partners are generating a rich harvest of hope for the future.
Postgraduate research: what we offer CAWR is a Doctoral Training Centre offering bespoke training, which takes advantage of the breadth of knowledge and varied research areas of our 50+ staff, associates and honorary research fellows, who are leading professionals and practitioners in the global arena. Training is delivered via tailored workshops and seminars on research methods, knowledge-building, and academic skills, run every year. The centre also has an annual week long summer school with activities which responds to the needs of each cohort, and are developed in consultation with them. It has a strong focus on writing, sessions on surviving the PhD, time management, and life and careers after successful PhD completion. Our on-site hot-desking arrangements, social spaces, and the dynamic collegiate atmosphere all work to facilitate easy access and interactions beyond each student’s supervisory team. Students are also able to tap into the strong links we have with other academic institutions and organisations where our academics are advisers.
CAWR’s PGR community of 50+ students are invited to participate in the centre’s research seminar series, theme meetings and staff meetings where they contribute to the collective decision making. Our students engage in a range of peer-led activities such as PhD days, writing days, and a number of social events supported by the centre. A committee of academics, administrators and PGR representatives ensure that students are supported both in their professional and personal development. We also have a flourishing MSc student community on our taught programme in Agroecology, Water and Food Sovereignty. Our PGRs engage with the MSc modules towards fulfilling their credit hours and are also provided opportunities to teach on the programme. Our alumni, who have gone on to work in industry, government agencies, NGOs and the charity sector, are often invited to come and speak at our seminars or run workshops at our summer school.
I'm loving doing my PhD at CAWR, it is welcoming, friendly and there's a really supportive environment. My supervisory team are always willing to share their knowledge, and there are also lots of opportunities to attend seminars on topics related to my research, while the workshops provided by the Doctoral College build on the soft-skills needed to become a well-rounded researcher. Ffion Thomas PhD student
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Find us on social media: @CoventryCAWR /CovUniCAWR
PGR enquiries E: study.cawr@coventry.ac.uk Find us Ryton Organic Gardens, Coventry, CV8 3LG www.coventry.ac.uk/cawr
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