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The Centres

• Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy (CEPMLP)
• Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science (under the auspices of UNESCO)

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Research

Interest in the three global challenges of energy security, water security and food security continues to rise despite (or indeed perhaps because of) the current set-back in economic growth.

As a consequence, demand for the expertise of the Graduate School is at record levels. Both the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy (CEPMLP), and the Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science (UNESCO Centre) are undergoing major growth in research funding.

LiveDiverse Project, South Africa

Research Funding - The Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science (UNESCO Centre)

In February 2009, the UNESCO Centre began work on a new multi partner and multi-disciplinary EU project (LIVEDIVERSE) looking at water resource management in the context of biodiversity challenges in Costa Rica, South Africa, Vietnam and India.

In April 2009, UNESCO Centre work started on the EU Seventh Framework Programme GENESIS - Groundwater and Dependent Ecosystems. The project will review and develop new scientific knowledge on groundwater and groundwater-dependent ecosystems and incorporate this knowledge into

• the Groundwater Directive and
• new tools for better integrating groundwater management with land-use, climate change and pollution control.

It will produce guidelines for the protection of ecosystems, indicators to test vulnerability, best management practices for pollution reduction, guidance for the design of monitoring networks and action criteria for trend reversal.

Research Funding - The Centre for Energy, Petroleum, Mineral Law and Policy (CEPMLP)

During the first eight months of 2009 CEPMLP won two research grants each worth more than £2 million:

• Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Department for International Development funding to identify ways to generate cost effective, secure and reliable local off-grid electricity supplies that will meet future needs and are socially acceptable, economically viable and environmentally desirable. A second aim being to work out how these solutions could be scaled up and replicated on a large enough scale in the developing world;
• The EU Seventh Framework Programme (POLINARES) aiming to identify the main global challenges relating to competition for access to oil, gas and minerals resources, and to propose new approaches to collaborative solutions for the various policy actors, including the EU.

PhD Programme

The Graduate School's PhD programme upholds the tradition of high quality academic research which is useful, relevant and informative. An interdisciplinary approach and strong research culture underpins this aspect of scholarly activity.

Over 50 research students are working on a diverse range of topics including legal and regulatory, sustainability, environmental, management, economic, and social responsibility issues. Students are encouraged to publish their work often in collaboration with academic staff.